Jennifer L. Bumble

Jennifer Bumble is a principal researcher at AIR with more than 15 years of experience working alongside the disability community as a K-12 special educator, job coach, researcher, technical assistance provider, and community organizer. Her research has been funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, U.S. Department of Education, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the Administration for Community Living. Her expertise focuses on increasing interagency collaboration during the transition process, and ensuring that young adults with disabilities have the skills, supports, linkages, and experiences they need to attain competitive employment and pursue higher education. She has extensive experience leading inclusive research projects and enlists tools such as the World Café and to spur systems change efforts and generate solutions to local transition issues that align with a community’s culture and priorities. She also co-developed an innovative approach to digital community resource mapping, Mapping Assets for Postschool Success, which has been adopted by school systems and service providers across the country as a tool for student-centered transition planning.

Bumble applies a range of methods to her research studies including social network analysis, mixed methods, and community-based participatory research. At AIR, her primary responsibilities include developing, implementing, and evaluating school-and community-based interventions for youth with disabilities. She also designs mixed methods studies and conducts systematic reviews focused on understanding the knowledge translation needs of people with disabilities in underserved communities for AIR’s Center on Knowledge Translation for Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Recent studies include a longitudinal analysis of the social networks of college students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and randomized controlled trials of community-based interventions to improve the health, social capital, and self-determination of autistic youth.

Previously, she worked as an assistant professor at the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri St. Louis. Her service and research have been honored with awards from TASH, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and the Council for Exceptional Children’s Division on Career Development and Transition.