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The role of the research team is to support and plan research to evaluate and develop Aspect’s services, and to facilitate research conducted by external researchers. Staff include Dr. Trevor Clark, Dr. Debra Costley and Dr. Elaine Keane.
Trevor Clark, Ph.D. – Executive Director, Education & Research
Trevor is responsible for strategic leadership of the Aspect research and development program. Trevor also has executive responsibility for Aspect’s Educational Outreach program and six schools’ including 73 satellite classes.
Trevor is a special educator with a comprehensive experience and knowledge of educational programs and service provision for students with autism spectrum disorders as a result of over 25 years in the field in New Zealand, England and Australia. His experience at Aspect comprises that of teacher, school principal and Director of Education & Research. He completed his doctorate in 2001 at University of New South Wales, which involved a curriculum designed to make functional use of savant and splinter skills in children with autism.
Debra Costley, Ph.D. – Director, Education Development & Research
Debra has responsibility for research and development of models of best practice for the teaching of young people and adults with an autism spectrum disorder in Aspect. She also chairs Aspect’s Research Approvals Committee.
Debra is a special educator with over twenty years of experience in special education teaching and research. Debra has worked in special schools, further and higher education in the UK, USA, and in Australia. Before joining Aspect she was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Sydney, and a Principal Research Fellow at the University of Warwick in the UK. Her Ph.D. was a policy analysis and evaluation of the introduction of a national curriculum in England and Wales and the impact of that intervention on children with learning difficulties.
Susanna Baldwin - Research Officer
Susanna supports the Director, Education Development & Research to implement Aspect’s research and development programme. She is involved in conducting research, sits on Aspect’s Research Approvals Committee, and provides information and support to Aspect staff wishing to carry out research, evaluation and continuous improvement projects.
Susanna has worked as an applied researcher since 2006, holding posts at the Institute for Employment Studies in Brighton, UK and at the Workplace Research Centre at the University of Sydney. She is experienced in a range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, with particular specialisation in systematic and quasi-systematic literature reviewing, qualitative interviewing and surveys. Susanna has been a registered volunteer with the UK National Autistic Society since 2004, informally supporting a range of children, young people and adults with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, and has received extensive training in the understanding and management of autism spectrum disorders.
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