Deborah L. Voltz is the director of the Center for Urban Education and associate professor in the department of Leadership, Special Education, and Foundations at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She began her career as a special education teacher in the Birmingham, Alabama, City Schools, where she worked in inclusive educational programs. Voltz also taught at the university level in teacher preparation programs at several universities including Alabama State University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the University of Louisville, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has taught internationally at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and at the College of New Jersey's Johannesburg program in South Africa. Throughout the 25 years of her professional career, Voltz has had a passion for the education of diverse learners in inclusive settings. Through professional development programs such as Project SMILE—the Standards Movement and the Inclusion of Learners with Exceptionalities and Project CRISP—Culturally Responsive Instruction for Special Populations, Voltz has trained hundreds of pre-service and in-service teachers for instruction in diverse, inclusive environments. She also has published dozens of articles and book chapters devoted to this topic. You can contact her by phone at (205) 934-8320 or by e-mail at
voltz@uab.edu.