Outstanding Achievement Award Recipient
K. Charlie Lakin, College of Education and Human Development, June 6, 2024
K. Charlie Lakin received his doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1981. For more than 40 years, he has made significant contributions to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families through research, education, service, advocacy, and scholarly achievements. Lakin secured federal funding for and, from 1989-2011, led the Research and Training Center on Community Living, housed in the Institute on Community Integration (ICI) at the University of Minnesota. In that role and beyond, he raised awareness of how people with disabilities lived and what they wanted for themselves. His cutting-edge research on the size of residential settings, quality of services, behavior control practices, and public funding decisions influenced and supported a broad nationwide movement for sweeping changes in society’s treatment of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In Minnesota, his work prompted the Department of Human Services to close large state institutions in the early 2000s. Lakin’s research has also influenced policy changes over several decades related to keeping children with disabilities with their families, rather than placing them in institutions. His expertise was recognized at the national level with an appointment by President Barack Obama to direct the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) from 2011-2014. In that time, he created a new strategic direction for future research priorities that focused on community living and participation. Lakin consistently used and generously shared his abundant, outstanding work to affect public policy to improve the lives of children and adults with disabilities so they can live with dignity as full participants in their communities.
Biographies are as-of time of award presentation.