Bio
Dr. Sharon Richter is an Associate Professor of Special Education in the Watson College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
Dr. Richter is a former classroom teacher of high school students with significant intellectual and multiple disabilities. In North Carolina, she was a Special Education: Adapted Curriculum teacher in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. In this role, she designed and delivered individualized instruction to improve academic, functional, and communication skills among students alongside multiple classroom paraprofessionals. Additionally, she collaborated with related service providers and learned from and supported families of learners with significant intellectual and multiple disabilities.
She completed an undergraduate degree in Special Education at Georgian Court University, and a Master of Education in Special Education including a Graduate Certificate in Secondary Transition at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She earned a PhD. in Special Education with an emphasis on learners with significant intellectual and multiple disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she was an OSEP Special Education Leadership Scholar.
At UNCW, Dr. Richter teaches in the Special Education: Adapted Curriculum major, including courses related to systematic instruction, instructional content for learners with significant intellectual and multiple disabilities, and communication interventions for learners with complex communication needs. Additionally, two of her courses are delivered in two public school settings in New Hanover County Schools. In these courses, UNCW Special Education: Adapted Curriculum majors design and deliver instruction to teach valuable skills to learners with intellectual disabilities. Dr. Richter supervises Student Teaching Interns and serves as a Co-Coordinator of the Special Education program.
As a researcher, Dr. Richter aims to improve socially important outcomes among learners with intellectual disabilities. She has conducted research to investigate interventions that improve community inclusion and navigation among young adults with intellectual disabilities. With colleagues at Appalachian State University, Dr. Richter established the Scholars with Diverse Abilities Program, through which young adults with intellectual disabilities participate in an inclusive college experience attending classes, living on campus, and engaging in rich extra-curricular experiences. At UNCW, her research has been invested in improving skills that have life-long benefits to learners with intellectual disabilities. Recently, Dr. Richter, along with UNCW faculty colleagues Drs. Moody and Stocker, have been invited to serve as researchers in the Special Education Research Accelerator project, which aims to investigate crowd-sourcing as a strategy to more efficiently identify evidence-based practices.