Michael Wehmeyer

Michael Wehmeyer, PhD, is the Ross and Marianna Beach distinguished professor and chairperson, Department of Special Education, at the University of Kansas. His scholarly work has focused on understanding and promoting self-deterination and self-determined learning, creating and evaluating autonomy supportive interventions, and the application of positive psychology to the disability context. He has published extensively in these areas and is an author or editor of more than 40 books and more than 400 scholarly articles and book chapters. Wehmeyer is a member of the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars and an honorary alumni inductee of the Phi Beta Kappa Arts and Sciences Honor Society. He has held numerous leadership and editorial positions in the field and has been recognized for his research and service with awards from numerous associations and organizations, including the American Psychological Association Distinguished Contributions to the Advancement of Disability Issues in Psychology Award. Wehmeyer holds graduate degrees in special education and experimental psychology from the University of Tulsa and the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, respectively, and earned his PhD in Human Development and Communication Sciences from the University of Texas at Dallas, where he received a 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award.