The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy and Lurie Chair in Disability Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management

The Foundation provided a grant to Brandeis University to help create the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy and endow a professorship at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy conducts research on disability policy in the United States with a special emphasis on autism, focusing on the lifespan of persons with disabilities and their families. The Institute explores how human services and public benefits are provided to persons with developmental disabilities and their families and also how persons with disabilities can become self-advocates. The Lurie Institute trains the next generation of researchers at the doctoral level and policy makers at the doctoral and master’s levels. It offers courses on disability policy to undergraduates, raising their awareness of and interest in careers in the field of disability policy and research. The Institute also shapes public policy on issues related to autism and other disabilities as these issues affect children, the aging population, special education, health care, and transitions across the life span for persons with disabilities and their family care givers. Through this grant, the Foundation provided an endowment to create the Lurie Chair in Disability Policy and operating funds for the first ten years of the work of the Lurie Institute.