Amanda Christy
Amanda Christy, Ph.D. serves as the Director for The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation. An associate professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at LMU, Professor Christy earned her Ph.D. in gender studies from UCLA. Her scholarship and teaching span disability studies, gender and sexuality, body theory, memoir, and autism. Her book, “The Disabled Child” (University of Michigan Press), examines memoirs about raising children with disabilities and explores how gender, class, and race shape experiences and representations of disability.
Professor Christy brings to this role an established record of leadership with The Coelho Center. As the Center for Faculty Development Faculty Fellow with The Coelho Center in 2024 and 2025, she led workshops and discussions on access pedagogy, universal design, and trauma-informed pedagogy, strengthening access literacy and disability visibility across LMU. She also helped launch LMU’s annual Disability Studies Conference, which brought together 250 participants in its inaugural year and, in 2026, became an entirely student-run conference, in partnership with the Habitable Worlds project and Professor Mairead Sullivan. Her work with the center has also included developing curriculum for LMU Extension’s Department of Rehabilitation Workforce Development certificate program and supporting the center’s research, advocacy, and day-to-day operations.
As director, Professor Christy will lead The Coelho Center into an ambitious next chapter, building on its strong foundation in disability law, policy, advocacy, and student leadership while expanding its focus on disability, care, and dignity. Her vision is for the center to become a national hub for research, policy, student leadership, and public scholarship addressing some of the most consequential issues facing disabled people and their families — from caregiving, housing, employment, and healthcare to resources for people with complex and high-support needs. With Los Angeles and California serving as communities of responsibility and laboratories for learning, the center will bring together researchers, policymakers, disabled people, families, care workers, service providers, students, and community organizations to develop knowledge and solutions with national relevance. I am delighted to welcome Professor Christy to this new role and look forward to the leadership she will bring to The Coelho Center and LMU.