Diane M. Browder, Ph.D., is Snyder Distinguished Professor and doctoral coordinator of Special Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Browder has more than 2 decades of experience with research and writing on assessment and instruction of students with severe disabilities. Recently, she has focused on alternate assessment and linking assessment and instruction to the general curriculum. She is Principal Investigator for an Institute of Education Sciences—funded center with a focus on teaching students with moderate and severe disabilities to read. She is a partner in the National Center on Alternate Assessment and Principal Investigator for Office of Special Education Programs—funded projects on access to the general curriculum.
Dr. Spooner is Professor of Special Education, Coordinator of the Adapted Curriculum (Severe Disabilities) Program, and Principal Investigator on a personnel preparation project involving distance delivery technologies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Spooner has more than 2 decades of experience with research and writing instructional practices for students with severe disabilities. He is co-editor for Teacher Education and Special Education and serves as an associate editor for Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities. He was a co-editor for TEACHING Exceptional Children and an associate editor for Teacher Education and Special Education. Recently, he has focused on alternate assessment and linking assessment and instruction to the general curriculum and serves as a Senior Research Associate for an Institute of Education Sciences—funded center with a focus on teaching students with moderate and severe disabilities to read.
Martin Agran, Ph.D., is a Professor of Special Education at the University of Northern Iowa. Prior to this, he was a Professor of Special Education at Utah State University. Dr. Agran taught high school students with moderate to severe disabilities, was a Fulbright Scholar in the Czech Republic, and served as a consultant and visiting professor at Herzen University of St. Petersburg University, Russia. Dr. Agran's principal research interests include the education of students with severe disabilities, self-determination, transition, and the preparation of teachers of students with significant instructional needs. He has directed several federally funded grants in these areas. He is the associate editor of Research and Practice in Persons with Severe Disabilities (formerly JASH). He is also on the editorial board of several professional journals, and he is the co-editor, along with Dr. Michael L. Wehmeyer, of the American Association on Mental Retardation's research-to-practice publication, Innovations. He has published extensively in the professional literature and is the author of several books, including Teaching Self-Determination to Students with Disabilities: Basic Skills for Transition with Michael L. Wehmeyer and Carolyn Hughes (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1998), Teaching Problem Solving to Students with Mental Retardation with Michael L. Wehmeyer (American Association on Mental Retardation, 1999), and Student-Directed Learning: Teaching Self-Determination Skills (Brooks/Cole, 1997).
