Dr. Carta
Dr. Carta is a Senior Scientist in the Institute for Life Span Studies/Juniper Gardens Children’s Project and Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas. Her science focuses on developing strategies to minimize the effects of poverty on children’s language and social outcomes and developing practices that teachers and parents can use to promote children’s early learning particularly in vulnerable populations. Her current research and policy interests include creating multi-sector community-wide interventions for advancing the quality of children’s caregiving environments, and scaling up tiered approaches for enhancing all children’s learning and development such as Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. She has been the Principal Investigator of several multi-site research projects and centers funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Educational Sciences, and the Administration on Children and Families. She was the co-director of the National Center for Response to Intervention in Early Childhood. She currently directs the Bridging the Word Gap Research Network, a collaborative of 200 researchers, practitioners, civic leaders, and policymakers seeking to enrich young children’s language learning environments. She also directs a post-doctoral training program funded by the Institute of Education Sciences focused on Evidence-Based Practice in Early Intervention and Early Learning.
