Louisiana Tech University is announcing Dr. Rosy Carranza as director of the University’s Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness (PDRIB). Carranza is a graduate of Louisiana Tech and has more than 20 years of experience in the field of blind education, especially as it relates to advocacy and policy.
“Dr. Carranza will leverage her proficiencies to create dynamic professional development, learning experiences, and research, and inform and provide resources to the community,” Tech’s College of Education and Human Sciences Dean Henrietta Pichon said. “Through her background with the Louisiana Center for the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind, we believe she will provide excellent leadership and insight into the program.”
Carranza earned her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education in 2003 and her master’s degree in Teaching Blind Students in 2004, both from Tech. She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Maryland in Curriculum and Instruction: Minority and Urban Education in 2017.
“The future of education and rehabilitation for blind people depends on strong leaders who understand the needs and have the perspective to imagine what is possible; Dr. Rosy Ramirez Carranza brings that powerful combination to the Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness,” Pam Allen, executive director of the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) since 2001, said. “Her expertise, leadership, ability to make connections, and her lived experience as a blind person position her uniquely to lead this work and motivate the team around her. As a Louisiana Center for the Blind and Louisiana Tech graduate, she also represents the very success that our partnership seeks to create. We are grateful for the decades of collaboration between Louisiana Tech and the Louisiana Center for the Blind, and we are excited to see Dr. Ramirez Carranza build on that legacy and help take this work to an even higher level.”
The institute grew out of a late-1990s partnership between Tech and the LCB. That collaboration continues to anchor PDRIB’s immersion training and mentorship model.
The PDRIB exists to transform the lives of individuals with blindness or low vision through its unique training model, Structured Discovery, which has a core philosophy that individuals living with blindness or low vision can enjoy full lives of productivity, civic engagement, independent living, and employment.