Margaret Burchinal is the Director of the Design and Statistical Computing Unit at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center located at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She is also a Research Professor in the Psychology department and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics.
Dr. Burchinal has focused her work on using growth curve statistical methods to describe individual patterns of development. She is a nationally recognized expert in statistical modeling, especially for longitudinal data. Dr. Burchinal has served as the primary statistician for many educational studies of early childhood, including the 11-state Pre-Kindergarten Evaluation for the National Center for Early Learning and Development, the longitudinal study of 1300 children in NICHD Study of Early Child Care and the four-state evaluation of child care in the Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes Study. As an applied methodologist, she has helped to demonstrate that sophisticated methods such as meta-analysis (Burchinal, Peisner-Feinberg, Bryant, & Clifford, 2000), fixed-effect modeling (NICHD ECCRN & Duncan, 2003), hierarchical linear modeling, piecewise regression (Campbell, Pungello, Miller-Johnson, Burchinal, & Ramey, 2001), and generalized estimating equations provide educational researchers with advanced techniques to address important educational issues.
She is a member of several boards and committees, including the Advisory Board for Research Bureau of the Maternal and Child Health, Advisory Council for Head Start, Advisory Board for the Los Angeles Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program, and NICHD Special Emphasis Review Committee. Dr. Burchinal is also a panel reviewer for the Institute for Educational Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
She earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a B.S. from Iowa State University.
Harris M. Cooper is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Program in Education at Duke University. His research includes research synthesis and the application of social and developmental psychology to educational policy issues, homework, school calendars, and after school programs. Dr. Cooper is a member of numerous committees at the university, including Graduate Student Awards Committee for the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Social Psychology Training Committee, Social Science Research Institute Advisory Board. He is Chair of the Duke University Committee on Teacher Preparation as well as the Developmental/Education Search Committee. He holds membership in several professional psychology and education associations and was named Editor for the Psychological Bulletin in 2003. Dr. Cooper has contributed to the knowledge surrounding factors that affect student achievement and has published in numerous journals, including Review of Educational Research, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Psychologist, and Journal of Educational Psychology. Dr. Cooper received his PhD in Psychology from the University of Connecticut and his BA in Psychology and Sociology from SUNY at Stony Brook.
Ronald E. Duerring has been Superintendent for Kanawha County Schools in West Virginia since 1998. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Superintendent, principal and primary classroom teacher for Kanawha County. Dr. Duerring has been recognized for his contributions to education by College Summit, West Virginia State College, and Marshall University, where he earned his doctorate in educational administration. Dr. Duerring also has been named Superintendent of the Year (2000), Kanawha County Educator of the Year (1999) and Kanawha County PTA Principal of the Year (1996).
Kurt Fischer is the Charles Bigelow Professor of Education and Human Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and founder and director of the program in Mind, Brain, and Education. Dr. Fischer's research interests follow cognitive and emotional development from birth through adulthood, combining analysis of the commonalities across people with the diversity of pathways of learning and development. His work focuses on the organization of behavior and the ways it changes, especially with development, learning, emotion, and culture. In dynamic skill theory, he provides a framework to analyze how organismic and environmental factors contribute to the rich variety of developmental change and learning across and within people. His research includes students' learning and problem solving, brain development, concepts of self in relationships, cultural contributions to social-cognitive development, reading skills, emotions, and child abuse. One product of his research is a single scale for measuring learning, teaching, and curriculum across domains, which is being used to assess and coordinate key aspects of pedagogy and assessment in schools.
Dr. Fischer started his career at the University of Denver, where he became professor of psychology. He has also been visiting professor or visiting scholar at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), University of Pennsylvania, University of Groningen (Netherlands), Nanjing Normal University (China), and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford).
He is the author of "Dynamic development of action, thought, and emotion" in the Handbook of Child Psychology (Volume 1), Human Behavior and the Developing Brain, Mind, Brain, and Education in Reading Disorders, and several other books, as well as over 200 scientific articles. Leading an international movement to connect biology and cognitive science to education, he is founding president of the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society, and the new journal, Mind, Brain, and Education.
Dr. Fisher received his Ph.D. in Social Relations from Harvard University in 1971, an M.A. in Social Relations from Harvard in 1968, and a B.A. in Psychology from Yale University in 1965.
Donald J. Ford has been Superintendent for Harrisonburg City Public Schools in Virginia for the last ten years managing an urban district serving over 4,000 students. Prior to that, Dr. Ford held superintendent positions for Highland County Public Schools (Virginia) and Craig County Public Schools (Virginia). He has experience as a principal in public and private school settings. He is a leader in many educational professional organizations, including the American Association of School Administrators and Virginia Association of School Superintendents, as well as the Harrisonburg/Rockingham Rotary Club, Central Shenandoah Literacy Coordinating Committee and Harrisonburg Education Foundation. Dr. Ford received his EdD. from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.
Michael Hill is currently the Deputy Executive Director for the National Association of State Boards of Education. As Deputy Director, Dr. Hill provides State Boards of Education technical assistance on issues related to Federal Legislation such as No Child Left Behind; technology and leadership; and Board planning and goal-setting. He presents at multiple venues on education topics including secondary reading practices, Board governance, rural education and academic-athletic inter-relationships.
Dr. Hill also serves as senior project director for the National Association of State Boards of Education's Center for Policy Studies in Rural Education. The Center works in rural education areas related to compliance with No Child Left Behind, issues related to Migrant education, and successful practices in secondary literacy and numeracy with special populations.
He is a former clinical and school psychologist from which he was appointed and served as executive director of the largest education service agency in New Hampshire for ten years. During that time, Dr. Hill was twice elected to a local school board and served as Distinguished Faculty for the University System of New Hampshire.
Dr. Hill is responsible forseveral publications on rural education, school reform and policy, including: Programs and Policies Impacting Rural Education. Chapter in the Condition of Rural Education U. S. Department of Education. (in preparation), Who Will Own Our Children? The Report of the NASBE Commission on the Status of Financial Education (in preparation), Pursuing High School Reading Proficiency: An Arizona Experience (2005) and A Mississippi Experience (2004), No Child Left Behind and Rural Education: Implications for Policy and Practice, No Child Left Behind: A Guide for Rural and Small Districts (2003), and Integrating Rural Schools and Community Development: A Workbook (2000).
He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Iowa State University in 1977.
C. Kent McGuire is the Dean of the College of Education at Temple University as well as Director of the Center for Research in Human Development and Education, a university-based research organization focused on the study and demonstration of effective strategies for educating poor and minority youngsters. Dr. McGuire is a tenured Professor in the Educational Administration Program, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Temple University.
Before joining Temple University, Dr. McGuire was senior vice president at the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation where his responsibilities included leadership of the education, children and youth division. From 1998 through 2001, Dr. McGuire served in the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, where he was the senior officer for the department's research and development agency. As the education program officer for the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts from 1995 to 1998, he managed Pew's K-12 grants portfolio. From 1991 to 1995, Dr. McGuire served as Education Program Director for the Eli Lilly Endowment. Earlier in Dr. McGuire's career, he was an assistant professor in the University of Colorado's School of Education. Prior to this, Dr. McGuire worked for the Education Commission of the States, where he rose from policy analyst to senior policy analyst and director of the School Finance Collaborative.
Dr. McGuire's current research interests focus on the areas of education administration and policy, and organizational change. He has been involved in a number of evaluation research initiatives on comprehensive school reform and before this, on education finance and school improvement. Dr. McGuire has written and coauthored various policy reports, monographs, book chapters, articles and papers in professional journals.
Dr. McGuire is active in a variety of professional and civic associations, currently serves on the following boards: Moorestown Public School; Institute for Education Leadership; Jobs for America Future; The New Teacher Project; Parents for Public Education; Wachovia Regional Foundation and Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation.
Dr. McGuire received his Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1991, his M.A. in education administration and policy from Columbia University Teacher's College in 1979, and his B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1977.
Kristin Anderson Moore is a social psychologist and one of the nation's leading researchers of children and families. She is currently a Senior Scholar at Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization located in Washington, DC dedicated to improving the lives of children. At Child Trends, Dr. Moore established the Research-to-Results program, which communicates information about what works to policy makers, funders, practitioners, and other researchers, and contributes to improved programs and policy for children and youth. One aspect of the Research-to-Results initiative involves helping programs in the Washington, DC area to design logic models, outcomes monitoring, protocols, and reports on outcomes over time.
Dr. Moore also led compilation of the What Works series, which collects experimental evaluation studies on children and youth. She was the principal investigator on the NICHD Family and Child Well-Being Research Network over a period of 10 years. This network stimulated new research, data collection, and evaluation studies designed to improve the well being of children and families. In addition, Dr. Moore established and was the first chair on the task force of effective programs and research for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
For three decades, Dr. Moore has studied issues related to sexual behavior, teen childbearing, non-voluntary sex and statutory rape, family structure, fertility, marriage, fathers, and families, with an emphasis on disadvantaged families. She has published numerous quantitative studies, including analyses of the implications of poverty and welfare, the consequences of teen and non-marital fertility, and the antecedents of adolescent problem behavior. Dr. Moore has also worked on modules for numerous surveys among children and families, including the National Survey of Family Growth. She has also participated in many conceptual projects, such as conceptualizing and defining healthy marriage; conceptualizing how welfare reform might affect children; conceptualizing the implications of father involvement for children and families; and identifying turbulence as a common risk for children.
Dr. Moore received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.
Kevin M. Noland is Interim Commissioner of Education for Kentucky as of November 3, 2006. Mr. Noland previously served as Deputy Commissioner and has been General Counsel with the Kentucky Department of Education since 1991. In this role, he serves as chief attorney for the Commissioner of Education, Department of Education, and the Kentucky Board of Education, as well as overseeing the internal operational functions of the agency. Kevin has served as Legislative Coordinator for the Kentucky Board of Education and the Department of Education, and for transition periods in 1995 and 2000, he served as acting Commissioner of Education. His prior education law experience includes drafting education law opinions for the Attorney General's Office, private practice with an emphasis in education and employment law, and helping to draft the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990 while with the Legislative Research Commission.
Mr. Noland attended the University of Kentucky where he received his B.A. in 1974 and J.D. in 1978. He is a former chairperson of the Kentucky Bar Association's Education Law Section and of the National Council of State Education Attorneys.
Bruce Opie was selected by Commissioner Lana Seivers to represent the Tennessee Department of Education on the REL Appalachia Governing Board. Mr. Opie is Legislative Liaison for the Department. Mr. Opie has spent thirty years in the field of public education, nine of those years as a classroom teacher and administrator in Clarksville-Montgomery County, where he was awarded the DAR Tennessee History Teacher of the Year Award in 1983. He joined the Tennessee Department of Education in 1985. He served five years as the Department's Executive Director for Curriculum and Instruction, helped to develop the Department's Exemplary Educator Program and currently serves as the Department's Director of Legislation and Policy, serving as liaison with the Tennessee General Assembly.
Mr Opie a M.D. in Education Administration and a B.S. with a double major in history and political science, both from Austin Peay State University.
Steven L. Paine is West Virginia's 25th state superintendent of schools. Since beginning his tenure on July 1, 2005, West Virginia has been nationally recognized for its 21st Century Learning Skills initiative, Pre-k programs, school technology implementation, reading initiatives and teacher quality efforts. He is committed to providing all West Virginia children with skills that will enable them to compete in a fiercely competitive global world.
Dr. Paine joined the West Virginia Department of Education in 2003 as Deputy State Superintendent of Schools after serving as county superintendent in Morgan County, West Virginia. He has also served as a principal, assistant principal, teacher and curriculum director in Harrison, Upshur and Morgan counties. During his time in the school system, Dr. Paine received several state and national awards and recognitions such as the Milken Family Foundation Educator Award. Additionally, he led Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School of Upshur County, West Virginia to being named a United States Department of Education Blue Ribbon School and a Safe, Drug-Free School, one of only ten schools in the nation to garner both awards.
Dr. Paine received his Ph.D. in educational leadership and M.A in educational administration from West Virginia University, and earned his undergraduate degree from Fairmont State College, in Fairmont, West Virginia. He completed post-graduate studies at The Ohio State University and at Marshall University.
Bruce K. Shapiro is Vice President of Training at the Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) and is an attending physician at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, St. Agnes Hospital, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Shapiro holds the Arnold J. Capute, MD, MPH Chair in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities.
Dr. Shapiro is responsible for the design and implementation of the KKI's interdisciplinary training program. This program, which has been in existence since the founding of the KKI, provides training experiences to approximately 350 trainees per year from 10 core disciplines. The goals of the program are: clinical expertise, interdisciplinary process, and leadership training. Dr. Shapiro is also responsible for the coordination of the residency-training program in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities. This is the largest and most established program in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities in the U.S. The goals of the residency are consistent with those of the LEND project. All Residents are engaged in research projects during their training. Graduates of the training program assume leadership positions throughout the world. Finally, Dr. Shapiro is responsible for the training of Residents and Medical Students who undertake electives at KKI. The KKI provides training to all Pediatric Residents from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
He has wide-ranging interests in neurodevelopmental disorders and has participated in research that has focused on identification, assessment and therapy of neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Shapiro serves on the Advisory Board of the NIH study of early childcare; a longitudinal multi-site study that is assessing the effects of different types of childcare on children's development. He serves on the data safety and monitoring board of a NINDS study for children with cerebral palsy and is also a consultant to a study of the development of children who were exposed to drugs in utero.
Dr. Shapiro received his M.D. in 1972 from Boston University where he participated in a six-year combined liberal arts and medical sciences program. After graduation, Dr. Shapiro undertook postdoctoral training at the Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and served as Chief Resident in Pediatrics, and at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
Billie Travis is Curriculum Resource Teacher at Royal Spring Middle School (Scott County, Kentucky) where she brings over 25 years of classroom teaching experience. Ms. Travis is a member of the Kentucky and National Councils of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Middle School Association, and is the Vice-President Elect of the Kentucky Middle School Association. She is a teacher advisor, trainer advocate, and consultant for a variety of public and private state and local educational initiatives. Ms. Travis has received many resource grants for Scott County and she was recognized as Kentucky Teacher of the Year in 2005. She received her Masters in Education from Georgetown College (Kentucky) and her BA from Morehead State University.
Patricia (Pat) Wright is Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction for the Virginia Department of Education. She serves as the Superintendent of Public Instruction's designee for day-to-day operations of the agency and facilitates policy development for the Commonwealth's public education system. Dr. Wright has over 21 years of experience with the Virginia Department of Education and has held several positions, including Deputy Superintendent of Public Education, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, Director of Secondary Instruction, state mathematics specialist and associate director for secondary instruction. In addition, Dr. Wright has 10 years of teaching experience in mathematics at the secondary and middle levels.
Dr. Wright served as a leader in the revision of the Virginia Standards of Learning and has been an invited speaker on standards-based reform in several states. She also served as the Department of Education's liaison for the development of the state mathematics assessment program. Dr. Wright serves as the Department of Education's coordinator for the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, responsible for policy development and implementation.
She has worked on numerous state, regional, and national committees. She served as chief financial officer for the Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics and on its Executive Board from 1996-2003. In 2003, Dr. Wright received the ETA/Cuisenaire Distinguished Service Award. In 2004 and 2006, the Virginia Association of Secondary School Principals recognized Dr. Wright with the Gavel of Authority Award and the Frank E. Flora Lamp of Knowledge Award. She also received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Brunswick County Public Schools. In 2005, Dr. Wright received the Distinguished Alumni Service to Education Award from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education.
She currently serves on the executive board of the Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Deputies Leadership Commission and on the Board of Directors for the Virginia Association of Secondary School Principals, and the Board of Directors of the Mid-Atlantic Affiliate of the American Heart Association.
Dr. Wright received her Ph.D. in mathematics education (with minor concentrations in mathematics and research and evaluation) from the University of Virginia in 1991. She received her MA in mathematics education from Virginia Commonwealth University and B.S. in mathematics from James Madison University.
