With more than 22 years in the field of literacy teaching, research and evaluation in the U.S. and abroad, Dr. Hurley draws on a rich array of academic and personal experiences with literacy improvement initiatives. Her strong foothold in school-based practice gives Dr. Hurley great insight into the requirements of both high-level evaluation and school-based educators who need good evaluation to make their strong programs better still. A graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an award-winning researcher, Dr. Hurley is a certified K-6 reading specialist. Prior to coming to Hezel Associates, Dr. Hurley had been a Literacy Coach working in an inner city context and a professor specializing in programmatic solutions for students with special literacy-related needs.

Dr. Hurley is Hezel Associate's lead evaluator on New Hampshire Reading First, the formative evaluation of PBS Peer Connection, ProLiteracy America's Performance Accountability Initiative, the State of Texas' Neuroscience-based Reading Intervention Program, and the dyslexia software program, ReadOn.

Contact Dr. Hurley at 1.800.466.3512.

A former elementary school teacher and school-based reading specialist, Dr. Wood has extensive experience in many areas of literacy learning. As a Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Dr. Wood, for example, prepared teachers to work with students with literacy-related problems and concomitantly managed the Harvard Literacy Lab. Dr. Wood has also conducted literacy-related projects for many high-profile businesses including Nickelodeon, Disney Interactive, Soliloquy Learning, the Center for Special Applied Technologies, and the Education Development Center. Dr. Wood is the author of Literacy Online: New Tools for Struggling Readers and Writers. Dr. Wood prides herself on making evaluation practices and results understandable to people who do not have expertise in the field.

For Hezel Associate's, Dr. Wood has worked very closely with Dr. Hurley on the evaluation of New Hampshire Reading First, the formative evaluation of PBS Peer Connection, the State of Texas' Neuroscience-based Reading Intervention Program, and the evaluation of ReadOn. She was also Hezel's lead evaluator of the literacy-related professional development materials connected to the NYC DOE 1-1 Computer Project.

Before coming to Hezel Associates, Dr. Simons was a full-time Reading First Consultant. In this capacity, she provided professional development for Reading First personnel with a special focus on the implementation of the tenets of Reading First, especially the implementation of data-driven instructional decision making. At the same time, Dr. Simons served as a national trainer for the Reading First National Impact Study. Dr. Simons has been a Language Arts Consultant to multiple school districts in the U.S. and abroad, an Assistant Professor of Education (specializing in Literacy Education), and, importantly, a classroom teacher. She has made many professional presentations on Reading First-related topics.

Currently, Dr. Simons is undertaking her first project for Hezel Associates, a Reading First-related product evaluation of the dyslexia software, ReadOn.

Ms. Erika Blackburn, MA (ABD)
Research Associate

Ms. Blackburn is an experienced evaluator, with responsibility for evaluation design, as well as quantitative and qualitative analyses of educational programs. Ms. Blackburn has experience in curriculum development specializing in early childhood and literacy programs. During her tenure at Hezel Associates, Ms. Blackburn has been responsible for the overall management of the nation-wide, longitudinal and experimental PBS TeacherLine evaluation, including recruiting study participants, developing survey instruments, coordinating survey distribution and collection, analyzing data, and writing monthly reports. Prior to her tenure at Hezel Associates, Ms. Blackburn worked as a research and evaluation specialist for Cornell University's Early Childhood Program, where she was responsible for the development of survey instruments and sampling strategy, survey distribution and collection, and conducting statistical analysis of workforce study of New York City early childhood care and education providers. As the evaluation manager of a universal pre-K program, Ms. Blackburn trained a team of data collectors in observation and interview techniques and collaborated in writing the final report presented to the U.S. Department of Education.