About

Mary Bratsch-Hines, Ph.D., is the Senior Manager for Research and Evaluation at the University of Florida Lastinger Center for Learning. Dr. Bratsch-Hines began her career as an early childhood educator, which sparked her desire to study how children's educational experiences in child care, prekindergarten, and early elementary school settings support optimal development. A primary goal of her research is to identify the experiences that are most likely to improve children's early language and literacy skills, which, in turn, advance their trajectories as successful readers. An applied statistician concentrating on research design and evaluation, her projects include experimental evaluations of teacher professional development programs as well as observational studies of children's early care and education settings and highlights the experiences of socioeconomically, linguistically, racially, and ability diverse children primarily living in rural areas. Dr. Bratsch-Hines has been the Principal or Co-Principal Investigator of over $10 million of funded research and has authored several publications advancing scholarship in the field of early childhood education and literacy. She holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also worked as an Advanced Research Scientist at Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute until joining the Lastinger Center in 2021. Dr. Bratsch-Hines continues to work on FPG projects, including Targeted Reading Instruction, Early Learning Network, and Family Life Project.

Education

• Ph.D. in Education, 2012 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• M.A. in Education, 2008 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• B.A. in English, 2002 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Professional Appointments

• Senior Manager, Research and Evaluation, Lastinger Center for Learning, University of Florida, 2021-present
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017-present
• Advanced Research Scientist, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2012-2020

Activities and Honors

• Editorial Review Board, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk
• Reviewer, Reading and Writing, Journal of Early Childhood Education, AERA Open, Elementary School Journal, Exceptionality, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, American Educational Research Journal, Teaching and Teacher Education
• Adhoc Grant Reviewer, Institute of Education Sciences Basic Processes Panel
• Conference Reviewer, Society for Research in Child Development, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness
• Recipient, Abecedarian Award, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Selected Publications

• Bratsch-Hines, M., Pico, D., Loch, T., Osarenkhoe, K., Viafore, R., Faiello, M., & Pullen, P. (2023). Using professional learning to foster distributed leadership and equity of voice and promote higher quality in early childhood education [special issue]. Professional Development in Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2023.2238731
• Bratsch-Hines, M., Cohen-Vogel, L., Little, M., Lindsay, C., & Carr, R. (2023). Teacher-child racial/ethnic match from prekindergarten through first grade: Understanding early exposure and outcomes [special issue]. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 63(2), 145–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2022.12.004
• Vernon-Feagans, L., Carr, R., Bratsch-Hines, M., & Willoughby, M. (2022). Early maternal language input and classroom instructional quality in relation to children’s literacy trajectories from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Developmental Psychology, 58(6), 1066–1082. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001080
• Garber, K. L., Foster, T. J., Little, M. H., Cohen-Vogel, L., Bratsch-Hines, M., & Burchinal, M. (2022). Transition practices of rural pre-k and kindergarten teachers and their relations to children’s academic and social skills. Early Education and Development, 34(2), 426–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2022.2026191
• Burchinal, M., Foster, T., Garber, K., Cohen-Vogel, L., Bratsch-Hines, M., & Peisner-Feinberg, E. (2022). Examining three hypotheses for pre-kindergarten fade-out. Developmental Psychology, 58(3), 453–469. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001302
• Varghese, C., Bratsch-Hines, M. E., Aiken, H., & Vernon-Feagans, L. (2021). Elementary teachers’ intervention fidelity in relation to reading and vocabulary outcomes for students at risk for reading-related disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 54(6), 484–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219421999844
• Aiken, H. H., Bratsch-Hines, M., Amendum, S., & Vernon-Feagans, L. (2021). Targeted Reading Instruction: Four guiding principles. The Reading Teacher, 74(5), 505–515. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1975
• Cohen-Vogel, L., Little, M., Jang, W., Burchinal, M., & Bratsch-Hines, M. (2021). A missed opportunity? Instructional content redundancy in pre-k and kindergarten. AERA Open, 7(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211006163
• Burchinal, M., Bezdek, K., Foster, T., Bratsch-Hines, M., Franco, X., & Peisner-Feinberg, E. (2021). Relating early care and education quality to preschool outcomes: The same or different models for different outcomes? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 55(2), 35–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.10.005
• Zgourou, E., Bratsch-Hines, M. E., & Vernon-Feagans, L. (2021). Home literacy practices in relation to language skills of children living in low-wealth rural communities. Infant and Child Development, 30(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2201
• Bratsch-Hines, M. E., Carr, R. C., Zgourou, E., Vernon-Feagans, L., & Willoughby, M. (2020). Infant and toddler childcare quality and stability in relation to proximal and distal academic and social outcomes. Child Development, 91(6), 1854–1864. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13389

Selected Links

• Lastinger Center for Learning
• Targeted Reading Instruction, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute