Our Team

A native Kentuckian and first-generation college graduate, Dr. Amy Lingo joined Georgia Southern University as Dean of the College of Education in October 2024. Since then, she has helped secure nearly $1 million in grant funding, expanded teacher apprenticeship programs, and brought in new faculty and staff to strengthen teacher education in the region. Before joining Georgia Southern, Lingo spent almost 20 years at the University of Louisville’s College of Education and Human Development, where she served in several leadership roles, including Interim Dean from 2019 to 2024. She played a key role in launching innovative teacher residency programs to address local educator shortages and established an Office for Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, which helped triple external grant funding to more than $44 million. She has numerous peer-reviewed articles, diverse conference presentations, and more than $14 million in grant funding as either PI or co-PI. Her research interests include life-long literacy, positive behavior supports in school settings, academic interventions for students with learning disabilities, and relationships between challenging behaviors and academic achievement.

He began his career as a counselor in residential treatment and has worked with students with challenging behaviors across a variety of settings – including all levels of public school. Having received his Ph.D. in Special Education at the University of Oregon in 1994 (with an emphasis on emotional and behaviors) he has previously been a faculty member at the Universities of Kentucky, Florida, and Oregon. To his credit, he has more than 100 publications, including five books, on a variety of issues in the areas of behavioral disorders and behavioral support systems. Throughout his career, he has conducted over 1,000 presentations and training activities and has been an invited speaker throughout the U.S. and worldwide. Scott has successfully competed for over $34 million in external grant funding and is a former two-term editor of Beyond Behavior. In 2004 he received the Distinguished Early Research Career Award from the Research Division of the International Council for Exceptional Children and in 2012 he received the Outstanding National Leadership Award from the Council for Children with Behavior Disorders and served as national President of this organization in 2014. His research interests focus on effective instruction, school-wide prevention systems, classroom management, and scientific research in education.

After earning a master’s degree in special education, he began his educational career teaching elementary students with mild to moderate disabilities in resource and collaboration settings. After earning his doctorate at the University of Louisville, he has been a faculty member at the University of Memphis, Bellarmine University, and the University of Louisville. Whitney has 14 peer-reviewed publications, one book, two book chapters, and fifty conference presentations to his credit. His research areas of interest include evidence-based academic and behavioral interventions for students with disabilities and the effective use of evidence-based instructional practices to increase student engagement. 

She has expertise in literacy instruction and intervention, especially for middle-grade students and emergent bilinguals, as well as effective systems of teacher learning, including professional development and coaching. Her work has been published in journals including Review of Educational Research, Contemporary Educational Psychology, and Teacher Education and Special Education. Before joining the University of Louisville, Hogan was an Institute for Education Sciences postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas, Austin. Hogan earned a Ph.D. in literacy and applied linguistics and a postbaccalaureate certificate in statistical methodology from the University of Maryland. She is also a certified WWC reviewer.

Criss uses her passion for positive-based interventions to improve classroom culture for students and teachers. She studies the use of feedback and coaching to increase the use of evidence-based practices in the classroom. In addition to her work with the Kentucky Reading Research Center, her current research projects include increasing teachers’ use of positive-based classroom management practices through performance feedback, goal-setting, and self-monitoring using virtual reality technology. She earned a Ph.D. in special education and applied behavior analysis from The Ohio State University and an M.A.T. from National Louis University.

His academic training is in social psychology (Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001). Valentine is an internationally renowned expert in the methods of systematic reviewing and meta-analysis, with a particular emphasis on the methods for evaluating the credibility of studies. He is the editor, along with Harris Cooper and Larry Hedges, of The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis, 3rd edition, an associate editor for the journal Research Synthesis Methods, and a consulting editor of American Psychologist. He is one of the principal investigators of the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse. Valentine led the WWC’s postsecondary team from 2012-2016, oversaw the development of one practice guide and several intervention reports, oversaw the development of the WWC’s Procedures and Standards Handbook version 5.0, and led the development of several webinars that provide information about the What Works Clearinghouse’s standards. He has led the review of more than 1,000 studies for the WWC.

Prior to her role with the KYRRC, she served as Director of Marketing and Communications for the College of Education and Human Development. Before joining UofL, she worked as a public relations consultant for clients including Anthem Medicaid, the Louisville Orchestra, Stock Yards Bank, and the BlueOval SK electric battery plant. She also served as Director of Marketing and Communications for the Transit Authority of River City (TARC) and Volunteers of America Mid-States. She co-founded and served as Interim Director of OneWest, a community development corporation focused on economic revitalization in west Louisville. Her duties with KYRRC include managing website and clearinghouse content, serving as liaison to key stakeholders and organizations, building networking and collaborative relations, developing and leading communications and dissemination of researching findings, and producing reports and training materials. 

She has served in executive administrator roles at UofL for the Dean of Graduate Studies, Dean of the College of Education and Human Development, and the Vice President of Risk, Audit, and Compliance. Throughout her career, Brown has been a passionate advocate for student success and engagement. As Project Administrator for Kentucky Reading Research Center, her duties include providing administrative support to the executive team, managing project plans, tracking deliverables, managing budget funds, ensuring compliance with university and state policies, and providing logistical support.