Caitlin Cooper

Caitlin Cooper is a full-time PhD student in Special Education and a recipient of the Glenn Fellowship at Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. She researches how legal, social, and educational pressures affect meaningful participation in sex education among students with disabilities.

Caitlin was raised in Manhattan, where she was lucky to receive an excellent education. She attended public elementary and middle schools and a private, single-sex high school, all in New York City. She received her bachelor’s degree from UCLA, where she majored in Communication Studies and English and minored in French.

Caitlin began her career as a special education as a Teach for America Corps Member. From 2015 to 2017, Caitlin was a special education teacher at Chelsea High School, where she cotaught inclusion English classes. Caitlin also earned her master’s degree in Special Education Curriculum and Teaching from Boston University during this time. In fall 2017, Caitlin led a substantially separate middle school classroom and provided push-in supports for elementary schoolers at a charter school in East Boston. In January 2018, she transitioned to leading a substantially separate kindergarten classroom at a public school in Somerville. During her three years as a special educator, Caitlin worked with students in all grades K-12.

Caitlin loved working with students. Like many teachers, however, she was frustrated by the constant pressures and arbitrary benchmarks imposed by federal, state, and local education agencies. She saw how educational requirements, especially around high-stakes standardized test performance, stifled creativity and learning, demoralized students and educators, and inhibited students’ social and emotional development. After three years teaching in public schools, Caitlin was burnt out, disillusioned with the public education system, and determined to address laws and norms harming students, educators, and communities.

Childhood and adolescence involve rapid and dramatic physical and psychological development. When young people do not have information about their bodies and relationships, they struggle to make healthy choices. At every age and grade level, Caitlin worked with students with and without disabilities who struggled to understand their bodies, emotions, and relationships. She has carried this experience into her PhD research.

Caitlin’s research is highly interdisciplinary: During her first two years as a PhD student, Caitlin took classes in the School of Public Health, the School of Social Work, and the Law School. As Caitlin began to look broadly at barriers to sex education access, she repeatedly saw that much of the social discussions of sex reflect a general fear of the consequences of sexual activity, and that many of these ideas are reflected in the law. Despite the electives she took at BU Law, Caitlin felt that she needed a deeper understanding of the law to read, understand, and write about legal doctrine.

Caitlin was permitted to take a leave of absence during the 2020-2021 school year to complete her first year of law school at UC Hastings. She worked on law school coursework and PhD research concurrently during the 2021-2022 school year. During 2L, Caitlin worked as a staff editor on the Hastings Journal on Gender and the Law and served as President of the UC Hastings chapter of If/When/How Lawyering for Reproductive Justice.

By the end of her 2L year, Caitlin was able to fluently read and critique legal doctrine. Caitlin decided to leave law school so she could direct her full attention to her PhD work. She continues to incorporate legal and policy analyses into her work.

Advisor: Elizabeth Bettini & Jennifer Greif Green

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Recent News