Dr. Peter Rosenbaum

Peter Rosenbaum, MD, FRCP(C), Professor of Paediatrics at McMaster University, has held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair since 2001. He is among the most experienced developmental paediatric researchers in the world. With his colleague Dr. Mary Law Dr. Rosenbaum was the co-founder of CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster, an award-winning multidisciplinary health system-linked research centre. In October 2007 Dr. Rosenbaum became the inaugural Director of McMaster’s Child Health Research Institute, addressing ‘Children with complicated lives and their families within a life-course perspective’. During 2009 he was the Acting Chair of the Department of Paediatrics at the Michael DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster

Dr. Rosenbaum has held more than 75 peer-reviewed research grants and is a contributing author to over 250 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He has contributed to several hundred oral, poster and workshop presentations at national and international meetings.

In the role of teacher and mentor Dr. Rosenbaum has been a supervisor or committee member with 45 master’s and doctoral level students, including students at the Universities of Oxford, Utrecht, Witwatersrand, Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Toronto in addition to McMaster.

Dr. Rosenbaum’s accomplishments have been recognized nationally and internationally. In 1995 he was the first Canadian to be invited to hold the Folke Bernadotte Stipendiate (lectureship) of the Swedish Neuropediatric Society. He has received the Ross Award from the Canadian Paediatric Society (2000); the Weinstein-Goldenson Scientific Award from the United Cerebral Palsy Research and Educational Foundation in Washington, DC (2002); an Honorary Doctor of Science, Université Laval (2005); and the first American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine Mentorship Award (2007). In April 2009 he received the Emil Becker Award from the “Gesellschaft Neuropädiatrie” (German Neuropaediatric Society), Graz Austria, where he delivered the Emil Becker lecture to the Society’s annual meeting.

Dr. M'Lisa L. Shelden, PT, PhD

Dr. Shelden is the Director of the Family, Infant and Preschool Program (FIPP) in Morganton, North Carolina. She received her degrees in physical therapy and early childhood special education from the University of Oklahoma. M’Lisa is a graduate Fellow of the ZERO TO THREE National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Their Families and a recipient of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research Mary E. Switzer Merit Fellowship. Dr. Shelden has co-authored several articles related to early intervention teamwork and book chapters related to physical therapy personnel preparation and service delivery and use of a primary service provider approach to teaming. She has coauthored several texts, including Physical Therapy under IDEA, as well as Coaching Families and Colleagues in Early Childhood Intervention and The Early Childhood Coaching Handbook. M’Lisa has consulted with over 30 states and numerous programs across the country and presents nationally and internationally on topics related to evidence-based practices, coaching, use of a primary service provider approach to teaming, and provision of services in natural environments.

Dr. Robin McWilliam

Dr. Robin McWilliam is one of the nation's leading researchers in early intervention/early childhood special education (EI/ECSE). As director of our research center, he serves as the new Siskin Endowed Chair of Research in Early Childhood Education, Intervention and Development. Most recently, he was the director of the Center for Child Development at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville. Before that, he was a Senior Scientist and Professor at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the founder and director of the National Individualizing Preschool Inclusion Project, working in 15 states. He is the foremost investigator of engagement in children with disabilities and is the author, with Amy Casey, of the only book on child engagement, Engagement of Every Child in the Preschool Classroom. Dr. McWilliam is the Past President of the CEC Division for Research and is on the steering committee for CEC’s efforts to define and identify evidence-based practices in special education. Dr. McWilliam’s workshops are highly interactive and applied, and he is in constant demand as a speaker and consultant, throughout the U.S. and in Europe.

Mats Granlund, Ph.D.

Mats Granlund, Ph.D. professor in Psychology and Disability Research, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, director of CHILD Research Program, http://hj.se/en/research/research-areas/child.html The research within the CHILD research program is part of the Swedish Institute for Disability Research. It is focused on every-day functioning in children and young people in need of special support and their immediate environments. Mats Granlund is responsible for some 25 research projects focusing on the relation between positive functioning in children in need of special support and individual characteristics, interaction factors and environmental factors. Independently of the focus of individual studies the program tries to measure the relation between subjective and environmental factors and the everyday functioning of the child or family. The currently running projects include studies of what characterizes children who over time are highly engaged as compared to those who are non-engaged or whose engagement is more varied. Other projects are focused on interaction between children with profound multiple disabilities and their carers, and positive functioning in families where there are children with disabilities. In several studies the WHO health classification system ICF-CY is used as a theoretical frame.

Eva Björck-Åkesson, Ph. D

Professor in special education and dean of the School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University, and member of the CHILD Research Program. Eva Björck-Åkesson's research focuses on Early Childhood Intervention. As a member of the WHO task force on children and youth, she has participated in producing the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth, ICF-CY. She is involved in research projects where the ICF-model and ICF-CY is central in special education and early intervention in the preschool and habilitation context. Other projects focus on general and specific interventions in preschool, the preschool as language environment and the use of AAC with young children. She is European coordinator of the Transatlantic Consortium on Early Childhood Intervention since 1999. She is a member of the steering committee of the International Society for Early Childhood Intervention.