Deborah Carter, Ph.D., joined the Boise State University faculty in the fall of 2008 as an assistant professor in the Department of Special Education and Early Childhood Studies. She has held the rank of full professor at Boise State since 2014, and in 2024 was hired as the associate dean of the Graduate College. Carter has taught and mentored graduate students for 18 years at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and at Boise State. She has additionally served in a variety of administrative and leadership roles, including as a graduate program coordinator, a department chair, and an interim associate dean in the College of Education.

Carter earned a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Oregon, a Master of Science in early intervention/early childhood special education from the University of Oregon, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Exercise Science through the Lawrence Henry Gipson Honors Program at the College of Idaho. She is also a national Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

Carter’s areas of expertise include school-wide and individual student positive behavior support, early childhood special education, and family involvement. Her current research focuses on implementation of program-wide positive behavior support in early childhood and integrating academic and behavioral RTI at the school level. Her work has been included in the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, Behavioral Disorders, and Early Childhood Education Journal.