Mary E. Curtis is Professor of Education and founding director of the Center for Special Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. Before coming to Lesley in 1999, she directed the Boys Town Reading Center, where she oversaw research and development on Reading Is FAME®, a remedial reading curriculum shown to reverse reading failure in older adolescents.

Mary Beth is the lead author of the Tool Kit for the Student Achievement in Reading (STAR) project, a professional development initiative of the US Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education. Currently she oversees program evaluation and certification activities for the National STAR Training Network.

Mary Beth is the author of numerous articles on reading diagnosis and remediation, the role of vocabulary in comprehension, and the reading skills of at-risk teens and adults. She is a member of the Adult Literacy Research Working Group, and was Lesley's Principal Investigator on a research project for improving the instruction of adult basic education intermediate readers, conducted in collaboration with Harvard University and Soliloquy Learning and funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education.

Mary Beth has been an advisor to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the National Institute for Literacy, the National Center for Family Literacy, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the Massachusetts Department of Education. She is also a member of the Editorial Review Board for Reading Research Quarterly.

In collaboration with Massachusetts Advocates for Children, Mary Beth has been leading Lesley University's effort to develop a training program that supports public school educators and staff in becoming knowledgeable about childhood trauma and its impact on learning.

Mary Beth is also the special education lead for Lesley University's partnership with the Urban Teacher Center. The aim of this project is to (a) provide a new model for teacher preparation and licensure that is linked to results; (b) develop teacher education curricula that draw on the best national practices, and (c) share this curriculum with emerging and existing teacher residency programs.

Mary Beth earned her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, and she has been an Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University, Associate Director of the Harvard Reading Laboratory, and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Learning Research and Development Center (Pittsburgh, PA).

Susan Kando, M.A.

Project Manager, Center for Special Education

617.349.8260

skando@lesley.edu

Susan Kando has worked for the Center for Special Education since 1999 and has been involved in the many activities of the Center - Saturday Workshops, Forums, and Institutes.

Susan earned her MA in Multicultural Studies from Lesley University and a BA in Fine Art from Portsmouth College of Art and Design, England.

updated 12/14/11 | 04:37 PM