Erin E. Barton, Ph.D., BCBA-D, Barton Consulting, LLC, Nashville, TN is an international educational consultant and Faculty for the Pyramid Model Consortium. She has worked in the field of education for over thirty years in many different capacities including as a special education teacher, family coach, and university professor. She has developed the training materials and coaching tools for supporting the use of evidence-based practices in natural and inclusive settings.
She is a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst and directs research projects related to evidence-based practices for young children, policies and practices that support high quality inclusion, and effective professional development systems. Dr. Barton is an active scholar with over 120 publications in major journals, multiple chapters, and several textbooks related to evidence-based practices. Dr. Barton serves on several editorial boards and is the Editor-in-Chief of Topics in Early Childhood Special Education. She has received many honors including the 2021 Peabody Faculty Excellence Award: Service to Students and 2020 Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow at Vanderbilt University. She also was honored with the 2019 Merle B. Karnes Award for Service to the Division for Early Childhood and the 2017 Distinguished Early Career Research Award from the Division for Research of the Council for Exceptional Children.
Barbara J. Smith, Ph.D., Research Professor, University of Denver Colorado serves on the Leadership Team of the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI) and was an early developer of the Pyramid Model leadership strategies. She is co-author, with Erin Barton, of The Preschool Inclusion Toolbox: How to Build and Lead a High-Quality Program published by Brookes. She has developed an online, navigable guide to implementation and scale-up that is being used by states in their adoption of the Pyramid Model and inclusion.
Brandy M. Locchetta, Ph.D., BCBA-D, Assistant Professor, University of West Georgia, Carrollton is an Assistant Professor of Special Education and coordinator of the Applied Behavior Analysis program at the University of West Georgia. She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Ph.D. in Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis. Brandy has worked in a wide variety of roles at various system levels in early childhood and special education since 2001. Brandy brings a tremendous passion and wealth of experience and expertise to the areas of early childhood inclusion, applied behavior analysis in schools, special education law and policy, social-emotional development, social justice issues in education, and practitioner preparation.
