Marisa Fisher is an assistant professor of special education, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst-Doctoral (BCBA-D) and the co-director of Spartan Project SEARCH. Her research focuses on understanding and decreasing social vulnerability of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and supporting the social acceptance of individuals with IDD in the community. She is specifically interested in measuring the various types of victimization experienced by individuals with IDD and on designing interventions to decrease vulnerability. She has studied victimization in the form of child abuse, bullying, stranger danger, and exploitation across the lifespan. She uses the principles of applied behavior analysis and single subject research methods to design interventions to teach self-protection to individuals with IDD.

As the co-director of Spartan Project SEARCH, Dr. Fisher and her students provide support to high school students with IDD who are transitioning from school to work as they participate in internship experiences across the university. Dr. Fisher’s research specific to Spartan Project SEARCH examines behavioral supports necessary to promote success in the work and community environment, the outcomes of participating students, and the impact of the program of attitudes toward and acceptance of individuals with IDD in the workplace

Dr. Fisher is the PI on a project funded by the Institute of Education Sciences' Early Career Development and Mentoring in Special Education Program. This study is designed to better understand the risk factors and consequences of bullying for middle school students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID). Specifically, she is conducting a longitudinal investigation to determine the risk factors (e.g., loneliness, poor social skills, internalizing and externalizing problems) and academic, emotional, and behavioral consequences of bullying for youth with ASD and how these risk factors and outcomes compare to youth with ID and students without disabilities.