NANCY COWARDIN received her Ph.D. degree in Educational Psychology from U.C.L.A. and served for nine years as Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology/Special Education at Whittier College and California State Polytechnic University. Her research on moral development of youth has led to extensive work with delinquents and victims of child sexual abuse. Over the past decade, she has supervised outreach services in the Los Angeles area for a broad range of disabled children and adults, from those enrolled in Head Start programs to those incarcerated for serious crimes.

    Dr. COWARDIN has directed grant programs from the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Office of Criminal Justice Planning, and the Los Angeles County Crime Subvention Program. She has provided assessment and expert witness testimony in over 400 criminal cases, and serves as the plaintiffs' principle expert in the class action Armstrong and Clark v. Davis lawsuits which seek disability accommodations for inmates in California prisons. She was honored as "1999 Educator of the Year" by the California Learning Disability Association for training more than 3,500 professionals in identifying and accommodating disabilities in victims, witnesses and criminal defendants.