Biography
Dena Slanda, Ph.D. is a Research Associate in the College of Community Innovation and Education and serves as the Education Doctoral Program (Ed.D.) Advisor in Exceptional Student Education at the University of Central Florida. She received her undergraduate degree at George Mason University and both her Masters and Doctorate in Exceptional Student Education from UCF. She is currently a Co-Principal Investigator or Project Coordinator for federal grants in excess of $7.25 million for research and personnel/leadership development. Currently, she serves as the Co-Principal Investigator for Project SPEECH, a federally-funded research and development project through the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. The purpose of the project is to research, develop, and collaboratively prepare special educators and speech-language pathologists to implement intensive interventions to improve K-12 student learning and literacy outcomes. Dr. Slanda is a published author and has conducted numerous presentations at international, national, regional, and state conferences focused on culturally proactive pedagogy and practices, equitable educational opportunities, inclusive practices, interdisciplinary collaboration, teacher and administrator preparation, intensive interventions, and multi-tier systems of support. Additionally, her research is focused on the intersection of race and disability with particular attention to disproportionality of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education. Her professional experiences in the K-12 schools include roles as a secondary teacher STEM and intensive reading teacher. She teaches courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels using synchronous and asynchronous platforms, in assessment, instruction, data-based decision making, and collaborative preparation.