Trina D. Spencer, Ph.D., BCBA-D
Dr. Spencer is an associate professor at the University of South Florida in the Department of Child and Family Studies. She earned a specialist degree in School Psychology and a Ph.D. in Disability Disciplines from Utah State University, with emphases in language and literacy and early childhood special education. She has been a board-certified behavior analyst since 2001. Dr. Spencer has worked with culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse children as well as children with disabilities, their teachers, and their families for 18 years. She has published 37 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 5 book chapters, and 22 non–peer reviewed articles, briefs, or encyclopedia entries. Her publications and editorial service span a number of disciplines, including speech-language pathology, early childhood education, special education, applied linguistics, and school psychology. Benefitting from strong collaborations with practitioners and other researchers, Dr. Spencer maintains a spirited research agenda to improve reading comprehension and academic outcomes of the nation's most vulnerable students. Specifically, she has developed dynamic screening, curriculum-based measurement, and intervention tools so that schools can implement an efficient multi-tiered system of language support to complement schools' decoding efforts. Finally, Dr. Spencer promotes interdisciplinary, collaborative relationships among clinicians, educators, and researchers through an evidence-based practice framework.