Who We Are

Angela Penfold is the Director of the Center. She is a senior research associate with RMC Research Corporation-Portsmouth. Her past experience includes work with the National Technical Assistance Center for Reading First and the Partnership for Reading as well as the Early Childhood Educator Academies. She participated in the national evaluation of the Reading Excellence Act and in a study of policies and practices contributing to the successful design and implementation of pre-service and in-service literacy teacher training programs. She received her B.A. in Government from Wesleyan University and her Ed.M. in Educational Administration, Planning and Social Policy from Harvard University.

Ruth Dober is a senior research associate with RMC Research Corporation-Portsmouth. Her experience includes work on other projects such as Safe Schools/Healthy Students, Parent Information and Resources Centers (PIRC), and Blue Ribbon Schools. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois-Springfield with a B.A. in Liberal Studies and an M.A. in Educational Research.

Barbara Foorman is currently the Eppes Professor of Education and Director of the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) at Florida State University. During 2005, she served as the Commissioner of Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Foorman has over 120 publications in the area of reading and language development, is co-editor of the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, and has been principal investigator of federally-funded grants on early reading interventions, measurement of K-12 reading, and literacy development in Spanish-speaking children.

Debby Houston Miller is an Associate in Research at the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University. She has extensive experience as a teacher at all levels prekindergarten through adult, district special education administrator, and state level administrator in special education. Dr. Miller has experience designing teacher support and professional development materials as well as documents that translate research to practice for teachers and administrators. Her interests and experience span reading, instructional design, special education, and research to practice.

Craig Strang is Associate Director of Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and leads the School Programs Division and Center for School Change. He is the founding Director of MARE: Marine Activities, Resources & Education, a K-8 professional development/curriculum development program that works with whole schools to increase learning and language acquisition for English-language learners. Strang is the author of several science and environmental education curriculum materials and teacher guides. He is past-president of Southwest Marine Educators Association and sat on the board of directors of National Marine Educators from 1988 to 1993. He received his B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Russell Gersten is the Executive Director of the Instructional Research Group (IRG) of Los Alamitos, CA, an educational research institute. He is also professor emeritus in the College of Education at the University of Oregon. He served as a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, a Presidential committee to develop research-based policy in mathematics for American schools. Dr. Gersten has directed or co-directed over 47 applied research grants and contracts addressing a wide array of issues in education and been a recipient of many federal and non-federal grants. He has written and presented extensively on math and reading instruction, special education, facilitating quality professional development, and study design and methodology. He received his B.A. in Physical Sciences from Brandeis University, and a Ph.D. with honors in Special Education, Minor in Psychology from the University of Oregon.

Joseph Dimino is a senior research associate at the Instructional Research Group in Los Alamitos, CA, where he developed and conducted professional development as part of a national evaluation investigating the effectiveness of reading comprehension programs and is co-principal investigator for a study assessing the impact of Collaborative Strategic Reading on the comprehension and vocabulary skills of English learners and English speaking fifth graders. Dr. Dimino is the professional development coordinator for a study investigating the impact of Teacher Study Groups on teaching practices and student vocabulary knowledge. He is a panel member for the RTI Reading Practice Guide and a researcher for the RTI Mathematics Practice Guide published by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. He also served as one of the seven professional development staff members for the National Center on Student Progress Monitoring.

Greg Roberts is also the associate director of The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and the director of the Vaughn Gross Center, both at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the Principal Investigator for the Texas Reading First Initiative and the Dissemination Core of the Texas Center for Learning Disabilities. He serves a Co-Principal Investigator for Reading for Understanding and the Preventing Dropout with Secondary Students project. Dr. Roberts has a Ph.D. in educational psychology with expertise in quantitative methods, measurement, and program evaluation. Recent projects have included the state-level evaluations of the Hawaii Reading First Initiative, the Oregon Reading First Initiative, and the Alabama Reading First Initiative. He was also the evaluator of PiHanaNaMamo, a project funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) supporting native Hawaiian high school students in special education, and is currently evaluating Washington State's implementation of response to intervention (RTI). He has an undergraduate degree in special education and has taught primary-aged children with emotional disabilities and first and sixth grades.

Christy Murray serves as a Project Manager for The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at The University of Texas at Austin, and as the Project Coordinator for the Texas Center for Learning Disabilities' Dissemination Core. Her areas of expertise include Response to Intervention, effective reading instruction for struggling students, and student assessment issues. Previously, she worked on a longitudinal research study sponsored by the Office of Special Education Programs that examined the implementation of the 3-Tier model within elementary schools in the area of K-3 reading, including English language learners. She began her career as an elementary school teacher, where she instructed students in both general education and special education. She received her M.A. in Educational Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin.

David Francis is the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Quantitative Methods and Chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston, where he also serves as Director of the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics (TIMES) and Co-Director of the Texas Learning and Computation Center. He is a Fellow of Division 5 (Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics) of the American Psychological Association and is currently Chairman of the Executive Board of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology and a member the Independent Review Panel for the National Assessment of Title I and the National Research Council's (NRC) Board on Testing and Assessment. He was a recipient of the 2006 Albert J. Harris Award from the International Reading Association, and has received the University of Houston's Teaching Excellence Award and the Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award; in 2008 received the Esther Farfel Award, which recognizes career accomplishments in research, teaching, and service and is the highest award given to faculty members at the University of Houston. His areas of quantitative interest include modeling of individual growth, multi-level and mixture modeling, structural equation modeling, item response theory, and exploratory data analysis. He obtained a doctoral degree in Clinical-Neuropsychology from the University of Houston with a specialization in Quantitative Methods.

Mabel Rivera is Research Faculty at the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics (TIMES) at the University of Houston. She has delivered presentations nationally and internationally on the subject of instruction and assessment of English Language Learners and students with special needs. As a former elementary school general and special education teacher in the public school system, Dr. Rivera gained valuable expertise in teaching struggling learners. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the teacher preparation programs focused on characteristics and methods for teaching students with disabilities. Her research interests include the education and prevention of academic difficulties in English Language Learners and students with disabilities.

Emily Zyko is the Director of SchoolSourceNYC at RMC Research-New York and a member of the New York Comprehensive Center Learning Technology Team. She has experience in family engagement and formal and informal teaching and learning through new media and technology at Thirteen/WNET.ORG on Ready to Learn initiatives and at the United Nations on the UNPeacemaker website. Her interests and experience span media literacy, technology integration, mobile technologies and family engagement through new media.