Pam Austin

Pam Austin has worked as a professional learning facilitator manger with over 15 years of experience in training and supporting districts in various literacy and numeracy interventions for Voyager Sopris Learning in addition to delivering LETRS professional development sessions. Her goal is to aid teachers in changing the lives of students so that they not only become proficient and successful in literacy, but also as life-long readers. Pam has over 34 years of experience as an educator, previously working as a literacy specialist at the Center for Development and Learning (CDL) now Center for Literacy and Learning by supporting SRCL school districts with diagnostic evaluations, observations, and targeted support based on school-specific literacy needs. Previously, she was an educator in the New Orleans Public Schools, where she served as an elementary teacher, a reading interventionist for at-risk students, a school-based reading coach, and a central office field literacy facilitator. As a field literacy facilitator, Pam provided literacy support to principals, school-site facilitators, and teachers for 10 to 12 schools in the district. In collaboration, she developed, planned, presented, and facilitated a variety of literacy-related professional development sessions for elementary and middle school school-site facilitators and teachers.

Karol Ann Moore

Karol Ann Moore, Ph.D., LDT, CALT, SLDS serves as the Director of Research and Associate Vice President of Curriculum and Instruction at Neuhaus Education Center (NEC). She is a recent Ph.D. graduate from Texas A&M University with an endorsement in Advanced Research Methods where her research centered around the prevalence and identification of dyslexia in Texas. Karol Ann is also a Licensed Dyslexia Therapist, Certified Academic Language Therapist, and Certified Dyslexia Specialist through the International Dyslexia Association. She currently has 6 published articles and two book chapters, and has spoken to various audiences on dyslexia identification, reading comprehension, teacher knowledge, and orthography. As the Director of Research, she coordinates and manages third-party research, identifies relevant research that supports the work and mission of NEC, and conducts research to provide NEC with qualitative and quantitative data to inform and support programming. In her role as Associate Vice President of Curriculum and Instructional Design, she manages the development of new professional development and curricula.

Terrie Noland

For 25 years, Dr. Terrie Noland has put her energy into leadership and literacy; first as a teacher and administrator, and now as a national non-profit Literacy Leader. Terrie mentor’s leaders about the latest research around the science of reading. She hosts a podcast, Learning Ally Literacy Leadership, to build a community of literacy champions.

Recognized as a national thought-leader, Terrie speaks to crowds to hear captivating stories, leadership principles, research, and best practices in Literacy, which she always delivers with humor, and inspiration. 

Terrie is a Certified Academic Language Practitioner and has a Ph.D. in Literacy. She is Maxwell Leadership Certified and a member of the President's Advisory Council. She hosts the Spotlight Learning Series by Learning Ally and builds communities of educators to lead large in Literacy. Terrie's passion runs deep for children and she is truly an advocate for them and the educators who serve them. 

Cherry Craig Lee

Cherry Craig Lee, Ed.D serves in the Austin Independent School District as the Director of Section 504 and Dyslexia. Dr. Lee graduated from Austin College in Sherman, Texas with a B.A. in Sociology in 1995. After completing her teacher training through the Region XIII Alternative Certification Program in Austin, Texas, she served as a special education teacher, a general education teacher, and reading interventionist at the elementary school level. She received her master's in Special Education, with a focus on dyslexia and educational diagnostics from Midwestern State University. She is a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT), a Licensed Dyslexia Therapist (LDT), and an Educational Diagnostician. Cherry has also held educational leadership positions at the district and state level, including serving as the Director of Reading at the Texas Education Agency. Her professional interests include academic assessment and interventions, equity in education, teacher training, global literacy, and dyslexia. Dr. Lee completed her doctorate at Lamar University in Education Leadership where she conducted mixed methods research to investigate teacher perceptions of their preservice handwriting training, as well as their current implementation of handwriting instruction.

NeCol Roager

NeCol Roager has taught in general and special education settings since 1992 and as an Assistive Technology Specialist for Austin ISD since 2013. NeCol has a master’s degree in Special Education from Chapman University and a bachelor's degree in Child Development from California State University, Sacramento. NeCol collaborates with educational teams to develop and implement assistive technology solutions. Her goal is to help campus educational teams use technology to improve student performance. She also aims to build capacity and to increase knowledge about AT, UDL, MTSS, and accessibility. She and her husband love to explore the Austin area and travel the world.

Carye Edelman

Carye Edelman began her teaching career in 1979 with Austin ISD after graduating from The University of Texas at Austin. She started as a Special Education teacher and continued teaching for 11 years, until being offered the opportunity to work with other Special Education teachers district-wide on understanding and implementing Adaptive Technologies. She has continued as an Assistive Technology Specialist for Austin ISD for 32 years. In that time she has presented locally, regionally and nationally on implementing AT, models of training and capacity-building for AT, classroom integration, and working within our LEA on UDL and accessibility issues of our curriculum materials. She is a daughter, sister, parent, step-parent, and GiGi. She is a native Texan currently residing in Austin, Texas. When not working, she loves to spend time with her family, and is an avid baseball fan of the Texas Longhorns and Houston Astros. 

Shira Goldberg

Shira Goldberg is a Texas native with over 14 years of experience in education. After obtaining her Master’s in Education from the University of Texas at Austin, Shira worked in special education classroom settings and at Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center for the Blind. She began working as an AT Specialist in Austin ISD in 2013 and has enjoyed a wonderful team of colleagues as well as a great amount of progress in the accessibility space in education since then. Shira lives in Austin with her family and spends her free time at her kids’ extracurricular activities!

Clee Upchurch

Drawing from experience in education and business, Clee Upchurch, M.Ed., has worked at the intersection of education and innovation for over twenty years. As the COO for lead4ward, an education organization, Clee is passionate about providing educators with resources and support systems designed to help them focus their energy on instructing and inspiring students. Clee’s background affords her a uniquely qualified perspective on how to support educators and impact students. Clee has a passion for making learning accessible to all and has held many volunteer positions focusing on supporting those with learning differences at the campus, district and state level.

Suzann Vera

Suzann is a Certified Academic Language Therapist- Qualified Instructor and Licensed Dyslexia Therapist working full time as a Dyslexia Coordinator in Austin ISD. With over 25 years in public education, Suzann has had the opportunity to work with students, families, and fellow educators. Trained in both Texas Scottish Rite Hospital’s Take Flight and Neuhaus’s Basic Language Skills, Suzann has taught children identified with dyslexia and those who struggle in language arts to read, write, and spell. She is a member of the International Dyslexia Association and the Academic Language Therapy Association. Since her own child struggled to read in the first grade, Suzann has become passionate about providing staff development for other educators and holding parent workshops on dyslexia identification, the referral process, intervention with direct, explicit multisensory instruction, and other resources. When not working with students, Suzann likes to play board games with her husband and son, read books, cook, and camp.

Malú Martinez

Maria G. Martinez (Malú) is a Dyslexia Specialist at Austin Independent School District. She graduated from Southwest Texas State University, with a B.A. in 1999. In her more than 20 years as a teacher, Malu has served in many capacities that include bilingual education, dual language, Spanish, ESL math and reading interventionist and as a Certified Academic Language Therapist. As a writer and editor of Spanish resources, she has collaborated with different editorials to help plan, revise, and produce content for Spanish and ESL textbooks used in California, Texas and Florida’s public schools.  She received her Master’s in Educational Leadership from Texas State University in 2014.  Malu has dedicated part of her career organizing community gatherings and parent support groups to facilitate school engagement. In her free time, Malu enjoys reading, biking, kayaking, and spending time with her family.