Vice Chair of the Board
Kelly Searsmith, Ph.D. (English), Ed.M. (EPOL) is an autism (self) advocate and doctoral student at the University of Illinois in the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership, with a research focus on the inclusion and success of students in higher education who are autistic and neurodiverse and who have mental health concerns and disabilities. Recently, Kelly served as a founding member of the College Autism Network’s Autism-Inclusive Campus Designation committee. She has mentored several neurodivergent college students to success, and regularly speaks about disability inclusion and success on the University of Illinois campus. Kelly has given invited talks on autism and neurodiversity at the regional, state, and national levels for the Speech, Language, Hearing professional community. She has published on autism with ASHA as well as at The Mighty (republished by OAR). By day, she works full-time as a sponsored research administrator in a leading department of physics.