Shanna Killeen is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Disability Studies. She joined the School of Social work in 2026 and currently runs the Disability Studies program in collaboration with the Texas Center for Disability Studies. Her background is in the humanities with a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Shanna’s teaching and research center the perspectives of disabled people and disabled cultural production.
Her research focuses particularly on the aesthetic practices of neurodivergent people, exploring what they tell us about affect, empathy, and constructions of the human(e) in dialogue with legacies of psychiatric and popular rhetoric that have largely pathologized neurodivergent people as lacking in emotion. Shanna’s interdisciplinary areas of expertise include disability studies, transnational American literary and cultural studies, queer studies, ethnic studies, global studies, and popular culture studies (including horror and fandom studies). Shanna brings a student-centered approach to teaching, focusing on Universal Design for Learning principles and accessibility and care in the classroom.