Lourdes Santiago-Poventud, Ph.D. (Research Assistant, University of Florida)

Lourdes Santiago-Poventud Lourdes Santiago-Poventud, Ph.D., is currently a research assistant in the Department of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida.   Before joining the University of Florida, Lourdes worked with Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) for 18 years.  During her time with M-DCPS, she worked in a variety of capacities, including: elementary school classroom teacher, reading leader, and curriculum support specialist for the Division of Language Arts/Reading.  Lourdes’ previous experience also includes her work with Pearson Scott Foresman as an educational consultant for the company, where she provided professional development to school districts in the southeast region of the United States.

Lourdes has been a part of Project SELF: Social-Emotional Learning Foundations from its inception.  She was a member of the research team dedicated to writing the SELF curriculum for students in kindergarten and first grade.  Her dissertation focused on the effects of the SELF intervention on children’s emotional vocabulary development.  Her dissertation work has earned her the Fien Dissertation Award as well as the honor of being selected as a Doctoral Student Scholar for the Council for Exceptional Children – Division of Research.