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Luanna H. Meyer is professor of education (research) and director of the Jessie Hetherington Center for Educational Research at Victoria University in New Zealand. She is also emeritus professor at Syracuse University in the U.S. and adjunct professor at Griffith University in Australia. Since receiving her PhD from Indiana University, she held faculty positions at the University of Hawai’i, the University of Minnesota, Syracuse University, and Massey University prior to her current position. While at Syracuse University, she co-founded the Inclusive Elementary and Special Education Teacher Education Program and coordinated the doctoral program in special education. She also led numerous federally funded research and development projects, including a five-year research institute on the social relationships of children and youth with diverse abilities and the ten-year New York Partnership for State-wide Systems Change.
Throughout her career as a teacher educator and educational researcher, Luanna has been committed to developing practical, evidence-based approaches that can be implemented in real life, typical situations and settings. She works closely with school leaders, teachers, and behavior specialists towards achieving inclusive schools where all children and youth belong and feel valued. Her contributions to the development of positive approaches to behavior problems are acknowledged by her appointment to the Technical Review Committee on Behavior for the National Center for Students with Disabilities who Require Intensive Interventions led by the American Institutes for Research. She was among the first to demonstrate that even the most severe behaviour can be managed with positive approaches, supported by her published research conducted in typical settings with children with severe behaviour disorders, autism, and other disabilities. In New Zealand, her current federally funded projects include research on culturally responsive behavioral intervention in schools; culturally responsive pedagogies for teachers; effective school-based behavioral intervention practices; and the impact of assessment design on student motivation and achievement in secondary schools across the curriculum. A major focus of this work is on effective policy and practice to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse regular education school community.
Luanna has been invited to speak in eight countries and 30 US states about her work, and she has published more than 120 journal articles and book chapters. Her 12 books include Making Friends: The Influences of Culture and Development, Critical Issues in the Lives of People with Severe Disabilities; Behavioral Intervention: Principles, models, and Practices; The Syracuse Community-Referenced Curriculum Guide; Non-Aversive Intervention for Behavior Problems: A Manual for Home and Community; and An Educative Approach to Behavior Problems: A Practical Decision Model.
Ian M. Evans is Professor of Psychology at Massey University in New Zealand. After his PhD at the University of London’s Institute of Psychiatry, he taught behavior assessment and therapy for many years at the University of Hawai’i while also serving as consultant psychologist to specialized programs for children and adults with very complex developmental needs. He founded the Hawai’i Association for Autistic Children and was appointed Commissioner on the Governor’s State Planning and Advisory Council for Developmental Disabilities. At this time, he and Luanna Meyer began their collaborative work in the public schools across the state, funded by a federal research grant on children’s challenging behavior. They have published together on learning and behavior, including major meta-analyses on effective interventions and the earliest practical books on behavior problems for use by teachers and practitioners entitled Non-Aversive Intervention for Behavior Problems and an Educative Approach to Behavior Problems.
After becoming Director of Clinical Psychology Training at SUNY-Binghamton, Ian continued his focus on disabilities as well as leading the Binghamton Liberty Partnership Project. This intervention research was funded by state and federal grants to work with elementary schools in preventing school dropout using a home-visitor model to enhance teacher-parent communication. His book Staying in School: Partnerships for Educational Change reports this work and that of colleagues across New York State evaluating initiatives in regular education to support children, families, and the schools. Since moving to New Zealand in 1995, he has been professor, clinical program director, and department head at the University of Waikato and then Massey University. He also served as President of the New Zealand Psychological Society. His most recent work is teacher-focused to enhance the emotional atmosphere in elementary school classrooms, which has led to publication of a manual and a series of research reports. His life-long commitment to children with autism and their families has been recognized by honors including Life Member of the advocacy group Parent-to-Parent and chairing the government’s Living Guidelines Group of the New Zealand Guidelines for Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
Ian has published 6 books, 54 book chapters, and over 100 refereed journal articles, and he serves on the editorial boards of 5 international journals. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. His other interests include photography, antiques of the Arts and Crafts period, taking long non-strenuous walks, wine tasting, and watching his grandchildren develop.
