PIRT Faculty

Program faculty for our predoctoral training program represent a broad range of disciplines relevant to education science. The program faculty bring with them significant expertise and experience in

• research methodology (Lonigan, Schatschneider, Wagner, Connor),
• development and use of advanced statistics (Schatschneider, Wagner, Connor, Lonigan),
• randomized evaluation research (Lonigan, Foorman, Torgesen, Connor, Schatschneider, Wagner, Wanzek, Phillips),
• measurement and assessment (Wagner, Lonigan, Torgesen, Foorman, Schatschneider),
• development of reading skills and reading instruction (Torgesen, Wagner, Foorman, Lonigan, Connor, Phillips, Wanzek, Kim),
• math and science instruction (Southerland, Kroto, Connor, Lang),
• basic cognitive processes in learning (Radach, Schatschneider, Wagner),
• special needs populations (Al Otaiba, Apel, Connor, Wanzek),
• teacher and principal preparation (Lang, Foorman, Southerland, Connor, Roehrig, Wanzek),
• education policy (Lang, Foorman, Torgesen, Phillips),
• as well as behavioral and emotional regulation factors related to educational outcomes (Lonigan, Kistner, Radach).

Brief descriptions of PIRT Faculty are included below.

PIRT Faculty who are considering admitting new students for the 2010 - 2011 academic year include:

• Psychology Faculty: Drs. Lonigan, Schatschneider, Wagner, Radach and Connor
• College of Education Faculty: Drs. AlOtaiba, Phillips, Wanzek, Roehrig, and Kim
• Communication Disorders Faculty: Dr. Apel

PIRT faculty who are not considering admitting new students for the 2010 2011 academic year include:

• Drs. Foorman, Lang, Kistner, Torgesen, Southerland, and Kroto

Program Faculty

Christopher J. Lonigan, Ph.D. (Program Director) is a Professor of Psychology and an Associate Director of Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR). Dr. Lonigan is a clinical psychologist with expertise in applied developmental issues, early literacy, assessment, quantitative methods, preventative interventions, longitudinal projects, and classroom-based interventions. Dr. Lonigan is or has been the Principal Investigator (PI) for seven federally funded (IES, NICHD, NSF) large-scale evaluations of interventions or classroom curricula for preschool children at-risk of academic difficulties or disabilities. All of these studies employ randomized evaluation designs, including cluster-level designs. Dr. Lonigan also is or has been the PI or Co-I for five federally funded (IES, NICHD, OERI) longitudinal studies of reading skills and reading disabilities. Dr. Lonigan has developed and co-authored tests for early literacy (e.g., Test of Preschool Early Literacy, published by PRO-Ed), and he is currently developing Pre-K assessments that will be available to teachers in Florida’s universal preschool program starting in 2009-2010. Dr. Lonigan has served on numerous grant review panels, including three years as Chair of the IES Reading and Writing standing review panel and three additional years a panel member or Chair for other IES reviews, and technical advisory committees for some of IES’s large-scale evaluation studies (e.g., CLIO, Education Technology). He was the principal investigator of the What Works Clearinghouse review of Early Childhood Education, and he current serves on the technical advisory group of the What Works Clearinghouse.
More info >>

Christopher Schatschneider, Ph.D. (Project Co-Director) is a Professor of Psychology and an Associate Director of FCRR. Dr. Schatschneider has significant expertise in quantitative methods and research design, including measurement and item response theory, and multi-level models. He has published in the area of individual differences in early reading acquisition, measurement and item response theory, and the use of hierarchical linear models in developmental research. Dr. Schatschneider has been the PI, co-PI, or co-I for several federally funded (NICHD, NSF) research projects that focus on the development of early reading skills. Several of these projects involve the use of randomized trials in the research design. Additionally, he is or has been the PI of the methodological/statistical component of several other large-scale federally funded projects concerning reading development, math development, and interventions. Dr. Schatschneider has served on numerous grant review panels and technical advisory committees, including six years as a panel member for different IES review panels.
More info >>

Richard K. Wagner, Ph.D. is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology and holds the W. Russell and Eugenia Morcom Chair. He also is an Associate Director of FCRR. He is an internationally recognized expert in the development and measurement of early reading skills, the role of reading-related phonological processing abilities in normal and abnormal development of reading skills, the prediction, prevention, and remediation of dyslexia, and in understanding the origins of individual and developmental differences in reading comprehension. Dr. Wagner has substantial expertise in research methods and quantitative methods, including measurement and item response theory, multivariate analyses, and structural equation modeling. Dr. Wagner is or has been the PI or co-PI on numerous federally funded (NICHD, IES) research projects involving the development of early reading skills and reading comprehension, evaluation of early reading interventions for struggling readers using randomized designs, and FCRR’s Learning Disabilities Research Center, which focuses on the development and classification of reading disabilities, including behavioral genetic influences on profound reading impairments. He has co-authored tests of phonological processing (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes), reading (Test of Word Reading Efficiency), and early literacy (Test of Preschool Early Literacy) published by PRO-Ed. Dr. Wagner has served on numerous NIH and IES grant review panels, technical advisory boards, and chaired the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy.
More info >>

Barbara Foorman, Ph.D. is a Francis Eppes Professor of Education and the Director of FCRR. During 2005, Dr. Foorman served as the Commissioner of Education Research in the Institute of Education Sciences. She has over 100 publications related to reading development, teacher preparation, and evaluation of interventions, and she serves on many editorial boards and national advisory committees. Dr. Foorman has been PI or co-PI on many federally funded (NICHD, IES, NSF) projects concerning early reading grants, and her centers have provided professional development and technical assistance to Reading First schools in Texas and in Florida. Dr. Foorman has authored spelling and vocabulary curricula and early reading assessments used in Texas, and she is developing the K-12 reading assessments that will be available in Florida starting in 2009-2010. Her research includes randomized evaluations and measurement development, as well as evaluations of professional development for teachers.
More info >>

Laura B. Hassler Lang, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Director of the Learning Systems Institute (LSI), a multidisciplinary research and development unit of Florida State University focused on the improvement of teaching and learning, and on technological applications for improving effectiveness and efficiency. Dr. Lang's experiences for 12 years as a special education teacher, 14 years as a school-based administrator, including 8 years as a school principal, and her role in LSI for the last eight years provide her with firsthand knowledge and expertise concerning the challenges encountered in undertaking major educational reform efforts at the classroom, school, district and state level. Dr. Lang is the principal investigator for a number of federal and state-level grants involved with the development, implementation and research related to initiatives to improve teacher quality and school quality--including the state grant that supported the establishment of the Center for Research on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (FCR-STEM), the Leadership of Mathematics and Science Initiative and the Mathematics Formative Assessment System for Florida. In addition, she oversees a variety of other educationally relevant projects in her role as Director of LSI. Dr. Lang serves on the boards and executive committees of numerous organizations and committees associated with the development and evaluation of educational policy in the State of Florida.
More info >>

Carol M. Connor, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Psychology and faculty associate of FCRR. Dr. Connor’s area of expertise includes the way in which characteristics of learners influence their responses to education and educational interventions. Additionally, her professional background and research has focused on child language development, children living in poverty, and children with special needs in educational settings. Dr. Connor is well versed in research methodology and sophisticated quantitative methods (e.g., HLM). She was awarded the 2007 President's Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE) and the APA Richard Snow award, Dr. Connor is the PI on the Individualizing Instruction Study, funded IES and NICHD, and she is co-PI on one of FCRR’s LD-Center projects examining RTi models with kindergarten and 1st grade students. She also is PI on a project concerning student instruction in science as part of the FCR-STEM initiative. Each of these projects includes evaluation conducted as randomized cluster-level or student-level designs.
More info >>

Ralph Radach, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology and a faculty associate of FCRR. Dr. Radach is an internationally recognized experimental reading researcher with expertise concerning the processing of sublexical and lexical information in sentence and text reading. He also is one of the leading international experts in the use of eye movement analyses to study information processing in reading and other complex tasks. Dr. Radach is a co-developer of Glenmore, one of the most successful computational models of the reading process. His ongoing basic research focuses on the time course of word processing, intra-individual variations of reading, and studies comparing reading in English with reading in the Chinese and Thai writing systems. He is also examining the issues of “mindless reading” and binocular coordination in struggling readers. His applied research includes a major project on reading impairments in acquired dyslexia funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and studies on effects of alcohol and drugs on reading (funded by the Alcoholic Beverage Research Foundation). He is also involved in work aimed at improving computer based silent reading fluency training. These projects involve a variety of experimental and correlational methods.
More info >>

Stephanie Al Otaiba, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Special Education within FSU's School of Teacher Education; she is a faculty associate of FCRR. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development in 2000 from Vanderbilt University specializing in special education and early literacy. Prior to that, she was a special education teacher for 14 years. Dr. Al Otaiba has significant expertise in the areas of early literacy, tutoring interventions, response to intervention, teacher training, and effective instruction for diverse learners, including students with significant learning and other disabilities. Dr. Al Otaiba is co-PI on an NICHD-funded project using a randomized design to examine school-based classification and prevention of reading disabilities. She is the Doctoral Coordinator for Special Education and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses related to reading research, reading disabilities, and response to intervention.
More info >>

Alysia D. Roehrig, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. Dr. Roehrig’s area of expertise is teacher quality, focusing on professional development for teachers of beginning reading. She has expertise in classroom observation, reading comprehension, and motivation. Dr. Roehrig’s research focuses on improving teachers’ practices in the classroom, recently funded by IES, and evaluating the effectiveness of some of these teaching practice modifications. She is currently conducting several projects involving the relation between teacher training, teacher quality, and student outcomes that use both that quantitative and qualitative methods.

Beth M. Phillips, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems and a faculty associate of FCRR. She is the PI on a project, recently funded by IES, to develop a new vocabulary intervention for at-risk preschool children. Dr. Phillips is co-I on four federally funded (IES, NICHD), large-scale preschool intervention projects investigating the benefits of evidence-based early childhood curricula and instruction geared toward improving children’s school readiness in areas of literacy, language, and mathematics. These studies employ cluster-randomized designs. She is PI or co-PI on other projects investigating children’s approaches to learning and professional development for early childhood educators. Dr. Phillips was PI of FCRR’s Florida Voluntary Pre-K Technical Assistance Project, concerned with the development of standards, curricular policy, and professional development for VPK providers. She is co-I on a project to develop new assessment measures for the VPK program.

Jeanne Wanzek, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Teacher Education and a faculty associate of FCRR. She is a former special educator and elementary teacher. She has worked with elementary, middle, and high schools conducting research, including randomized controlled designs, to improve core classroom instruction and intervention implementation. Dr. Wanzek’s current research examines effective reading instruction and intervention, with a focus on prevention and remediation for students with reading difficulties and disabilities.

Young-Suk Kim, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the School of Teacher Education and she is a faculty associate of FCRR. Her ongoing research projects include studies of early literacy development and reading fluency development various populations such as Korean monolingual children, English monolingual children, and English language learners.

Janet Kistner, Ph.D. is a Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department at Florida State University. She is a clinical psychologist with expertise in the assessment and treatment of children’s emotional and behavior problems. Dr. Kistner is PI on a state-funded project to develop and evaluate mental health services for juvenile offenders remanded to state correctional facilities, and she is the research director of a university-based clinic that specializes in the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and related conditions.

Kenn Apel, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is a Professor of Communication science and Disorders, and he is a fellow of the American Speech, Language, Hearing Association. His research focuses on the underlying linguistic components that support the development of reading and spelling, including morphological awareness and orthographic processing, as well as spelling intervention. Dr. Apel is a co-investigator on two federally funded (IES, OSEP) research projects concerning the promotion of vocabulary and language development in at-risk or special needs populations. He also has projects under review (NSF, IES) to study the development of orthographic representations in children with typical and atypical language development. Several of these projects involve randomized evaluation.
ROLL website: http://www.cci.fsu.edu/roll/

Sherry A. Southerland, Ph.D. (Program Faculty) is an Associate Professor of Science Education, Program Coordinator for Science Education, Co-Director of FSU-Teach, and a faculty associate of FCR-STEM. She also directs the Florida State University’s Science Education program. In 2007, Dr. Southerland was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her contributions to science education. Her research projects address questions concerning students’ conceptual change around the nature of science and biological evolution, barriers to reform of science teaching and learning, and equitable science teaching and learning. Dr. Southerland is PI on federally funded (NSF) projects that address the influences on teachers’ practices and the impact of science curricula and professional development on 4th and 5th grade students’ science knowledge. These studies utilize both randomized evaluation and correlational methods.

Joseph K. Torgesen, Ph.D. is the Robert M. Gagne Professor of Psychology and Education (emeritus) and is the Founder and Director Emeritus of FCRR. Dr. Torgesen is an internationally recognized expert in learning disabilities, reading, remedial interventions, and teacher professional development. Dr. Torgesen has been the PI on several NICHD and IES funded research projects involving randomized evaluations of interventions for struggling readers in grades 1 - 5. He was the principal engineer of Florida’s Reading First Initiative, and he was the PI for a U.S. Department of Education Award to provide technical assistance to Eastern States’ Reading First programs. Dr. Torgesen serves on numerous advisory committees and boards, including that of the Institute of Education Science. He has co-authored tests of phonological processing (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes, Test of Phonological Awareness), reading (Test of Word Reading Efficiency), and early literacy (Test of Preschool Early Literacy) published by PRO-Ed. Although Dr. Torgesen recently retired as a full-time faculty member, he remains actively involved in FCRR, and he will serve as a valuable resource to the program given his significant work at the interface of research, policy, and practice.
More info >>

Sir Harold Kroto, Ph.D. is a Francis Eppes Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and he is the Director of Florida State University’s Florida Center for Research on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (FCR-STEM). Dr. Kroto was the co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his co-discovery of buckminsterfullerene, a form of pure carbon with a molecular structure that resembles the geodesic domes designed by Buckminster Fuller. He is a co-founder of the Vega Science Trust, which was established to promote science education and science careers among young people. Dr. Kroto won the Royal Society's prestigious Michael Faraday Award in 2001, which is given annually to a scientist who has done the most to further public communication of science, engineering or technology in the United Kingdom. Through Dr. Kroto’s Global Educational Outreach initiative at Florida State University, he has started to create science programs, complete with video feeds, photos, graphics and PowerPoint presentations, and to make them freely accessible via the Internet to classrooms all over the world.