READY TO READ
Research Team
Susan Neuman, Project Director
Susan B. Neuman is a Professor of Educational Studies at the University of Michigan, specializing in early literacy development. She received her doctorate at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California in 1977, and her B.A. at American University. Susan is involved in a number of research projects all working to change the odds for children in poverty.
sbneuman@umich.edu
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sbneuman/
Administrative Staff
Colleen Neilson, Administrative Assistant
Colleen Neilson joined the Ready to Read research program in 2006 as our project administrator. Colleen has worked with faculty at the School of Education for over 12 years managing academic and research-related affairs.
cneilson@umich.edu
Project Supervisors
Teresa Hogg, is the Site Manager for Jumpstart, partnering UM students in collaboration with area preschool classrooms serving at-risk children. In previous years, Teri was the project supervisor for the Project Great Start research program. Teri has served on several early childhood research teams as a research assistant specializing in child and classroom assessment, including Ready To Learn, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, and NAEPS.
Prior to her career in applied research, Teri spent 12 years as a Head Start teacher. She is presently pursuing her master's degree in Early Childhood Education and often presents at statewide and national conferences.
www.jumpstartum.org
thogg@umich.edu
Janet Mayotte
Janet Mayotte currently works as a project manager on the Ready to Read
research team. She is involved in training, scheduling and managing field
assessors as well as she recruits and coordinates research sites. In
previous years, Janet worked as an observer/assessor on Project Great Start
and Ready to Learn.
Janet is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Educational Studies at Eastern
Michigan University, with a specialized focus on early childhood literacy
within urban settings. She earned her B.A. degree in Special Education:
Emotionally Impaired & Communications and M.A. degrees in Special
Education: Learning Impaired and Early Childhood Education from Eastern
Michigan University. Janet completed her M.A. degree in Language, Literacy
and Culture from the University of Michigan.
Prior to her career in educational research, Janet worked numerous years as
an elementary classroom teacher in both public and private school settings.
janmay@umich.edu
Loren Marulis coordinates field placement and data collection for the Longitudinal Home Study and leads the Vocabulary Meta-analysis, a statistical examination of the effects of training and intervention on children's word learning.
Loren will be a doctoral student in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at University of Michigan in Fall 2009. Previously she has earned her Bachelor of Art's degree in Elementary Education, Bachelor of Science degree in Child Development and Teaching, Master of Art's degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Michigan State University and a Master of Art's degree in Cognitive Psychology from Northwestern University.
She taught Elementary school for seven years and was a Learning Specialist for two years. She has worked as a Research Assistant at Cognitive Development Labs at Ohio State University and Northwestern University and a Teaching Assistant at Northwestern University. Loren presents her research and training at conferences and workshops throughout the state as well as nationally and internationally.
Debra Simon, UM-Ready to Read Data Manager
Deb completed her degree in Early Childhood Development and taught preschool for three years before beginning her work at UM. She worked as an observer/assessor on Project Great Start and Ready to Learn. Previously, Deb managed assessor scheduling and data collection and currently oversees data management of the various studies in the UM-Ready to Read project.
debsimon@umich.edu
Research Partners
Lillian Chen serves as a postdoctoral fellow for the Ready to Learn research program. She received her doctorate and M.S. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Michigan and her B.A. in Language & Mind and Psychology from New York University. Her research interests have included the psychology of language, word recognition, ambiguity resolution, bilingualism, and sentence comprehension.
Tanya Kaefer
Tanya received her bachelor's degree from University of Waterloo in
Waterloo, Ontario in 2004, where she completed her honors thesis in
psychology. She received her MA in psychology from Duke in 2006, and her
PhD from Duke in 2009. Her dissertation focused on orthographic knowledge
in pre-and-early-readers. Her research interests focus on the cognitive and
social factors in pre-school that affect reading acquisition long term.
Research Assistants
Serene Koh, Doctoral Candidate
Serene Koh is a doctoral candidate in Educational Foundations and Policy at the School of Education, University of Michigan. She received her M.A. at the University of Michigan, specializing in Educational Foundations and Policy, and was previously an English teacher in Singapore for four years. Her research interests include the sociology of education, early childhood education and children's development of civic and political literacy.
serenek@umich.edu
Tanya Wright, Graduate Student
Tanya S. Wright is a doctoral student in the Language, Literacy and Culture program at the School of Education, University of Michigan. She received her M.A. as a Reading Specialist from Teachers College, Columbia University and her B.A. from Columbia College, Columbia University. Tanya is a former kindergarten teacher whose interests include early childhood literacy as well as teacher education and teacher professional development in the area of language and literacy.
tsbw@umich.edu
Project Support Staff
Christina E. Mendez is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and received her B.A. in psychology. She is currently a research associate for the Ready to Read research program, specializing in data management and office association. In addition to her interests in early childhood education, Christina is continuing her education in the field of nursing.
cemendez@umich.edu
