#TosteTeam
Our research team is focused on educational supports for students with learning disabilities, particularly in the area of reading. The questions that drive our work center around how best to support students’ reading development. Dr. Toste is specifically interested in methods for intensifying and individualizing interventions for students with reading disabilities (including dyslexia).
Dr. Toste will be accepting new doctoral students for fall 2025. Please reach out for more information or visit the Department of Special Education website.
Current PhD Advisees
Emily Hardeman
PhD Student
SDLMI-R
Emily (she/her) is a doctoral student in the LD/BD program at The University of Texas at Austin. Emily received her master’s degree in special education with an emphasis in dyslexia from Midwestern State University. She is a Certified Academic Language Therapist and trained in the Take Flight program through the Scottish Rite Hospital. Before joining the PhD program, Emily was a special education teacher and dyslexia interventionist in Austin ISD. Her research interests are teacher knowledge of reading instruction and social-emotional outcomes for students with dyslexia.
Elizabeth Hart
PhD Candidate
SDLMI-R
Elizabeth (she/her) is a doctoral student in the LD/BD program at The University of Texas at Austin. She is a doctoral scholar with the National Center for Leadership on Intensive Intervention (NCLII-2). Elizabeth has her M.S. in special education focusing on behavior disorders and positive behavior supports from Texas State University. Prior to beginning her PhD at UT Austin, she led a behavior inclusion program in San Marcos CISD. She aims to conduct research that will improve screening and interventions that target the emotional and academic effects of trauma.
Abbi Price
PhD Student
SDLMI-R
Abbi (she/her) is a doctoral student in the LD/BD program at The University of Texas at Austin. Abbi received her BA in early childhood education from Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Abbi began her teaching career as a reading interventionist. Her work prompted her to pursue a MA in Reading Science also from Mount St. Joseph. She then worked as a district dyslexia specialist and an academic language therapist. Abbi’s research interests include teacher knowledge of dyslexia and use of research-based reading instructional practices, and how these relate to student outcomes for students with reading disabilities.
Raquel Silva
PhD Student
SDLMI-R
Raquel (she/her) is a doctoral student in the LD/BD program at The University of Texas at Austin. She is completing her master's in education with a certificate in technology, information, and communication from European University of the Atlantic. Raquel has been a teacher in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for over 20 years and has taught across grade levels, content areas, and settings. Her research interests focus on use of media tools to enhance reading instruction for students with learning disabilities.
Team Members
Nicola Britton, MEd
Project Coordinator
Nicky (she/her) splits her time as the LADDER project coordinator and an interventionist on SDLMI-R. She received her BA in Education from Southwestern University and her MEd from UT Austin. Nicky has been an elementary school teacher in several schools in and around Austin, and she has taught parenting classes at Any Baby Can, an Austin-based non-profit organization. Nicky has worked on several research projects since she joined the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk in 2019.
Emily Farris, PhD
Research Associate
Emily is a research associate for Project IDARE. She earned her PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Texas Arlington, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of California San Francisco. Emily spent five years as an Assistant Director at the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia at Middle Tennessee State University (i.e., MTSU Center for Dyslexia). As a developmental cognitive psychologist, Emily’s research focuses on (a) understanding cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying foundational literacy skills and reading disabilities, (b) reading resilience, (c) changes in these skills and mechanisms over time or in response to intervention, (d) aspects of classification and identification models of dyslexia, and (e) educator knowledge of literacy. She also serves as an associate editor for Annals of Dyslexia.
Mona Maclay
Project Coordinator
Mona (she/her) is the coordinator for the SDLMI-R project. She earned her MEd at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Educational Psychology, Youth Development. Mona has previously worked as a tutoring coordinator for America Reads – UIC. She has also worked as a lab manager, research assistant, and teaching assistant. She is interested in how social and emotional processes can support positive educational and developmental outcomes in youth.
Harrison
Team Mascot