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Focus On Basics

Volume 1, Issue B ::: May 1997

Authors Biographies

Mary Beth Curtis is the founding director of the Boys Town Reading Center, Nebraska. Before joining Boys Town USA in 1990, she was Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Associate Director of the Harvard Reading Laboratory. She earned her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, and did postdoctoral work at the Learning Research and Development Center, Pittsburgh, PA.

Donna Earl has been an ABE instructor at the learning center in Mineral Bluff, Georgia, since 1992. She has a Master of Education degree and taught elementary school for 11 years before moving to the Appalachian mountains.

David E. Eskey is Associate Professor of Education and Director of the American Language Institute at the University of Southern California. He is both co-editor and co-author of Teaching Second Language Reading for Academic Purposes (Addison-Wesley: 1986); Research in Reading in English as a Second Language (TESOL: 1987); and Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading (Cambridge: 1988).

Ann Marie Longo is the Associate Director of the Boys Town Reading Center at Father Flanagan's Boys' Home, Nebraska. She has taught and done research at the college, secondary, and elementary levels. Ann Marie received her doctorate degree in reading from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Melissa Nieves, Director of The Family Literacy Program at University Settlement, New York City, started as a teacher's assistant in 1990. She oversees programs in adult literacy and citizenship, a Saturday youth program, a community library, and a computer center. She is the daughter of migrant parents from Puerto Rico and was the first college graduate in her family.

Victoria Purcell-Gates is an Associate Professor of Language and Literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she directs the Harvard Literacy Lab and, for NCSALL, leads a study of the relationships between adults' experiences in their literacy programs and the degree to which their daily literacy practices change. She is the author of Other People's Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy (Harvard University Press: 1995).

Judith Rance-Roney, Director of ESOL, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, has worked in the field of ESOL for more than 20 years, both in the U.S. and China, as teacher, teacher-trainer, and researcher. She is currently working with the Wisconsin Technical College System developing a statewide assessment in ESOL. She does research on adult reading, ESOL assessment, and the psychology of persistence and achievement in adult learners.

Mary Jane Schmitt is Partnership Coordinator for the Office of Mathematics and Science at the Massachusetts Department of Education. She is the president and co-founder of the Adult Numeracy Practitioner Network. Her work in adult education includes teaching, curriculum development, program and staff development, and teacher research.

John Strucker is a research associate at NCSALL and the principle investigator for the Adult Diagnostic Reading Study. A Lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, he teaches a course in developing reading in adults. He taught ABE for 11 years at the Community Learning Center in Cambridge, MA, and, before that, worked as a labor and community organizer in Chicago.

Updated 7/27/07 :: Copyright © 2005 NCSALL