Heather Walter is an Assistant Professor of Special Education at George Mason University and a Senior Scholar at the university’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. Heather holds a doctorate in Special Education and Disability Studies and an Education Leadership/Administration degree as an Office of Special Education Programs Fellow (OSEP) in which she focuses on teacher and leader mental health coaching. Walter brings expansive interdisciplinary knowledge to her work, drawing from diverse educational and community settings to support individuals and teams in achieving their full potential. She specializes in change management and systems-level transformation, bridging her expertise in education with corporate and organizational contexts. Her work focuses on teaching and coaching strategies, recruiting and retaining top talent, and fostering organizational wellbeing as a foundation for meaningful, lasting change. She thrives in collaborating across fields, disciplines, and research, integrating robust research, data collection, and analysis with leadership and wellbeing practices to co-create evidence-based recommendations and empower organizations to confidently chart their path to success. Her approach leads to increased trust, better job alignment, and sustainable, real-time outcomes that drive impact across every level of a system. Her work has been published in a variety of scholarly and practitioner journals, and has been recognized through prestigious awards for her teaching through Exchange Leaders, and contributions to mixed methods research through the American Educational Association (AERA) Mixed Methods SIG, and policy in educator wellbeing. Her service supports the alignment between research, practice, and cross-disciplinary needs. to support complex problem-solving at the local, regional, university, and national levels.
