Dr. Carly Christensen (she/her) is a Disabled educator and scholar in Critical Disability Studies (CDS) scholar in education committed to rejecting traditional special education frameworks in favor of inclusive education that recognizes disability as a valued identity. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches in the Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS) department, working to shift the field away from deficit-based approaches toward anti-ableist pedagogy.

A graduate of the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education with a focus on perspectives in inclusive education, Carly has worked as a teacher in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. She has taught in urban and rural schools, special education settings, an inner-city all-girls secondary school, an Indigenous adult education program, and First Nations self-governing schools. These diverse experiences have given her firsthand insight into how exclusion and inclusion are perpetuated within educational systems.

Carly is also the co-lead of the Inclusive Education Research Stream at the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship (CIIC), where she works to mobilize disability justice frameworks in inclusive education research, practice, and policy. Her vision is to mobilize disability justice and anti-ableism to empower Disabled students and transform teaching practices. Carly also emphasizes that creating inclusive schools involves acknowledging disability history, dismantling its lingering effects, and ensuring schools become spaces of belonging and healing for Disabled learners.

Carly considers her most meaningful achievement to be parenthood—a journey that holds particular significance as a Disabled mom. When she’s not teaching, she loves listening to podcasts and audiobooks, cooking, and family dance parties.