Advisory Council

Coral PS Hoh, PhD

Coral PS Hoh’s decades-long consulting work with students with special needs and language disorders is guided by her research in Linguistics and Cognitive Science. Her studies of exceptional languages — those outside the typical — have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals. With a PhD in Linguistics, Pau-San Hoh has refereed manuscripts for premier publishers in Linguistics, Education, and giftedness research including Routledge and MIT Press. As one of the few experts on exceptional languages across populations, Dr. Coral also presents her findings at international conferences. Her current research comprises longitudinal studies of readers with dyslexia. She was an Editorial Advisory Board member for the National Association for Gifted Children and the Academic Dean of a language school in New York. Dr. Coral has been a professor of Linguistics and English for over 25 years. She is the author of a book on technical communication and the co-author of Dyslexia Dissolved: Successful Cases with Learning Disabilities, ADHD and Language Disorders. She is the co-inventor of a US patent for computing technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of language disorders.

Kevin M. Gaugler, PhD

Kevin Gaugler has been researching the intersection between instructional technology and language acquisition for almost twenty years. His innovative methodologies have been featured in publications such as Campus Technology Magazine, The Language Educator and National Public Radio’s The Best of Our Knowledge. Dr. Gaugler was the 2010 recipient of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages prestigious Award for Excellence in Teaching with Technology. He is particularly interested in promoting literacy through technological solutions. Dr. Gaugler has designed a software program that supports struggling readers of second languages and recently authored a book chapter on technology for a teacher’s handbook on language instruction. He is a frequent presenter at conferences worldwide and at invited speaking engagements at such institutions as Columbia, Brown, Georgetown, Harvard and Yale Universities. Dr. Gaugler continues to work with schools and universities to build unique learning opportunities through technology that prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century.

C. Ryan Kinlaw, PhD

Ryan Kinlaw has a lifelong interest in beliefs and behaviors related to school and schooling. Driven to understand individual differences and developmental patterns, Dr. Kinlaw earned an MEd in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With his research training in developmental analyses, Dr. Kinlaw has conducted research on children’s beliefs about intelligence and on the influence of gender, race/ethnicity, family, and culture on achievement beliefs, striving, and performance. He has published his work in periodicals such as the Journal of Educational Psychology, the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Developmental Review, and the European Journal of Psychology of Education and has presented his work at national and international conferences. Dr. Kinlaw maintains memberships in several education- and development-related professional organizations such as the American Educational Research Association and the Society for Research in Child Development. He regularly serves as a reviewer of conference presentations for such associations and of manuscripts for leading journals. Over the past 20+ years, Dr. Kinlaw has taught across multiple contexts of post-secondary education—community college, liberal arts college, research university—and always seeks to apply what he has learned from his research on sources of academic motivation to his work in the classroom with students.

Kyoichi Haruta, PhD

Kyoichi Haruta’s doctoral study at MIT of solid-state physics using x-ray diffraction techniques led him to research both hardware and software at Bell Labs. During a career that spanned over 4 decades, Dr. Haruta developed numerous novel and cutting-edge software programs for computer chip design at AT & T and Lucent Technologies. He utilized and distributed his proprietary software programs within these corporations, and gave talks at such institutions as Carnegie Mellon University on quartz crystal devices developed for telephone and satellite transmissions. He also earned patents in this area and was named a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs. Dr. Haruta recently taught programming languages to Agere Systems personnel across the US and in Shanghai, Bangalore, Singapore, and Sydney. His innate curiosity in the transformation of physical states for human benefit continues to spur him to stay involved in leading-edge innovations through his mentoring of rising entrepreneurs in the tech industry. For several years, Dr. Haruta assisted his wife, Patience, in organizing an annual book fair that raised tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship funds for students in Pennsylvania.

Deborah Furman, MS

Deborah Furman has a Master’s degree in Computer Science and has worked at IBM for over 25 years. As a Senior Software Engineer, Deborah specializes in testing the z/OS operating system, which runs on the z Mainframe. She has written several internal testing classes for IBM and has co-authored a college-level Enterprise Software Testing course. Deborah is sought after as a mentor and a teacher within IBM. She holds several patents in the field of software testing. Deborah volunteers during National Engineer’s Week to share her passion for engineering with elementary, middle and high school students. One of Deborah’s three children was diagnosed with dyslexia several years ago and has since then successfully graduated from the Dysolve® pilot program.

Evan Haruta, MS

Evan Haruta specializes in problem evaluation in parallel sysplex environments as a Senior Software Engineer for IBM, where he has worked for nearly three decades. He is a regular presenter at technology conventions for global companies in finance, healthcare, energy, transportation, retail, and service industries as well as federal agencies. He is a lead developer of an international software workshop series and conducts training worldwide including in China, India, Australia, Germany, and Brazil. He is a contributing author to a tech magazine and serves on the IBM Patent Review Board. As a consultant, he is designing and managing hybrid cloud for distance learning to optimize availability, scalability, security, and real-time analytics. He is the co-author of the book Dyslexia Dissolved. For over 15 years, Evan Haruta has volunteered his time in mentoring students in New York through Science Fair and MathCounts competitions and college admissions. He founded the not-for-profit IDLWorld to serve the academic needs of gifted and twice-exceptional children.

Richard Sackerman, MAT, MEd

Richard Sackerman began his public school teaching career eleven years ago. As a teacher of the humanities, Rich believes that reading comprehension, written expression, and passion are at the crux of all learning. His pedagogical focus is on strengthening reading comprehension among his students. He works specifically on helping them increase their understanding of reading and its relation to his subject area. Rich completed his Master’s degree in Secondary Education from Fairleigh Dickinson University and his Master’s in Educational Leadership from Montclair State University. For the past ten years, Rich has used theatre to reach students, elementary through high school, to strengthen their self-confidence and to help guide them to see and reach their full potential. As a result of his dedication, Rich was nominated for a Tony Award for Excellence in Theatre Education in 2015. In addition to teaching Social Studies at a middle school in New Jersey, Rich is an adjunct professor at Centenary College. He co-presented on dyslexia and twice-exceptionality at the New Jersey Education Association Convention in 2016.

Stephanie Sackerman, MA

Stephanie Sackerman has taught in the public education sector since 2009. She has a BA in English and earned her Master’s degree in Curriculum and Teaching at Columbia University’s Teachers College, where she focused on working with adolescent students who struggled with organization, motivation, and self-defeatism. As a middle school teacher of reading and writing and two-time Teacher of the Year award recipient, Stephanie is exceptionally passionate about instilling a love of reading, writing, and learning in all her students. She has studied the language development of exceptional populations, and her case study was published in an academic journal indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed and PsycINFO. Stephanie is a seventh-grade teacher in New Jersey and continues to expand the application of technology-based learning tools in her classroom. She co-presented “Completing the Picture of Dyslexia: Twice-Exceptional Students” at the 2016 New Jersey Education Association Convention.

Ryan Zaccaro, MA

Ryan Zaccaro is a classroom teacher at a school for students with special needs in New York City. After graduating with a BA in English, he began his career in Special Education by working as a teaching assistant at the Anderson Center for Autism. Ryan graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University, with a Master’s degree in Special Education. While at Columbia, Ryan received a fellowship to work in a community program that implemented evidence-based practices for ESL students with autism. Through his earlier work as a researcher and practitioner, he has become invested in finding the root causes of student’s academic struggles. He co-wrote book chapters for a college textbook on writing and looks forward to contributing further to our knowledge of literacy development and Special Education.