Samuel L. Odom is Director of the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute and Professor of Education at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to his work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Odom previously served in faculty positions at Indiana University and Peabody College/Vanderbilt University. Dr. Odom received a master's degree in special education in 1976 and an educational specialist degree in educational psychology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1979. He earned his doctorate in 1982 in education and human development from the University of Washington.
Throughout his career, Dr. Odom has held positions as a preschool teacher, student teaching supervisor, program coordinator, teacher educator, and researcher. He has written many articles and chapters about programs for young children and their families and has served as the co-editor of five books on early childhood special education. Dr. Odom is an associate editor for Exceptional Children and is on the editorial board of Journal of Early Intervention, Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. He received the Special Education Outstanding Research Award from the American Educational Research Association Special Education Special Interest Group in 1999, the Merle Karnes Contribution to the Field Award from the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) in 2001, and the Outstanding Special Education Research Award from CEC in 2007.
Dr. Odom's research interests include interventions and teaching approaches that promote social competence of young children, effective intervention approaches for children with autism, and early childhood curricula that promote children's school success.
Marci J. Hanson, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Special Education at San Francisco State University (SFSU). At SFSU, Dr. Hanson is actively engaged in teaching, research, and service related to young children and their families. In addition to these responsibilities, she directs the SFSU joint doctoral program in special education with the University of California, Berkeley, and codirects the early childhood special education graduate program. She is a consultant with the child and adolescent development faculty of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families at SFSU and with San Francisco Head Start.
James A. Blackman, M.D., M.P.H., is Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Research at the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center at Children's Medical Center at the University of Virginia. Dr. Blackman has been very involved in the study, implementation, and educational aspects of early intervention services through interdisciplinary collaborations at the local, state, and national levels, In 1988, he founded Infants and Young Children, an interdisciplinary journal on special care practices. Dr. Blackman has authored or edited numerous books on early intervention, including Medical Aspects of Developmental Disabilities in Children Birth to Three (Aspen Publishers, 1997). He received a doctoral degree in medicine from The Ohio State University and received fellowship training in developmental pediatrics at Harvard University. As a 1998–1999 recipient of the Mary E. Switzer Fellowship, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Dr. Blackman studied early intervention practices in Europe.
Sudha Kaul, Ph.D., is Executive Director at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy. Dr. Kaul received a doctoral degree in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) from Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. She has worked as a classroom teacher and teacher trainer. In addition to serving as Executive Director of the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy, Dr. Kaul is the Institute's Founder Vice Chairperson. She also serves as Director of the Post Graduate Diploma Course in Special Education at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Dr. Kaul developed a test in receptive language of Hindi-speaking children, co-authored a book on AAC, and has developed various video teaching programs on early intervention. In 1990, she received the President's Award from the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) and is the Indian representative on ISAAC's board of directors. Her research focuses on child language and the communication interaction patterns of typically developing children and children who do not speak.
Michael J. Guralnick, Ph.D., is Director of the Center on Human Development and Disability (CHDD) and Professor of Psychology and Pediatrics at the University of Washington, Seattle. Comprising both a University Affiliated Program and a Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, the CHDD is one of the largest interdisciplinary research and training centers in the United States, addressing issues directly related to developmental disabilities. More than 600 faculty and staff members and doctoral and postdoctoral students operate within the four CHDD buildings on the campus of the University of Washington and in community sites to conduct basic and applied research, to provide clinical services to individuals and their families, to provide interdisciplinary clinical and research training, and to provide technical assistance and outreach training to practitioners and community agencies.
Dr. Guralnick has directed research and development projects in the fields of early childhood intervention, inclusion, peer relationships, and pediatric education. He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters and 7 edited volumes. Dr. Guralnick's publications have appeared in a diverse group of well-respected journals, including Child Development, Pediatrics, American Journal on Mental Retardation, Journal of Early Intervention, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, and Development and Psychopathology.
He currently directs a major research project supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development designed to determine the effectiveness of a comprehensive early intervention program in promoting the peer-related social competence of young children with developmental delays.
Dr. Guralnick received the 1994 Research Award from the American Association on Mental Retardation and the 1997 Distinguished Research Award from The Arc of the United States. He is past President of both the American Association of University Affiliated Programs and the Council for Exceptional Children's Division for Early Childhood and is former Chair of the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center Directors. He is currently Chair of the International Society on Early Intervention and is President-Elect of the Academy on Mental Retardation.
