Research
Research on adolescent literacy, academic vocabulary, reading comprehension, assessment, multilingual learners, and data-informed learning.
I study how adolescents learn to read complex texts, build academic knowledge, and use language to think and learn across disciplines — using rigorous methods and close partnerships with educators to improve outcomes for all learners.
- Adolescent LiteracyVocabulary, comprehension, and disciplinary literacy development from middle school through early adulthood.
- Data-Informed InstructionHow educators and systems use assessment data to guide teaching decisions and improve student outcomes.
- Science of Reading for Older StudentsTranslating reading science for grades 4–12 with attention to multilingual learners and academic language.
- Measurement & AssessmentDesigning valid, equitable measures of language, vocabulary, and comprehension.
- Multilingual LearningEquitable instruction and assessment for multilingual learners.
BEAM is the umbrella project for my current work at the intersection of literacy, artificial intelligence, and educational measurement. The project develops assessment tools, research infrastructure, and applied partnerships that help educators understand learners more precisely and act on evidence more effectively.
ActiveThis project frames Reading Ways as a research-practice platform for older students who need more precise reading support. The focus is on individual reading plans, student profiles, strategy recommendations, and implementation routines that help schools move from screening data to instructional action.
ActiveBetter Equipped for School focuses on early language development and the assessment of listening comprehension before and during the transition to school. The project centers on LURI, an oral language assessment designed to capture how children understand, remember, and reason from spoken stories.
ActiveThis project builds on my research on the dimensionality of lexical features and vocabulary item difficulty. The current work uses lexical dimensions to support AI-assisted vocabulary item development, better sampling of word meanings, and more informative assessment for adolescent readers.
ActiveImplementation Streams connects the SCALE data, Reading Ways professional learning, and current implementation work with Vanderbilt. The project studies how teachers and coaches engage with professional learning over time using forum posts, platform traces, coaching artifacts, and ratings of cognitive and affective alignment.
ActiveThis project connects my vocabulary assessment work with the ROAR platform and the broader challenge of building rapid, scalable, and instructionally useful assessments for adolescent readers. The work focuses on AI-supported item development, targeted sampling of word meanings, and rapid feedback that can inform reading support.
Active