Julia Peyton

Julia Peyton Ph.D. currently serves as the Assistant Director of Literacy at the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota. Her academic background includes a bachelor's degree in special education and early childhood psychology; a master's degree in special education with a focus on specific learning disabilities, and a Ph.D. in Education as a research career’s fellow specializing in special education, early literacy, and speech and hearing sciences.

During her early career she conducted research in intervention strategies, including the design and testing of a tutoring program for at-risk first graders in a series of 9 federally funded longitudinal studies related to dyslexia and reading disorders. This work resulted in the development of an effective early reading instruction program called Sound Partners.

Julia has an interest in assessment, particularly in identifying students at risk for dyslexia and reading disorders and measuring program effectiveness. She oversaw nationwide data analysis to evaluate program efficacy and areas for improvement  and provided technical assistance to SEAs and LEAs in data analysis and interpretation related to reading and math intervention program implementation and assessment data, as well as teacher professional development learning data by participating in district partnership meetings and creating comprehensive reports regarding various subgroups receiving interventions or professional learning for nearly a decade with an intervention service provider. Throughout her career, Julia has held various roles in teaching, training, research development and evaluation, sales, and leadership in organizations such as Washington Research Institute, the University of Oregon, Dynamic Measurement Group (DMG), Voyager Sopris, NCTQ, Pearson, and Lexia. Her focus for the past seventeen years has been on applying research to practice in education in a sustainable and impactful manner.