Our people

Dr Donald Compton is also a Professor of Psychology and Education at Florida State University, and Director Emeritus of the Florida Center for Reading Research. He was formerly Professor and Chair of Special Education and a John F. Kennedy Center Investigator at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He earned a PhD from Northwestern University's School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, with a specialisation in learning disabilities. Dr Compton then accepted a NICHD post-doctoral research fellowship at the Institute for Behavior Genetics, University of Colorado.

Dr Compton is experienced in designing, managing, analysing, and disseminating data from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies as well as randomised control studies. His research involves modelling individual differences in the development of children’s reading skills and the identification and treatment of children with reading disabilities.

Dr Compton has served as PI and Co-PI on multiple NICHD and IES studies using randomised controlled trials to evaluate academic interventions for children with learning difficulties. He has over 125 peer-review publications and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Scientific Studies of Reading, Reading Research Quarterly, and Exceptional Children. Compton is the past President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading and currently serves on the Learning and Communication (LCOM) Study Section of NIH.