Dr. Jessica Toste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education and Distinguished Teaching Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research is focused on methods for intensifying intervention for students with persistent reading challenges and reading disabilities. She is principal investigator on research grants from the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is Editor-in-Chief of The Reading League Journal, an Associate Editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities, President of the Council for Exceptional Children’s Division for Research (DR), and Past President of CEC’s Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD). Dr. Toste is an award-winning teacher; she is a member of UT Austin’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers (2025), recipient of the President’s Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award (2023), Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2022), and was named one of the 2017 “Texas 10” professors at UT Austin. She received the Floyd G. Hudson Outstanding Service Award from the Council for Learning Disabilities (2022) and was a fellow with the Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (2022-2024).

Dr. Brennan Chandler is an Assistant Professor of special education and dyslexia at Georgia State University. He received his PhD in special education with a focus on learning disabilities from The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to completing his doctoral studies, he worked as a special and general education teacher in both public and private school settings across Nebraska and New York. His research focuses on improving academic outcomes for students with dyslexia and other significant literacy difficulties through testing and developing reading and writing interventions.