A professor emeritus in the College for Education at the University of Oregon, Dr. Gersten, is Executive Director of Institutional Research Group, a nonprofit educational research Institute with a current IES Teacher Quality Grant, and President of RG Research, a privately owned small business that specializes in Federal evaluation contracts, and for whom he serves as co-principal investigator of a large scale IES evaluation, involving randomized controlled trials, of four approaches for improving the comprehension of expository text of Title One students.

In 2002, Dr. Gersten received the Distinguished Special Education Researcher Award from the American Educational Research Association’s Special Education Research Division. He has over 125 publications in scientific journals such as Review of Educational Research, the American Education Research Journal and Exceptional Children. He serves on 13 editorial boards, including those of some of the most prestigious journals in the field such as Reading Research Quarterly, American Educational Research Journal and Journal of Learning Disabilities, Exceptional Children, and Elementary School Journal. He serves on numerous technical and professional advisory boards for both IES and the Office of Special Education. Dr. Gersten received his B.A. in Physical Sciences from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Oregon.

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Dr. Wilkins joined Edvance Research from Harcourt Assessment, where he was a senior psychometrician. In that capacity, Dr. Wilkins developed norms and performed advanced statistical analyses for many of the company’s standardized tests. He also conducted research on innovative norming methods, such as inferential norming, as well as issues related to small sample sizes, simulation studies and many other topics.

Dr. Wilkins has been a researcher at the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center, where he worked on projects such as computerized adaptive testing, neural networks and Monte Carlo simulations. He also worked at Baylor University with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Graduate Statistics, where he was the coordinator of the biostatistics program and taught courses in biostatistics and survival analysis.

Dr. Wilkins is a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).

He holds a Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from Johns Hopkins University and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

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At Edvance Research, Dr. Rolfhus designs randomized controlled trials to study topics such as response to intervention (RTI) and collaborative strategic reading (CSR), and conducts research on a variety of other topics, such as college readiness.

Dr. Rolfhus joined Edvance Research from Harcourt Assessment, where he was co-research director for the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children® – Fourth Edition (WISC®-IV). He also served as methodologist and psychometrician for a number of other individually administered psychological assessments. Past research work includes projects in foreign-language test adaptation, small-sample test norming, lifespan intellectual development, and non-cognitive predictors of performance and knowledge acquisition.

Prior to joining Harcourt, Dr. Rolfhus conducted post-doctorate research in cognitive aging at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). He is a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Psychological Association (APA), the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) and the National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN).

Dr. Rolfhus holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota. He also earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate in cognitive psychology from the University of Minnesota.

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Dr. Hartman has 25 years of varied experience in public education. She began her career as an elementary school teacher and has served both as a school principal and a district level administrator. Most recently she worked as a curriculum and assessment expert to support the improvement efforts of low performing schools in northern California. Dr. Hartman has worked in small, rural schools as well as in urban settings and has taught all grade levels from kindergarten through eighth grade and at the university graduate level.

Dr. Hartman received her Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, a Master of Arts degree in Computer-based Education from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, and her Ed.D. in Education Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York.

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Dr. Brunnert has twelve years of experience conducting rigorous lab and field-based research, with emphasis on methodology, test development and psychometrics for students of all ages.

Dr. Brunnert joined Edvance Research from Pearson, formerly Harcourt Assessment, where she was the primary Senior Research Scientist for the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test – Second Edition and the primary Research Director for the Wechsler Nonverbal Scale of Ability and the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test – Individual Administration. She also served as methodological and psychometric consultant within Harcourt Assessment and Pearson for a number of other groups and individually administered psychological and educational assessments. Dr. Brunnert is a co-author of The Essentials of WNV Assessment.

Prior to joining Pearson, Dr. Brunnert worked as a Statistical Assistant at the Beach Center for Families and Disabilities, Life Span Institute at the University of Kansas.

Dr. Brunnert was an ETS / GRE Warren Willingham Fellowship winner in 1998 and received a dissertation award from the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology in 1999.

Dr. Brunnert holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Theatre Arts from Eastern Illinois University, and a Master’s degree in Experimental Psychology and a Doctorate in Quantitative Psychology from the University of Kansas.

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Prior to joining Edvance Research, Gregory was employed in the clinical assessment division of Pearson, formerly Harcourt Assessment, for approximately 18 years. During her tenure, Gregory served as a Project Director and Senior Research Director in the Speech and Language group, specializing in the research and development of many well-known assessments and interventions for use by speech-language pathologists. These assessments include the ground-breaking Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV); the Preschool Language Scale-Fourth Edition (PLS-4); and the Bracken Basic Concept Scale-Revised (BBCS-R) and Third (BBCS-3) editions.

Gregory is a licensed speech-language pathologist, and holds a certificate of clinical competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association of which she is a member. She is a past member of the Texas Speech & Hearing Association.

Gregory holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Houston and a Master’s degree in Communication Disorders from Our Lady of the Lake University.

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Prior to joining Edvance Research, Dr. Decker was a teaching assistant at the University of Virginia, primarily in Correlation and Regression Analysis, as well as Child Development. She has extensive research experience in social and emotional learning intervention, in particular the Responsive Classroom Approach. She has analyzed data on pre-service teachers as part of the Carnegie Teachers for a New Era project.

She is a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Evaluation Association (AEA), American Psychological Association (APA), and Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). Dr. Decker has also served as a reviewer for Early Education and Development, NHSA Dialog, and Urban Education. Dr. Decker was the 2004 recipient of the Institute of Education Sciences Pre-doctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training grant.

Dr. Decker holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University and both a master’s in Educational Psychology and a doctorate degree in Risk & Prevention in Education Science from the University of Virginia.

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Nitin Sharma conducts and helps manage large, full-service primary and secondary research studies. He also participates in the management of the day-to-day activities that ensure the successful completion of educational research projects.

Sharma is a seasoned market research professional. With more than nine years of experience in the fields of market and financial data analysis, project management, industry and market segmentation, and strategy formulation in sectors such as education, publishing, health care, and technology, Sharma is a versatile researcher with numerous cross-functional skills.

Prior to joining Edvance Research, Inc., Sharma was a senior market research analyst at Harcourt Assessment, where he conducted research and interpreted results for the elementary, secondary and higher education assessment sectors and provided expert analyses that transformed raw data into actionable strategic plans. Prior to his work at Harcourt, Sharma provided professional services as a project manager, industry analyst and business strategy consultant.

Sharma holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology in India, as well as a master’s degree in business administration with concentrations in management decisions and data mining from George Washington University, where he was awarded the prestigious Global Leader’s Fellowship Award.

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Prior to joining Edvance Research, Brite worked at Harcourt Assessment, Inc. where she assisted in the development and publication of a variety of Early Childhood assessment products such as Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development—Third Edition, Bayley–III Screening Test, Bayley–III Motor Test, Greenspan Social Emotional Growth Chart, Ready to Learn, and Wechsler Fundamentals: Academic Skills. These developmental assessment products were tailored to identify the need for early intervention services and assist parents and service providers in planning intervention strategies for children, and included extensive studies on children with disabilities. Preceding her work on the development of assessment products, she worked at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Her former work in research at UTSA included participation and assistance in the development of various research projects. Primary projects included survey research of the demography of San Antonio and the surrounding areas, a needs assessment of the lives of Kerr County residents, the UTSA Formula Funding project, and a feasibility study for the UTSA Department of Psychology’s Doctoral Program proposal. During her work at UTSA she designed questionnaires for survey research, developed survey instruments, examined the criteria and procedure for valid and reliable measures, conducted phone, mail, and personal interviews for survey research, and follow up research including additional survey interviews and on site visits. While working for UTSA, Brite served as a representative of the University in the San Antonio Metropolitan Health Project: Mobilizing Action through Planning and Partnerships. This project evaluated community health and planned for action that would ultimately lead to community health improvement. In addition to her test development and research experience, Brite served as an instructor for undergraduate Experimental Psychology where she taught students how to apply experimental design procedures to select problems in the collection of data and evaluation of Psychological theories.

Brite holds a bachelor of arts degree in Psychology and a master of science degree in Psychology from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

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Prior to joining Edvance Research, Howland was a Senior Research Analyst at Pearson (formerly Harcourt Assessment) supporting development of clinical diagnostics in the area of speech and language. In that role, Howland participated centrally in all phases of assessment research and development, including item development and review; component design and development; data collection, review, and analysis; item selection and ordering; and final publication. She contributed to numerous products, including the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP), Sensory Profile School Companion, and CELF Preschool–2 Spanish. Howland also served as project lead for the Bracken School Readiness Assessment–3 (BSRA–3).

As a graduate student, Howland taught Introduction to Composition to first-year college students, gaining valuable insight into the range of writing skills college freshmen bring to the university experience.

Howland holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in English from Texas A&M University.

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