Scientific Advisory Board

List of 8 items.

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  Dr. Marcia Barnes, Vanderbilt University

  Marcia Barnes, Ph.D., is a Professor of Special Education and holds the Dunn Family Chair in Psychoeducational Assessment at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. She researches the cognitive processes associated with difficulties in reading comprehension and mathematics in children with neurodevelopmental disorders and at risk for or with learning disabilities. This research includes longitudinal and descriptive studies and developing and testing novel interventions. Her research has received federal funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation. She is the author of many peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and co-author of a widely-used book on learning disability identification, assessment, and intervention. Her research papers have appeared in various journals, including Scientific Studies of Reading, Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Association, and Neuropsychology. She is an Associate Editor of Scientific Studies of Reading.
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  Dr. Laurie Cutting, Vanderbilt University

  Laurie E. Cutting, Ph.D., is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Special Education, Psychology and Human Development, Radiology, Pediatrics, and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Vanderbilt University, and was the recipient of the 2017-2018 Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished University Professorship at Vanderbilt University. She is also Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, a member of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, training faculty for Vanderbilt’s Neuroscience Ph.D. program, and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories. Her work focuses on brain-behavior relations in children and adolescents, with a particular emphasis on reading, language, and executive function. Currently, she is the principal investigator of several NIH- and other federally funded research projects examining the neural underpinnings of cognitive development and academic achievement.
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  Dr. Lisa Dieker, University of Kansas

  Dr. Lisa Dieker is the Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Special Education in the School of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Kansas (KU). She serves as the Director of a Center in the Assessment and Achievement Institute called FLITE (flexible learning through innovations in teaching and education). Dr. Dieker’s research focuses on harnessing the power of teachers working across disciplines in inclusive settings, with her work focusing on teacher education, special education, and innovative uses of technology. Prior to KU, she was a Pegasus Professor at the University of Central Florida, where she served as the Lockheed Martin Eminent Scholar, directing the Lockheed Martin/UCF Mathematics and Science Academy, which produced over 500 teacher leaders in STEM. She also served as the co-coordinator for the Ph.D. program in special education, advising over 100 students, including 22 doctoral students with disabilities and 34 scholars from culturally diverse backgrounds. In her role as Co-Director of the UCF Center for Research in Education Simulation Technology (CREST), she and two colleagues created a widely used tool to prepare teachers and leaders using a mixed reality simulator called TeachLivE, now commercialized by Mursion. She is currently at KU and co-leads two U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Stepping Up grants to create a data tagging tool and to harvest resources to support STEM coaches working with special education teachers. In partnership with a public charter school district, the second project is creating an AI agent combined with biometrics to support students with disabilities in STEM. She has managed over 60 grants from state, local, national, international, and foundation sources amounting to more than $25M. She has provided over 150 keynotes, produced 7 books, over 100 articles and chapters, and has served as an editor for 4 journals in the field. She holds 6 patents in simulation and education. She has served as the national conference Co-Chair for the Council for Exceptional Children and in an elected position on the Innovation and Technology Committee for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education while also serving on 8 journal review boards. She has been awarded the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC): Children Advocacy Network Advocate of the Year Award, the CEC: Teacher Education Division (TED) Outstanding Service Award, the CEC: TED Outstanding Journal Article Award, the UCF Graduate Student Mentor of the Year Award, and the University of Illinois and Eastern Illinois University Outstanding Alumni of the Year Awards.
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  Dr. Steve Graham, Arizona State University

  Dr. Steve Graham is a Regents Professor and the Warner Professor in the division of leadership and innovation in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. For more than 40 years, he has studied how writing develops, how to teach it effectively, and how writing can be used to support reading and learning. In recent years, he has been involved in the development and testing of digital tools for supporting writing and reading through a series of grants from the Institute of Educational Sciences and the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education. His research involves typically developing writers and students with special needs in both elementary and secondary schools, with much of occurring in classrooms in urban schools.  He is the former editor of the journals Exceptional Children, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Journal of Writing Research, Focus on Exceptional Children, and he is the current editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology. He is the co-author of the "Handbook of Writing Research," "Handbook of Learning Disabilities," "APA Handbook of Educational Psychology," "Writing Better," "Powerful Writing Strategies for all Students" and "Making the Writing Process Work." He is also the author of three influential Carnegie Corporation reports.
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  Dr. Karen Harris, Arizona State University

  Dr. Karen R. Harris is a professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. She has worked in the field of education for over 40 years, initially as a general education teacher and then as a special education teacher. Her research focuses on informing and improving theory, research and practice related to writing development among students with high incidence disabilities, students who struggle with writing, and normally achieving students. She developed the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of strategies instruction; SRSD has been most extensively researched in the area of writing, although researchers have also addressed applications in reading, math and homework. Former editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology, Dr. Harris was also senior editor of the American Psychological Association Educational Psychology Handbook (2012). She is the lead editor (along with Steve Graham) of the What Works for Special Needs Learners series published by Guilford Press. She is co-author or co-editor of 14 books and over 200 peer-reviewed articles and chapters, and has served on editorial boards for journals in special education, educational psychology, and general education.
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  Dr. Karen Karp, University of Louisville

  Karen Karp is a mathematics educator who focuses on the intersection of mathematics education and special education.  She was previously a professor at Johns Hopkins University and a distinguished teaching professor of elementary mathematics education at the University of Louisville in Kentucky where she is professor emerita. She is the author or co-author numerous book chapters, articles, and books, including the recent U.S. Department of Education Institute of Science’s What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide on Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Intervention in the Elementary Grades, and other titles such as The Math Pact series, Strengths-based Teaching and Learning in Mathematics: 5 Teaching Turnarounds for Grades K-6, The Math Pact: Achieving Instructional Coherence within and Across Grades, and Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally which has been translated into seven languages.

  
  Dr. Karp is a former member of the board of directors of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and a former president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators. In 2020, she was selected for the NCTM Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics Education. She also is a member of the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction. This summer she will be representing the United States as the Chair of Topic Study Group on Teaching Mathematics to Students with Special needs at the International Congress on Mathematical Education in Australia. She holds teaching/administrative certifications in elementary education, secondary mathematics, K-12 special education, and K-12 educational administration.
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  Dr. Debra McKeown, Texas A&M University

  Dr. McKeown is a member of the Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture at Texas A&M University.  She spent more than five years prior at Georgia State University where she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education. Dr. McKeown received her doctorate in Special Education from Vanderbilt University where she trained under fellow Scientific Advisory Board members, Drs. Karen Harris and Steve Graham. Debra also has ten years of classroom teaching in various settings including charter, urban and international schools. She currently conducts intervention research in the area of writing. Most of her work focuses on impoverished urban settings where she works at both the teacher and student levels. She presents her work at national and international conferences and publishes in top tier journals. She is currently co-PI on a federal grant to demonstrate the efficacy of a writing intervention combining teacher instruction and an intelligent tutor to improve writing outcomes for elementary aged children.
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  Dr. Jeanne Wanzek, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University

  Dr. Jeanne Wanzek is the Currey-Ingram Endowed Chair and professor in the Department of Special Education at Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University. She conducts research examining effective reading instruction and intervention. Her focus is on prevention and remediation for students with reading difficulties and disabilities. Prior to receiving her doctorate, she worked as a special educator and as an elementary teacher. She has a number of publications as well as national and international presentations in the areas of early reading, learning disability, response to intervention and adolescent reading intervention.