Annotated List of Scholars

Response to Intervention and mathematics

Dr. Lynn Fuchs
Dr. L. Fuchs is a professor in the department of special education at Vanderbilt University. She is one of the most renowned researchers in the area of Response to Intervention and she has published more than 350 empirical studies in peer-review journals. She sits on the editorial boards of 10 journals including the Journal of Educational Psychology,Scientific Studies of Reading, Reading Research Quarterly, Elementary School Journal, Journal of Learning Disabilities, and Exceptional Children. 

Dr. Doug Fuchs
Dr. D. Fuchs earned his PhD at the University Minnesota where he studied under Dr. Stanley Deno. He is a Nicholas Hobbs Professor of Special Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville along with his wife, Lynn Fuchs. He has been the lead researcher on 50 federally-sponsored research grants. They have facilitated development of models of service delivery in the area of Response to Intervention among other things.  

Dr. Russell Gersten
Dr. Gersten received his PhD from the University of Oregon in 1978 and where he worked and retired. He is a nationally recognized expert in intervention research on teaching mathematics to low-achieving students and students with learning disabilities. He also chaired a panel of expert researchers for the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) in June, 2005 to synthesize the knowledge of best practice in early screening and intervention for students with difficulties in mathematics.

Dr. Sharon Vaughn
Dr. Vaughn is a professor of Education at the University of Texas - Austin where she has, as of late, primarily done studies centered around students at the secondary level struggling with reading comprehension. Her primary interests are intervention research for students with learning problems and disabilities. She is also the Manual J. Justiz Endowed chair in Education and executive director of The Meadows center for preventing educational risk.

Dr. Stanley Deno
Dr. Deno is now retired from the University of Minnesota, but spent a number of years researching and working in the field focused on Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM) in reading and arithmetic/basic skills. His work is important because it helped to lay the foundation for one aspect of RTI, data-driven decision making and progress monitoring. 

Dr. Anne Foegen
Dr. Foegen is a professor at Iowa State University where her primary research interests are mathematics learning difficulties, assessment, progress monitoring and learning disabilities. She conducts research on assessment tools to monitor student progress in mathematics was one of the leading researchers on Project AAIMS (Algebra Assessment, Instruction, and Meeting Standards) which helped to develop the only progress monitoring instruments available for high school mathematics.  

Dr. Kenneth Kavale
Dr. Kavale was a leading scholar in the field of learning disabilities and had been, most recently, a professor at Regent University in Virginia Beach although he has also taught at University of Georgia, University of Colorado, University of California at Riverside, and University of Iowa. His piece entitled "Is Response to Intervention Good Policy for Specific Learning Disability (SLD)?" written and published in 2008 helped frame the discussion regarding the use of RTI as a preventative general education initiative as opposed to a means by which students are diagnosed with SLD. Unfortunately, he passed away in late December, 2008 but he left us with a wealth of contributions to the field. He was also the founding editor of the journal Learning Disabilities Research & Practice.