About Us

Dr. Shelley Gray- Principal Investigator

Shelley Gray is a Professor of Speech and Hearing Science and a certified speech-language pathologist. She completed her Ph.D. and a post doc at the University of Arizona. Dr. Gray leads the Child Language and Literacy Lab and our fantastic team of collaborators, research staff, and students.

Stephanie Williams - TELL Coach

Stephanie Williams is a Speech-Language Pathologist and has worked in the CHILL lab on early language and literacy projects since 2004.

Patty Chan - TELL Coach

A life-long educator, Patty spent 28 years in Arizona public schools as a classroom teacher, Reading Specialist, and Literacy Coach. For the past eight years she has worked as an Instructional Coach and Curriculum Writer for the TELL research projects.

M. Jeanne Wilcox, PhD, CCC/SLP

M. Jeanne Wilcox is certified speech-language pathologist and Professor Emeritus in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and an affiliated professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. 

Her research laboratory, the Infant Child Research Laboratory Programs is focused on developing and testing interventions to improve young children’s learning and developmental outcomes. Her research activities are centered around three applied research themes including: development of innovative approaches to early care and education interventions for vulnerable infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, preschool curriculum efficacy research in actual practice settings, and professional development for the early childhood workforce. Her work is funded by the USDOE Institute for Education Sciences and the Office of Special Education Programs, as well as HHS. 

Professor Wilcox is internationally recognized for her work and has an extensive record of publications and has been an invited speaker at numerous state, national, and international meetings and conferences. She is also a fellow and has been awarded the Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

More recently, her research has expanded to promoting college access and success for underrepresented groups, including first generation students. This work is support by a First in the World grant from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement.

Rachel Learn Mayercek, MA

Rachel Learn Mayercek M.A. is the Project Director for TELL-Distance. This grant will begin expanding the Professional Development and Coaching Components of the TELL curriculum to reach even more teachers. Rachel has been working with Dr. Wilcox and Dr. Gray on the TELL grants since the inception of the study in 2007. Rachel is a licensed Early Childhood Special Education Teacher and has been working with children with disabilities and in early childhood education for over 25 years.

Joanne Campa

Joanne Campa graduated from ASU with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education. She holds an Early Childhood endorsement, as well. Joanne taught Kindergarten in a Tempe school for several years, where she then worked as a Reading Specialist supporting Pre-K to 6th grade students and teachers. As a Research Specialist for Teaching Early Literacy and Language (TELL), Joanne supports all data collection efforts.

Emmanuel Cortez - Project Coordinator - MBRC6 & MBRC8

Emmanuel Cortez is the Research Program Coordinator for the Monolingual and Bilingual Reading Comprehension (MBRC) studies. He has a bachelor's degree in Business Management from the W. P. Carey School of Business, at Arizona State University. He has been working with the CHILLL lab for five years in several capacities, three years within the CHILLL Language and Reading Research Consortium (LARRC) project as a bilingual research assessor, training leader, and lab manager and currently, as the MBRC coordinator, training leader and recruiter.

Savannah Romeo - Research Analyst

Savannah Romeo works with the CHILL Lab as a Senior Research Analyst, performing database management. She holds a BA in Biology with a minor in Statistics from Mount Holyoke College and graduated with an MPH in infectious disease epidemiology from Cornell University in 2021. Before joining the CHILL Lab, Savannah gained extensive research experience working on both domestic and international health projects.

Julie Bufkin - Project Coordinator - Research

Julie is a proud ASU alumna, recently completing the Clinical Research Management MS program. She holds a BA in Mathematics from NYU. Julie enjoys coaching the Coding Club at Broadmor Elementary School as it reminds her of being a math teacher—without having to grade papers. She is currently enrolled in the Science of Healthcare Delivery MS program at ASU and can usually be found pedaling around Tempe Campus with her kid on a “big orange bike.”