Anna Middleton, Ph.D. is a Clinical Research Scientist in the Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning Disorders at Scottish Rite for Children and a Certified Academic Language Therapist. Her clinical training and work in the field of reading disabilities cultivated her interest in the science of reading and the mechanisms by which methods effective reading instruction improve various outcomes. She is a board member of the Academic Language Therapy Association and serves on the editorial board of IDA’s scientific publication, Annals of Dyslexia. Her research interests include optimizing treatment efficacy to improve reading outcomes for all children, characterizing individual differences in response to reading instruction, and enhancing our understanding of the psychological and neurological mechanisms underlying specific learning disabilities, particularly dyslexia.

Laurie E. Cutting, Ph.D., is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Special Education, Psychology and Human Development, Radiology, and Pediatrics and was selected to be the 2017-2018 Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt University. She is also Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, a member of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, training faculty for Vanderbilt’s Neuroscience Ph.D. program, and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories. Her work focuses on the cognitive neuroscience of learning, with a particular emphasis on reading disabilities, language, and executive function. Currently, she is the principal investigator of NIH-funded research projects on reading and reading comprehension and a co-investigator on other NIH- and NSF- projects focused on cognitive development as well as reading and math development and intervention.