Cheryl Kamei Hannan

Cheryl Kamei-Hannan, Ph.D. is a Professor and researcher at California State University, Los Angeles. A leading expert in the field of visual impairment and blindness, her research agenda focuses on language, literacy, and access technology. She is co-author of Reading Connections: Strategies for Teaching Students with Visual Impairments, and co-editor of the textbook series, Foundations of Education (3rd Ed.). As primary investigator on several grant funded projects, she has led the development of interactive apps to support braille literacy including the iBraille Challenge (iBC) and Reading and Writing Adventure Time Mobile Apps, funded through the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), Stepping Up Technologies; Braille Brain, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), and PolyPad, a joint project with the University of California, Los Angeles, funded by the National Institute of Health. Her most recent intervention study integrated a multi-sensory storytelling approach with storytelling to enhance language and literacy skills of young children with visual impairments (Kamei-Hannan, Chang, and Fryling, 2020). Dr. Kamei-Hannan earned her Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) at the University of Arizona with a specialization in Visual Impairment and a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in Special Education, along with credentials in Visual Impairment and Blindness and Orientation and Mobility from San Francisco State University. She has worked in the field of visual impairment and blindness for over twenty years as personnel preparation coordinator, researcher, reading specialist, middle school language arts classroom teacher, itinerant teacher, and a resource room teacher of students who are visually impaired.