Personnel

• Robert Stodden, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Dr. Stodden is Director of CDS and the senior tenured faculty member in the Exceptionalities doctoral program—he is also a parent of a child with a disability. Over the past 25 years, he has served as principal investigator and director of more than 50 personnel preparation, research and demonstration projects in areas such as provision and improvement of services to CLD children with disabilities, secondary educational and transition outcomes of students with disabilities, school-to-work transition, special education, postsecondary education, supported employment, children’s mental health. Dr. Stodden has more than 35 years experience as a researcher, teacher trainer, and teacher of secondary students with special needs. He served as Senior Kennedy Policy Fellow in the US Senate in 1995-96, drafting and negotiating much of the policy language found in the reauthorized IDEA of 1997. Dr. Stodden has spent the past 25 years performing research in multicultural settings and has been a member of the Graduate doctoral faculty in special education for the past 26 years.
• Jim Skouge, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator, employs multimedia technologies to support persons with disabilities and their families to share their stories. In turn, these “digital storie” can be employed to promote self-determination. He has traveled and worked in American Samoa, Micronesia and Hawaii’s neighbor islands, supporting indigenous peoples of the Pacific to employ technologies to share and document traditional knowledge and village wisdom.
• Steven E. Brown, Ph.D., Project Director for AIA-HI. Dr. Brown, a person with a disability, works on several CDS projects and teaches graduate courses in disability and diversity. In 2000, he delivered a keynote speech, “Disability Culture: What Is It?” to the “Access: Opening the Doors to Service,” United Cerebral Palsy/Access AmeriCorps and CNCS Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has extensive community experience, including directing two independent living centers, serving on numerous nonprofit Boards of Directors, and working with members of the Self-Advocate Advisory Council (SAAC). He brings organizational, advocacy, and networking expertise to AIA-HI. In 2006, he received the COE Faculty Senate Lifetime Achievement Award and the Association of University Centers on Excellence in Disability (AUCD) Leadership in Advocacy Award.
• Madeline Harcourt, M.A., Assistant Specialist, is a faculty member at the Center on Disability Studies (CDS), College of Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She is also the Assistant Specialist for the Alliance for Inclusion Advancement-Hawaii project. She is the creator and chair of the Committee on Hidden Disabilities and is the creator and faculty advisor for the Hidden Disabilities Support Group.
  Ms. Harcourt is a person with multiple hidden disabilities. She has vast experience in volunteerism and national service. She received a 2002 national service inclusion project sub-grant where she developed Ready, Set, Go!, a project for people with disabilities interested in entering national service. She is an AmeriCorps*VISTA alumna (1994-1997) where she worked with homeless families at transitional shelters in Hawaii. She also served as an AmeriCorps supervisor at a local YWCA (1998-2000). She received the 2007 CDS Outstanding Faculty Contribution to Persons with Disabilities award and was a College of Education Leadership nominee for demonstrating exceptional leadership in scholarship, teaching and/or service for the 2006-2007 academic year.
• Flora Yee, B.A. is an administrative assistant for the AIA-HI and the APPLAUD projects. She is responsible for the LINC listserv on all three Islands, purchases, climate assessment reports, and other office duties. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.

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