These are the candidates for election for the two SSSR Board Members. Voting members will receive an email from Surveymonkey with a one-time valid link to the ballot. The deadline for voting is October 26, 2018.
JAN FRIJTERS
Professor, Brock University
There would only ever be one reason that I would accept a nomination to the board, and that would be to welcome the opportunity to give back. Since 2005 when I gave my first presentation in our Toronto meetings, the society has been giving *to* me. For these 13 years it has been an intellectual nexus and meeting point for those with a primary concern for rigorous, systematic inquiry into reading development, reading dysfunction, reading and related processes. The connections, conversations, and collaborations that have formed in these meetings have been countless. A few words about myself and what I bring to this role. By training I am an Applied Developmental Psychologist, currently a Professor at Brock University in Canada and Research Professor in the Lesesenteret (National Reading Center of Norway) at the University of Stavanger. With close collaborators in the US, Canada, Norway and the UK, I would bring to this position a reasonably strong awareness of international issues. My own research has primarily focused on using reading intervention as an intense developmental laboratory of sorts - a microcosm in which reading acquisition and the processes that support it can be studied closely. Out of this I have developed a concern for individual differences, and especially the vexing problem of how to quantify intervention response and/or developmental change. As a board member, I would work hard to improve the qualities of our society that have made it successful since inception.
TIFFANY HOGAN
Professor, MGH Institute of Health Professions
My research spans experimental, neuroscience, genetics, and school-based studies on relations between speech, language, and reading development with the aim to clarify theories and to improve assessment and intervention practices. To support these studies, I have received numerous US federal grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Institute of Education Sciences. To date, I have 70 publications and have presented in 11 countries and 26 US states. I have been a committed member of SSSR since her first conference in 2000: I have presented almost every year, often chairing symposia; I have reviewed conference submissions for 8 years; and I have served on the Publications Committee of the Board. If elected to a board position I will work (a) to increase the society’s focus on the research to practice gap, (b) to maintain quality conferences with increasing attendance (b) to continue to support emerging scientists, and (c) to grow our international membership.
JESSIE RICKETTS
Senior Lecturer, Royal Holloway University of London
My research seeks to understand reciprocity in the relationship between oral vocabulary and reading development. It combines longitudinal and experimental designs to disentangle the causal relationships between these variables, with a current focus on adolescence and beginning readers. My work has shown that oral vocabulary is more important for some aspects of reading than others. Further, what are the mechanisms by which reading contributes to vocabulary acquisition. Once we can read, how does reading serve vocabulary development? How can we maximise learning whilst reading? How do orthographic cues help children to learn new spoken words? I have been a member of SSSR since the very beginning of my postgraduate studies in 2006 and have presented at the conference nearly every year since then. I have published three articles in the journal and provided regular reviews. For the past three years I have jointly organised the early career preconference and it has been a joy to provide support and advocacy for the next generation of reading researchers. I am extremely grateful to SSSR for the many inspiring talks, conversations and collaborations that it has brought me over the years and am keen to contribute to the society’s board so that it can continue to bring reading researchers together to move the science of literacy forward. In addition to my research expertise and experience of working with early career researchers, I feel my knowledge of working with non-academic stakeholders will enhance the activities of the board and society.
SHELLEY XUILI TONG
Associate Professor, University of Hong Kong
The SSSR continues to impact my career by encouraging me to conduct cutting-edge research and to develop innovative approaches to tackle complex reading-related issues. Not only has the SSSR published my work on lexical tone, statistical learning, and spelling error analysis in Chinese reading; it has recognized my contribution by presenting me with the first Rebecca L. Sandak Award (2008). Over the past 10 years, I have met many wonderful SSSR mentors, collaborators, and friends whose tremendous support and encouragement have aided my development as a reading scholar. I now wish to give back by becoming a board member who endeavors to extend the SSSR mission by promoting the scientific study of reading in Asian languages among ethnic minority children and various clinical populations. Moreover, I wish to assist in the diversification of reading theories and practices by strengthening the connections between young talented/early-career students and senior reading scientists across cultures and disciplines. At HKU, I direct the Speech, Language and Reading Lab (http://slrlab.wixsite.com/slrlab) where I utilize both cognitive-behavioral and neurophysiological approaches to investigate (1) the cognitive mechanism that enables bilingual children to crack suprasegmental speech and orthographic codes in two different languages to formulate speech-print associations in the process of becoming biliterate; and (2) effective intervention strategies for leveraging the strength of children with developmental dyslexia, poor reading comprehension skills, and/or autism spectrum disorders. My research has been funded by a number of international and national research grants. I am an Associate Editor for Applied Psycholinguistics and an editorial board member of SSSR Journal.