Margo Izzo, PhD

Nisonger Center, The Ohio State University
Phone: 614-292-9218

Dr. Margo Izzo is Program Manager for the Special Education and Transition area at the Nisonger Center, a University Center Of Excellence In Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) at Ohio State University. With over 26 years experience in the special education field, Dr. Izzo has extensive experience with grant management, program evaluation, and political advocacy. She has also developed educational curricula for students with disabilities and their parents, conducted numerous trainings, focus groups, and interviews with teachers and students, managed the development of videocassettes, websites, and other dissemination products including a national teleconference, and has published several articles, papers, and information briefs on disability and transition issues. Currently, Dr. Izzo is the Principal Investigator of two federally funded education projects, Steppingstones of Technology Innovation, Phase 1 and The Faculty and Administrator Modules in Higher Education (FAME) grant. The two-year Phase 1 Steppingstones focuses on improving career planning, grant information literacy, and reading achievement for high school students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms through technology-based instruction. The three-year FAME grant concentrates on improving the teaching-learning process for postsecondary students with disabilities through the development of a web-based training curriculum. Prior to her current position at OSU, Dr. Izzo was the Project Coordinator of Ohio's Transition Systems Change Grant, a five-year federally funded project located at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE). This project was designed to improve transition services by facilitating systemic change within eight agencies at both the state and local level. Dr. Izzo completed her Ph.D. in Special Education, Rehabilitation and Research at OSU in 1998, and received her MA from George Washington University in Washington D.C. She is a recipient of a Mary E. Switzer Fellowship from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) and is also a Past President of the Division of Career Development and Transition (DCDT) within the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC).