About Erin

I started my career in education when I was a classroom aid at a pre-school. When I started a job at a high school as an academic counselor I was shocked to meet a high schooler with severe dyslexia who could not read. I worked with the school psychologist and teachers to help this student and it changed the trajectory of my career. Five years later I had two advanced degrees from the University of Oregon (Ph.D. in School Psychology & Masters in Special Education) and I was coaching teachers in Arizona to improve literacy instruction in a multi-tiered system. That was 2006!

I’ve been research faculty for 13 years+ at the university level (Go Ducks!), working with districts, schools, and state leaders to help install evidence-based practices. For five years I led MTSS professional development efforts for a statewide initiative across 22 school districts (Chaparro et al., 2012, 2019, and 2021) and for another five years after I was on the steering committee and wrote the 5 million dollar grant that funded the MTSS Coaching statewide initiative. I’ve also worked in schools as a school psychologist, SPED interventionist, instructional coach, and counselor.

My work in schools has led to research questions that I've been able to develop into projects awarded over 6 million dollars in federal grants to evaluate and develop effective tools with teachers and other partners. I've helped colleagues at state departments of education and regional education areas to receive over 7 million in grants to build statewide coaching systems and install evidence-based literacy practices to improve outcomes for struggling students. My projects have focused on the areas of early literacy intervention and assessment, explicit instruction, PBIS, data-based teaming, multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), and implementation science. I’m so proud of the work I’ve done to support state, district, and school teams to adopt and install MTSS for academics and PBIS. 

This year I'm focused on my work at the university and fostering the MTSS Solutions Community. See below to find out about the MTSS Strong Start and Coaches' Community. Can’t wait to connect with you!

Click the images below to learn more about the MTSS Solutions Communities.