Brian Boyd is Professor and Director of the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project at the University of Kansas. As Director of a community-based, applied research center focused on child development, he has been heavily engaged in research that involves the most vulnerable, and often marginalized, populations. As a special educator by training, much of his research has involved the development and evaluation of evidence-based practices that could be implemented within school-based contexts. This work led to some of the first comparative efficacy studies of classroom-based interventions for preschool-aged children on the autism spectrum. His more recent work has focused on how issues of implicit bias and race affect the educational outcomes of young children who live in poverty. Dr. Boyd’s research has been funded by both the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Institutes of Health. Currently, he serves on multiple national boards that are dedicated to improving the outcomes of individuals with disabilities and those from historically underserved communities.

Doré R. LaForett is a senior research scientist in the early childhood area at Child Trends, and an advanced research scientist at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work spans the areas of child development and the educational experiences of young children and families; contexts that influence children’s academic and social-emotional development; educational, social-behavioral, and family-focused interventions; and early care and education programs.

Dr. LaForett has extensive experience conducting research with low-income populations and with culturally and linguistically diverse children and families, with a heavy emphasis on children who are dual language learners. She is principal investigator (PI) of a study funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) examining associations between language of instruction and K-3rd grade students’ academic outcomes in Spanish-English dual language educational settings. She was recently Co-I on an IES-funded randomized control trial study of an evidence-based program study evaluating an evidence-based program for early elementary students on self-regulation and educational outcomes. She is also PI on a secondary analysis study funded by the Office of Planning, Research, & Evaluation examining Head Start’s family support services, and PI on a foundation-funded study to validate a clinic-developed measure of child/youth resiliency. Dr. LaForett is Co-PI on the program performance evaluation (PPE) for North Carolina’s Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five, and also leads the PPE work for the Head Start National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement. Her past work includes co-leading an intervention study targeting mothers of infants and toddlers who were enrolled in Early Intervention services and experiencing depression symptoms.

Dr. LaForett is a licensed psychologist in the state of North Carolina, and she served as an early childhood mental health consultant in Head Start classrooms for over 10 years. Dr. LaForett is an appointed member of the North Carolina Early Childhood Advisory Council, and is the chair-elect for the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Latinx Caucus.