Topor, Irene L
Irene L Topor, Ph.D.
Ph.D., University of Arizona
Associate Professor of Practice, Disability and Psychoeducational Studies
Primary affiliation: Disability & Psychoeducational Studies
All associated units:
Disability & Psychoeducational Studies
520-626-3863
Room: 434B
Dr. Irene Topor is an adjunct associate professor for the specialization in visual impairment at the University of Arizona in Tucson. For the last 18 years, she has prepared teachers to work with children who are blind or visually impaired. Her job responsibilities include teaching the basic and advanced low vision and visual functioning and methods of teaching students who have visual impairments courses. She also places and supervises students in practica and internship sites in Tucson, Phoenix and Northern Arizona. She is certified as a low vision therapist and teacher of children with visual impairments. Dr. Topor is the coordinator (2005-2010) of the Native American/Northern Arizona program to prepare 5 teachers in the area of visual impairment on the Navajo reservation in Northern Arizona. Dr. Topor has authored and coauthored 7 chapters in textbooks that are used by the field of visual impairment on topics such as functional vision assessment, instruction of students with low vision, diversity and visual impairment, and collaboration among team members serving students with visual impairments. She has worked nationally as a consultant for programs serving students who are blind or visually impaired in the areas of vision assessment and instruction. She worked as a consultant to the Early Intervention Training Center for Infants and Toddlers with Visual Impairments based at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Topor was lead author for the Visual Conditions/Functional Vision Module. Dr. Topor accompanied a group of deaf interpreters and teachers of students with hearing impairments to work at a school for exceptional children in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico. She did vision screening of all the students, conducted an inservice with a group of parents. A local ophthalmologist was contacted and he agreed to screen all the students for vision difficulties and provide glasses for correction of refractive error if they were needed. Finally, as a certified personal trainer through the American Council of Exercise (ACE), Dr. Topor has provided opportunities for students to be fit and healthy through offering 3 National Sports Education Camps, the establishment of Arizona Association of Athletes who are Blind and Visually Impaired (AAABVI), and wrote a grant to provide personal training to selected students.