Consultants
Dean Fixsen
Dean Fixsen is co-director, along with Karen Blasé, of the National Implementation Research Network and the State Implementation of Scaling-up Evidence-based Practices Center. He also serves as co-principal investigator and co-director of the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (NECTAC). Dean received his doctorate in Experimental Psychology from the University of Kansas in 1970. At this time, Dean began a long-term collaboration with Lonnie Phillips, Elaine Phillips-Stork, and Montrose Wolf in the development of the internationally acclaimed Teaching-Family Model. He served as Co-director of the Achievement Place Research Project during the years of intense research on the treatment components of the Model. In the past decade, Dean has focused on the factors involved in successful implementation of the evidence-based programs in provider agencies and transformation of state systems to support those programs. In addition to co-authoring nearly 100 publications, he has advised local, state, and federal governments. Prior to joining FPG, Dr. Fixsen was a research professor at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI), at the University of South Florida.
John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin is an independent consultant in strategic planning, performance measurement, and program evaluation in public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. For the past 30 years, he has assisted in the design, delivery, and evaluation of programs at federal/state/local government levels; and for 10 years has designed and implemented training and TA for federal/state/local managers as they moved their organizations to becoming performance-based. Some of his clients in performance management have been Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Environmental Protection Agency; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Institutes of Health; The United Way of America; and Virginia Department of Education.
Ellen Moir
Ellen Moir is founder and executive director of the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Under Dr. Moir's leadership, the Center has influenced the quality of induction programs and new teacher practice through consultation and support organizations, educational leaders, and policy makers thought U.S. and abroad. For more than 20 years, Dr. Moir has pioneered innovative approaches to new teacher development, research on new teacher practice, and design and administration of teacher induction programs.
Michael Strong
Michael Strong is Director of Research at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) New Teacher Center. He is responsible for designing and conducting studies that investigate the nature and effectiveness of teacher preparation and support. Dr. Strong has a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of London and a doctorate in Language and Reading Development from the School of Education, University of California at Berkeley. He has taught students of all ages from elementary through adult. Before coming to the UCSC New Teacher Center, he was an Associate Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the Center on Deafness at UC San Francisco; as Director of Research, he led a program of studies on various aspects of the language development, education, and mental health of deaf children. He has published two books and more than 30 academic papers in the last 20 years.
Sean Smith
Sean Smith is an Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas. Smith has a background in the area of special education and technology. He was recently the Prinicipal Investigator on two technology-based projects focused on the enhancement of effective instruction, assessment, and the use of accommodations to further students with disabilities' access to the general education curriculum. Dr. Smith currently facilitates the Kansas Infinitec Coalition. This project involves over half the districts in Kansas and is focused on enhancing the use of technology in the lives of students with disabilities and struggling students.
Bonnie Billingsley
Bonnie Billingsley, a professor at Virginia Tech, has authored numerous refereed articles on teacher attrition and retention, commitment, and the support of new teachers. Her research agenda focuses on special education personnel issues. Her recent book, Cultivating and Keeping Committed Special Educators, synthesizes the research on SET attrition and provides a leader's framework for cultivating teacher quality and retention in special education. Her research findings have been cited in national newsletters read by policy makers, and she regularly gives invited presentations of her research to various audiences.
