Meet our Speakers
Speaker: Dr. Mary Louise Hemmeter is a professor of Special Education at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on effective instruction, supporting social emotional development and addressing challenging behavior, and coaching teachers. She has been a PI or Co-PI on numerous projects funded by the US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services. Through her work on the National Center on the Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning and funded research projects, she was involved in the development of the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Young Children and a model for coaching teachers to implement effective practices known as Practice Based Coaching. She is currently leading projects focused on examining the efficacy of the Pyramid Model in infant toddler, pre-k and kindergarten settings. She is a co-author on the Connect4Learning Pre-K Curriculum. She was a co-editor of the Journal of Early Intervention and President of the Council for Exceptional Children’s Division for Early Childhood. She received the Mary McEvoy Service to the Field Award and Merle B, Karnes Service to the Division Award from the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children.
Speaker: Teryl Jones Teryl Jones is a Behavior Support Specialist for the West Virginia Autism Training Center’s Behavior/Mental Health Technical Assistance Center at Marshall University. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Clinical Counseling and Religious Studies. Teryl serves 14 counties of West Virginia’s southern district as part of a team of behavioral professionals established to implement a system-wide delivery of behavior and mental health intervention and supports throughout the state of West Virginia. Teryl has 14+ years’ experience working with people with disabilities in the field of rehabilitation counseling both as a Transition School Counselor and as a supervisor, as well as 4 years as a Mental Health Therapist.
Speaker: Dr. Patti Hershfeldt is the Co-Director of the Center for Social Behavior Support at Old Dominion University. Patti co-chairs the APBS HS Network that supports high schools with implementation of SW PBIS/MTSS and aims to bridge connections between fellow implementors and researchers. Additionally, she has a strong professional focus on equity and student voice. She was recently awarded the 2022 Ted Carr Practitioner Award. Patti is a former high school special education teacher of 15 years and a mom to 2 daughters.
Speaker: Hamish Brewer (aka Tattooed Skateboarding Principal) grew up in a home disrupted by poverty, addiction, and family dysfunction. He understands the feelings of fear, lostness, and desperation that overwhelm too many children today-because that was his life. That experience is what drives him to work relentlessly to empower people living in the toughest areas to envision and create a better future for themselves. https://hamishbrewer.com/
Speaker: Dr. Brian Gaunt is a member of FCIC/FLPBS Project and serves as the Inter-Project Coordinator between Florida’s Positive Behavior Support Project and the College of Education’s Florida Problem-solving and Response to Intervention Project. Brian serves in this position with experience and knowledge in the areas of behavior analysis, curriculum & instruction, program evaluation, and school psychology. He assists both projects to help all Florida school districts scale-up efforts to implement a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) that encourages value and understanding about the relationship between social/emotional development and academic learning for students, as well as the adoption and effective evidence-based practices to serve all students based on their unique learning/behavioral needs.
Prior to this new position, Brian worked as an Early Intervention/Pre-School Consultant, later as a School Psychologist, and most recently as an RtI Coach and Regional Coordinator for the PS/RtI Project. His research and applied interests include educational system’s change, program evaluation, reading/literacy development, and parent/child/family advocacy. In addition to his USF role, Dr. Gaunt provides consultation services to other education agencies outside the state of Florida (e.g., Houston Texas; Los Angeles Unified District). He has also provided several state and national presentations on the implementation of MTSS/PBIS and Response to Intervention practices over the past 10 years.