Annemarie Hindman, Ph.D.

Dr. Hindman is Director of the Center, as well as Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education and Educational Psychology at Temple University. She also coordinates the Early & Elementary Teacher Preparation program. Dr. Hindman studies how young children build foundational skills, including language, literacy, and social competence, throughout the first years of life and the transition to formal schooling. Much of her work focuses on communities in poverty, including participants in Head Start programs. Her work includes three strands: professional development interventions, classroom-aligned family interventions, and secondary data analysis. Her research is currently supported by several entities within the US Department of Education, including the Institute of Education Sciences, the Office of Postsecondary Education, and the Office of English Language Acquisition, as well as the William Penn Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Dr. Hindman earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University, as well as a master’s degree in developmental psychology and a Ph.D. in education and psychology from the University of Michigan. Information about her lab is available here: https://sites.temple.edu/annemariehindman/

Laura Pendergast, Ph.D.

The overarching mission of Dr. Laura Pendergast’s research is to promote excellence and equity in psychological and educational assessment. She uses multivariate and measurement statistics to evaluate the equivalence of social, emotional, and behavioral constructs and measures across cultural groups (internationally and domestically). Additionally, she is interested in applying the science of psychometrics to improve decision-making in school psychology, education, and many other disciplines. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles on these topics, and her research has appeared in outlets such as Psychological Assessment and the Journal of School Psychology. Further, her work has been funded through grants and contracts from a variety of organizations including the Society for the Study of School Psychology, the Institute for Education Sciences, the Spencer Foundation, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Edward Fergus-Arcia, Ph.D.

Eddie Fergus-Arcia is an applied researcher and Associate Director of the Center. His work explores the effects of educational policy and practice as it intersects the lives of populations living in vulnerable conditions. More specifically, his policy work extrapolates the relationship between discipline codes of conduct, gifted program practice, and academic referral processes and the educational outcomes of low-income and racial/ethnic minority student populations. This work also outlines policy and practice changes in order for schools to develop as protective environments for vulnerable populations. Fergus consultants on these policy and practice changes with state departments of education (e.g., California and Texas) and U.S. Department of Justice on disproportionality. Additionally, his publications include basic research on educational outcomes of populations in vulnerable conditions, and data workbooks focused on monitoring policy and practice changes.

 

Kathryn Burke, Ph.D.

Dr. Kathryn M. Burke is currently an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Teaching and Learning and Senior Research Associate at the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University. Her research focuses on promoting self-determination across the life course for people with disabilities, as well as inclusive school practices that allow all students to make progress in the general education curriculum. She has experience conducting quantitative and mixed-methods research in the field of special education, including recent work on implementation science and cost analysis. Dr. Burke earned a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in Special Education with a Minor in Research Design and Analysis.

Sarah Cordes, Ph.D.

Dr. Sarah Cordes’ research and teaching interests are in the areas of education and urban policy, school finance, and applied quantitative methods. Her research focuses on the ways in which the urban context, including neighborhoods, housing, and charter schools, affect student outcomes. In particular, her current work explores the spillover effects of NYC charter schools on nearby public school students, the effects of residential and school mobility on student performance, and how changes in school resources influence parents’ investments in their children’s education. In other ongoing work, she is examining the effects of housing vouchers on student performance. She is a recent recipient of the C. Lowell Harris Dissertation Fellowship awarded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy for her work on the relationship between school resources and parental investments.

Alison Gilmour, Ph.D.

Allison Gilmour is an Assistant Professor of Special Education at Temple University in the Department of Teaching and Learning. She studies policies and interventions to improve teaching quality for students with disabilities. Her work has focused on special education service delivery models, teacher evaluation, and classroom management. Dr. Gilmour has a bachelor’s degree in special education from the Pennsylvania State University, a master’s degree in education policy and management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in special education from Vanderbilt University.

Sabina Neugebauer, Ed.D.

Dr. Sabina Neugebauer is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education at Temple University. Dr. Neugebauer’s research focuses on the language and literacy development of traditionally underserved students in urban elementary and middle schools, with a particular focus on vocabulary and reading motivation. Dr. Neugebauer is the recipient of the Outstanding Early Career Scholar Award from AERA’s Division C and the International Literacy Association’s Elva Knight award.  She has published several book chapters and is the author of over 20 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals including the Elementary School Journal, Teachers College Record, and Journal of School Psychology. She is also a co-author of Interventions for Reading Problems: Designing and Evaluating Effective Strategies, published by Guilford Press.  Dr. Neugebauer received her doctorate from Harvard University and served as an Institute of Education Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Connecticut.  Prior to coming to Temple University, she was an Assistant Professor at Loyola University Chicago.

Lia Sandilos, Ph.D.

Lia Sandilos is an assistant professor of school psychology at Temple University. Lia’s school-based research focuses on the quality of the classroom environment. Overarching goals of her research are to improve teachers’ relationships with students and their instructional effectiveness by (a) examining the influence of assessments of quality interactions and instruction on key educational outcomes, and (b) identifying ways to support teachers’ emotional well-being. Her work is also oriented toward better understanding the schooling experiences of young students who are likely to experience social inequities because of their ethnic group membership, family poverty status, or language proficiency status. Dr. Sandilos earned a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University. Prior to coming to Temple, Sandilos was a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at University of Virginia.

W. Joel Schneider, Ph.D.

W. Joel Schneider is an Associate Professor at Temple University in the Psychological Studies in Education Department. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Texas A&M University in 2003. His research interests include cognitive assessment, psychotherapy outcome research, statistical methods, psychometrics, and computer programming. He has taught graduate and undergraduate-level statistics, including regression, multivariate statistics, and test theory. He has published articles on multilevel modeling and structural equation modeling. He is the first author of Essentials of Assessment Report Writing, Second Edition and has developed a growing collection of statistical packages in the R programming environment.

Renée Tobin, Ph.D.

Dr. Renée Tobin is Professor and Coordinator of Counseling Psychology in the Department of Psychological Studies in Education at Temple University. Dr. Tobin has extensive experience conducting qualitative and mixed-methods research with children, adolescents, young adults, and their families, particularly among diverse populations in various school contexts. After completing her doctorate in school psychology at Texas A&M University, she spent 15 years on the faculty at Illinois State University before joining the faculty at Temple University. Dr. Tobin is co-author of the 2015 book DSM-5 Diagnosis in the Schools. She regularly teaches graduate-level courses on theories and techniques of counseling. Her primary research interests center on personality and social development. Her work may be found in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Personality, Psychological Science, School Psychology Quarterly, and Best Practices in School Psychology. She is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment as well as an editorial board member for the Journal of School Psychology.