Resha Conroy is the founder of the Dyslexia Alliance for Black Children, a non-profit organization working to eliminate the amplified inequities for Black children experiencing unaddressed dyslexia and related learning disabilities.

A mother of two children with learning disabilities, including a son with dyslexia, Ms. Conroy is motivated by her family's journey to pursue her lifelong passion for education reform. She has over a decade of experience in education and non-profit management, serving on school leadership teams and as a consultant for charter schools in Washington, DC and New York City. Ms. Conroy has shifted her career to a clinical and direct service role; she is currently a speech-language pathologist and an executive functioning coach with a strong interest in language, literacy, and culture. She has a BA in economics from Smith College, an MPA in non-profit management, and an MS in communicative sciences and disorders from New York University.

Dr. Holly Lane is the Director of the University of Florida Literacy Institute and a professor of special education. Her research focuses on effective reading instruction and intervention and helping teachers develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach reading effectively. Dr. Lane has directed more than $17 million in grants to support reading research and the development of teachers and researchers, and she is the author of numerous publications related to literacy.

Dr. Margie B. Gillis, Ed.D., CALT, is the founder and president of Literacy How, Inc. , a non-profit organization that provides professional learning opportunities and coaching for educators on how best to implement evidence-based practices in the classroom. She has worked at the policy level through the Connecticut State Department of Education and is an advisor for ReadWorks, Understood, and the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction. She is on the Editorial Board of IDA, Perspectives and The Reading League Journal. Margie believes that learning to read is a civil right and that all children can learn to read and benefit from evidence-based instruction.

Claude Goldenberg is the Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, at Stanford University. He received his A.B. in history from Princeton University and M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has taught junior high school in San Antonio, TX, and first grade in a bilingual elementary school in Los Angeles. A native of Argentina, his areas of research centered on promoting academic achievement among language minority students, particularly those from Spanish-speaking backgrounds. He continues writing, volunteering, and consulting on literacy research and policy and on promoting literacy development among students not yet proficient in English.

Dr. St. Martin is the director of Michigan’s MTSS Technical Assistance Center and co-director of the state’s federally funded State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG). Previously, she was the co-director of a federal adolescent literacy model demonstration grant and co-principal investigator of an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) grant evaluating a state-level initiative to implement supplemental academic and behavioral interventions in an MTSS framework. Dr. St. Martin has been a panel member for the IES Practice Guide, Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9. Dr. St. Martin also collaborates with the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Effective Implementation Cohort. She also works with the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) as a Center Trainer. Dr. St. Martin is the primary author of the Reading Tiered Fidelity Inventory (R-TFI) and co-author of implementation capacity assessments for districts and Regional Educational Agencies to guide their supporting infrastructures for an MTSS framework. She has more than 22 years of experience in the field of education.

Susan Brady received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Connecticut in 1975 and presently is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Rhode Island. She has held additional positions at the University of Sussex, St. Andrews University, and Haskins Laboratories. Concentrating on topics in the field of literacy, her research has focused on linguistic underpinnings of reading development and the nature of language weaknesses for struggling readers. In addition, she has been committed to translating the implications of the larger body of reading research for practice and has conducted professional development projects for educators.