Robin Miller Young, Ed.D., NCSP
Robin Miller Young, Ed.D., NCSP is currently an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Northern Illinois University where she prepares future teacher leaders to employ evidence-based practices to identify assets and meet the needs of children and families. Prior to her present position, Dr. Young guided development of MTSS frameworks while serving on classroom and administrative leadership teams at Prairie Children Preschool (Aurora, IL). The community preschool has operated as an ECE/ECSE blended program since 1998 and has won awards for developing and operating system-wide practices that effectively integrate early learning and social-emotional tiered-instructional models. Her professional partnership work includes direct services and consultative supports for moving programs into MTSS frameworks, and ensuring professional pre-service and in-service training and licensure efforts to create a workforce prepared to provide effective and efficient services in this framework. Dr. Young's scholarship includes grant-funded work resulting in numerous presentations, published curricula, book chapters, and data-based and practitioner-oriented articles. She is currently examining methods to prepare EC educators to design and deliver multi-week, inter-disciplinary instructional units that develop children’s vocabulary skills within proactive social-emotional settings. Dr. Young is also examining preparation of directors/principals and teacher-leaders who can engage in leadership behaviors that will continue moving early learning programs into effective and efficient MTSS frameworks.