Dr. Natalie Holdren is the Education Specialist Credential Coordinator at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara where she oversees the Extensive Support Needs credential program, teaches graduate courses in special education, and supervises teacher candidates in their K-22 school placements. Dr. Holdren has worked in the disability community for over 25 years and has experience supporting those with disabilities and their families across the lifespan in social, educational (K-Postsecondary), residential, and vocational settings. This broad range of experience gives her a lens for what equitable, inclusive, and meaningful life outcomes can look like for individuals with disabilities and their loved ones and informs her work with her graduate students, her publications and conference presentations, and her engagement with the field at large.
Dr. Holdren is a member of the national TASH board of directors, an organization dedicated to promoting the inclusion of individuals with disabilities in all aspects of life through policy, advocacy, and the dissemination of research. She is also a board member and Past-President of the California TASH chapter. In addition, she serves as a consultant on projects relating to special education, professional development, inclusion, post-secondary support, neurodiversity, and family-professional partnership. Her most recent project is a collaboration between the California Department of Education and the Department of Developmental Services designed to reform California systems for personnel development in early intervention, early education, and transition services. Dr. Holdren will be participating in this initiative by leading statewide professional learning communities on family-professional partnership.
Dr. Holdren has served as a mentor for Georgetown University's Leadership Academy for Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Networks Supporting Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Her orientation towards issues of equity has become the basis for her work on training pre-service educators on culturally responsive family-professional partnership and has informed her publications focused on elevating marginalized voices in special education. She recently completed work on the 8th edition of “Families and Professionals: Trusting Partnerships in General and Special Education.”