PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS
Russell Gersten, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of Instructional Research Group in Long Beach, California, a part-time research scientist at RMC Research Corporation, and Professor Emeritus in the College of Education at the University of Oregon. He will oversee all aspects of the project. Gersten has directed or co-directed over 40 applied research grants addressing a wide array of issues in the education of students considered at risk for school failure, and the process of translating research into classroom practice. He is a nationally recognized expert in both quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation methodologies; he has conducted numerous large scale field studies and over a dozen applied research studies involving randomized field trials, which have been published in journals such as American Educational Research Journal, Reading Research Quarterly and Journal of Leading Disabilities. He has served on numerous national panels on research methodology and issues related to translating research into classroom practice for the U. S. Dept of Education and national organizations such as Council for Exceptional Children. Russell Gersten has over 100 publications in scientific journals, and currently serves on eleven editorial boards. Click here to view Russell Gersten's vita.
Joseph Dimino, Ph.D. Click here to view Joseph Dimino's vita.
CO- INVESTIGATORS
Diane Haager, Ph.D., a professor at California State University, Los Angeles, and President of Diane Haager Educational Consulting Inc., is a noted researcher and teacher educator in reading and learning disabilities. She serves on the Reading First National Panel of Experts and is currently a site director in the Los Angeles area for the California Professional Development Institute, a large-scale initiative for preparing teachers to apply research-based reading practices. She has extensive experience in observational research and research with English learners. Click here to view Diana Haager's vita.
Edward S. Shapiro, Ph.D., is a Professor of Education, Department of Education and Human Services at Lehigh University. He is also the Director of a newly funded Center for Promoting Research to Practice – Schools, Families, and Communities at Lehigh. Dr. Shapiro has published extensively in the area of academic assessment. Since 1985, he has been principal or co-principal investigator on research and training grants totaling over $7.0 million from the U. S. Dept. of Education. Click here to view Edward Shapiro's vita.
Lana Edwards, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the special education program at Lehigh University’s College of Education. She conducts professional development institutes related to literacy instruction for the State of Pennsylvania, and is co-Principal Investigator on a research grant from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement on first grade children’s knowledge and use of comprehension strategies. Click here to review Lana Edwards' vita.
CONSULTANTS
Anne Cunningham, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She has conducted research on early literacy development for more than 20 years and has conducted early literacy intervention research at classroom and family levels for the past 10 years. She has extensive experience with experimental and longitudinal research with low-income families and schools. In addition, she has extensive experience in PD that builds teacher knowledge of reading instruction. She, codeveloped 4 years of PD institutes for NIH- funded studies at the University of Washington, co-founded Consortium on Reading Excellence (CORE) Professional Development, and was a member of the Reading First Teacher Academy Professional Development team.
Penny Chiappe, Ph.D., recently accepted a position as Assistant Professor at University of California at Irvine in the area of literacy. She has conducted extensive longitudinal research on cognitive and linguistic processes that underlie reading acquisition and reading failure among English learners.