Britta Bresina, a fourth year doctoral student in the special education program in the Department of Educational Psychology, has been awarded the Russell W. Burris Memorial Fellowship in Educational Psychology. 

Bresina received the award for her excellence and leadership in research, both independently and in collaboration with faculty and peers. Bresina’s overarching research goal is to identify cognitive processes that underlie reading comprehension difficulties that many students with learning disabilities (LD) experience, and to use this information to develop ways to individualize and intensify instructional approaches to meet these students’ learning needs. She is also interested in supporting teachers’ implementation of high-quality instruction with fidelity.

For her MA thesis, Bresina examined extant data to determine the relative contributions of teacher knowledge and skills and fidelity of implementation of Data-Based Instruction (an approach to individualizing and intensifying intervention for students with significant learning needs) to children’s early writing progress.

Bresina has presented her work at national and international conferences, and has several manuscripts in progress, in press, or recently published.

Bresina’s advisor Kristen McMaster, Stern Family Professor of Reading Success and chair of the Department of Educational Psychology said, “Britta is a strong student who is highly respected by her peers for her leadership. She is a valuable asset to our department, and is a promising young scholar.”

The Russell W. Burris Memorial Fellowship was established in memory of Russell Burris, professor emeritus of educational psychology. Dr. Burris studied what and how we learn, in particular “expertness,” focusing on areas that included trial advocacy, clinical medicine, and art history.

Visit the University of Minnesota Foundation’s website to support students, like Britta Bresina, by donating to the Russell W. Burris Memorial Fellowship in Educational Psychology.