Kruger National Park, South Africa, 2002. This is Savannah, the wild Cheetah.

Hello Friends,

I am a behavioral specialist and educator completing an MA in Behavior Analysis at The University of Iowa on an OSEP fellowship. My background includes over two decades of global consulting and teaching across seven countries, as well as extensive domestic work helping families secure critical educational support and infrastructure for disabled students.

With a career spanning the lifespan of early to adult education, including decorated pedagogical work with the U.S. State Department and NYC Teaching Fellows, I focus on making environments more accessible. I am developing Educational Design Therapy.

I am on the Executive Board of Wright House of Fashion and The Human Library Project, a Greater Sum Incubator finalist, a former Walt Disney World performer, and when I was eighteen I edited a few major publications in Central Florida. I have run ground-breaking (pun intended) Habitat for Humanity builds, international disability justice conferences, and published my own work in The Massachusetts Review, Tilted House, Cleaver, Litro, &&& Journal, Saw Palm, and South 85 Journal, among others. My written work has been praised by Brian Doyle, Edward Hirsch, Noam Chomsky, Donna Kaz, and Emma Bolden, among others.

My visual artwork has been shown and collected at the museum level. I used to swim with the Naval Academy recruits who went on to be SEALS. I am raising a service dog and two wild kittens.

Education:

  • MA Behavior Analysis, University of Iowa, Project ICORE OSEP Fellowship—Iowa City, IA

    • MPS UX Design, Maryland Institute College of Art—Baltimore, MD

    • MFA Creative Writing, Warren Wilson College—Asheville, NC

    • MSED/MA Special Education and TESOL, NYC Teaching Fellowships and MIIS—New York, NY

    • Graduate Certificate Transdisciplinary Studies, The New Centre for Research and Practice—Berlin, Germany

    • BA English, Brigham Young University—Provo, UT

Languages: Thai, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Residencies: Artesumepaz, Spitsbergen, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, OMEGA Institute, Writing by Writers, SomoS Berlin, School of the Art Institute of Chicago summer MFA residency, and SINS INVALID, among others.

Iowa City, IA, United States of America, 2026. This is August the very chill service pup.

Shelli Hoppe translates between worlds; she’s been translating her whole life.