Carol Brown, EdD , is Superintendent of the Twiggs County, Georgia, public schools. She has served Twiggs County Public Schools for over 23 years, overseeing the PreK program, the Reading First program, a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant, and other academic initiatives. Dr. Brown serves as director of the districts Early Reading First program and is Adjunct Professor at Central Georgia Technical College.

Martha Jane Buell, PhD , is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Delaware. Her research addresses issues affecting early care and educational quality. Specifically, she is interested in the systems that support professional development for early care and education staff, especially those who serve infants and toddlers, as well as ways to support early literacy. Dr. Buell has been involved in the University of Delawares Early Head Start program as well as three Early Reading First projects.

Christopher E. Chin, PhD , is a child clinical psychologist and Assistant Director for Research at the Literacy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He is also Adjunct Professor in VCUs School of Education and Department of Psychology. Dr. Chin has served as an evaluator and/or principal investigator on several early literacy and family literacy projects, including three Early Reading First grants. He has also served as a consultant for several local and state literacy-and early childhood-related projects and initiatives and is currently co-chairman of the Accountability and Evaluation Committee for the governors Early Childhood Professional Development Taskforce in Virginia.

Kristin Conradi, MEd (see ).

Alanna Rochelle Dail, PhD , is Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in early literacy and elementary reading methods. She has written articles for a variety of journals. Currently, she is project director and principal investigator of a 2007 Early Reading First (ERF) grant awarded to the University of Alabama. Dr. Dail provides professional development for ERF projects and frequently works with preschool teachers in their classrooms.

Glenda T. Eady, MS , currently serves as project manager for the Twiggs County, Georgia, Early Reading First project. Ms. Eady has provided leadership in literacy initiatives for the Twiggs County Public Schools through the Reading Excellence Act and the Reading First programs. She served as program director of the Even Start program for Twiggs County for 8 years.

Billie J. Enz, PhD , is a senior faculty member in the Department of Early Childhood in the College of Teacher Education and Leadership at Arizona State University. Dr. Enz is the author or coauthor of several books on new teacher development and mentor training, and language and literacy development in young children. Currently, she is a co-principal investigator for the First Things First External Evaluation grant, a tri-university initiative assessing the systemwide impact of early intervention and support programs for young children and their families in the state of Arizona.

Karen Ford, PhD , is research scientist in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, where her work focuses on second-language literacy development and literacy development in Spanish. Her research interests include early predictors of reading achievement among English language learners, readability in Spanish text, and the relationship between language development and literacy development in a second language. Currently, Dr. Ford is co-investigator on a large-scale grant, funded by the Institute of Education Sciences of the United States Department of Education, to develop valid and reliable early literacy assessments in Spanish.