Christy Murray is co-principal investigator of the English Learner Institute for Teaching and Excellence (Project ELITE) and Tier I project director for the Middle School Matters Institute. Previously, Murray served as deputy director of the Center on Instruction’s special education and response to intervention work. During her 7 years in this role, she provided technical assistance to regional comprehensive centers and state departments of education, as well as developed products, publications, and professional development materials. She also has served as data coordinator on a longitudinal research study that examined the implementation of the 3-tier model in K–3 reading. Murray earned her master of arts degree in educational psychology from The University of Texas at Austin in 2004. Her research interests include response to intervention and effective reading instruction and intervention for struggling students. Prior to joining MCPER in 2001, she worked as an elementary school teacher, where she instructed students in both general and special education.
Dr. Amy E. Barth is an assistant research professor at the University of Houston’s Texas Institute of Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics. Dr. Barth is a graduate of the University of Kansas Department of Speech Language Pathology. Her interests include the identification and treatment of students with language and learning disabilities.
Dr. Carolyn Denton is an Associate Professor in the Children’s Learning Institute, part of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston. She conducts research in schools focused on reading intervention, Response to Intervention (RTI) models, coaching as a form of professional development, and reading comprehension. She is currently a co-investigator for the Texas Center for Learning Disabilities, a research center funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to study RTI.
Dr. Greg Roberts is director of the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts, and associate director and director for evaluation and analysis of MCPER, an organized research unit at The University of Texas at Austin. He is principal investigator and director of the Special Education Strand of the national Center on Instruction; principal investigator of the Dissemination Core of the research-oriented Texas Center for Learning Disabilities, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; and past co-director of the Central Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center. Trained as an educational research psychologist and with expertise in quantitative methods, Dr. Roberts has directed research and evaluation projects in education, social services, and health care. He has published in multidisciplinary journals articles that feature structural equation models, meta-analysis, and multilevel models.
For the past 25 years, Dr. Fletcher, a board certified clinical neuropsychologist, has completed research on children with developmental disabilities, with a focus on the development of reading, language, and other cognitive skills. Much of his research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, including program projects on spina bifida, math, and learning disabilities. Dr. Fletcher presently serves on the NICHD National Advisory Council. He served on the Rand Reading Study Group, the National Research Council Committee on Scientific Principles in Education Research, and the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education. Dr. Fletcher was the recipient of the Samuel T. Orton award from the International Dyslexia Association in 2003.
Dr. Jade Wexler is a research assistant professor at MCPER and a director of its Dropout Prevention Institute. Dr. Wexler earned her doctoral degree in special education (learning disabilities and behavior disorders) from The University of Texas at Austin in 2007. She has extensive experience directing research related to high-quality interventions for students with significant reading difficulties and students at risk for dropping out of school. Dr. Wexler has coordinated large-scale studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Meadows Foundation, the Greater Texas Foundation, and the Institute of Education Sciences. She has published several papers and chapters on adolescent reading and interventions for struggling readers. Her current research includes investigating effective response to intervention practices for older students with reading difficulties and disabilities and investigating effective methods to decrease dropout rates and increase school engagement for at-risk students.
