معرفی
Dr. Ana Garcia Melgar is a Lecturer in Disabilities and Inclusive Education at the School of Education, La Trobe University, Australia. She also holds a Research Fellow position at the Living with Disability Research Centre at the same institution, demonstrating her dual commitment to teaching and research in inclusive education and disability support.
Her educational background includes a PhD and a Master of Education from La Trobe University, and a Bachelor of Psychology from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. She is fluent in Spanish and English, enabling broad academic collaboration.
Ana's research is centered on inclusive education, with a strong focus on reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities, peer mentoring, and access to mainstream services. She has developed a peer-assisted learning framework grounded in cognitive and social learning theories, which has been applied in programs like the Peer Learning Advisers (PLA) at La Trobe and In2Science mentoring. Her work emphasizes practical interventions to improve teacher capacity and educational equity.
Her recent research outputs reveal a consistent trend in evaluating inclusive practices through mixed-methods and experimental designs. She has contributed significantly to the development and validation of the Reasonable Adjustments for Inclusive Education (RAIE) rating scale and has explored online training interventions for educators. Her publications span topics including co-teaching, AAC research in schools, collaborative team approaches, and peer mentoring across school and university contexts.
- Reliability Testing of the Reasonable Adjustments for Inclusive Education Rating Scale (2024)
- Toward the Improvement of Inclusive Education via Online Intervention (2023)
- Collaborative team approaches to supporting inclusion (2022)
- Peer assisted academic support: mentors’ and mentees’ experiences (2021)
Ana has served as a program evaluator for large-scale educational initiatives in Victoria, including school improvement and teacher education programs. She is currently leading a research evaluation of the 'Passions & Pathways' program for Goldfields LLEN and is supported by a grant from the Bertalli Family Foundation (2023–2027), indicating sustained funding for her work.
She is affiliated with interdisciplinary teams including the Living with Disability Research Centre and has collaborated extensively with colleagues such as Teresa Iacono, Julie Spong, and Kathy Bagley. Her work aligns with Sustainable Development Goals 4 (Quality Education) and 10 (Reduced Inequalities), underscoring its societal impact.
