The Leadership and Educational Impact Team empowers educators with the tools and processes they need to successfully enhance practices and increase outcomes for all children, including those with disabilities.
We help local, state, and international education leadership teams to improve outcomes for children and families.
Meet the Team
K. Lynne Mainzer
Deputy Director, Associate Research Scientist
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K. Lynne Mainzer has provided leadership as principal investigator, co-principal investigator, and director for many of the CTE’s largest grant-funded projects, especially those offering technical assistance and online resources to educators at the state, district, and school levels. As the primary architect of three premier CTE programs—Dynamic Impact, Boundless Learning for Inclusion, and Boundless Learning Co-Teaching—she leads their ongoing development, implementation, and evaluation nationally and internationally.
Her specific research interest focuses on how to advance group work and effective decision-making through high-performance teaming. She has extensive online and face-to-face teaching experience; has taught graduate courses for JHU School of Education related to effective leadership, collaborative learning, special education, advanced instructional strategies, and technology integration; and has roots as a special education teacher in Maryland.
Mary Hendricks
Program Quality Specialist
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Mary Hendricks, Program Quality Specialist, serves as a Maryland State Evidence-Based Practice trainer and coach. As an Internationally Certified Routines-Based Interview Trainer, she works with the Maryland State Department of Education, Local Part C coordinators, and Infant and Toddler program staff to support the implementation of the Routines-Based Interview.
She has more than 35 years of experience in public schools as a practitioner and resource to preschool special education and birth-3 programs. She brings a passion for the families of young children, supporting them as they help their children grow and learn.
Cecilia Leger
Program Administrator for Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education
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Cecilia Leger, Program Administrator for Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education, manages the design, development, and user experience of technology tools, including Maryland’s Online IFSP data system, the Online Referral tool, and the Pinwheel Community Portal. She is passionate about providing solutions to bridge the gap between research and everyday practice in special education services for young children and their families.
Beverly Lyles
Program Quality Specialist
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Beverly Lyles, Program Quality Specialist, serves as a support for the Maryland State Early Intervention programs’ evidence-based practices. She provides training, support for implementation, and sustainability of Routines-Based interviews and Reflective Coaching.
Teresa O’Connor
Program Quality Specialist
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Teresa O’Connor, Program Quality Specialist, provides innovative ways to promote high-quality teaching and learning in order to enhance opportunities for all students. She brings her experience as an educator, mentor teacher, curriculum developer, administrator, trainer, and designer of an online Response to Intervention tool to her work coordinating an online IEP system that helps educators develop a federally compliant IEP, and provides a mechanism for analyzing data to help students with disabilities make progress in the general education curriculum.
Melanie Upright
Program Administrator for Leadership and Educational Impact
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Program Administrator for Leadership and Educational Impact, co-directs development, training, implementation, and evaluation of Dynamic Impact—the pioneering continuous improvement approach that builds equitable conditions to advance teaching performance and student achievement among all students. With two decades of educational experience, Melanie has led teams at the school, district, and state levels to support data-informed decision making and to implement evidence-based inclusive initiatives, including the JHU Boundless Learning program.
Furthermore, as a district level coordinator, Melanie has supervised speech-language pathologists serving birth–21; coached administrators, general education and special education teachers and instructional assistants; and led systems change initiatives in classroom management—efforts which helped to narrow the achievement gap in elementary mathematics, early literacy development, and improved access to augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Melanie believes in the potential of all students and the magic of the classroom.
Gloria Valentine
Education Program Officer, Early Intervention and Inclusive Practice
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Gloria Valentine, Education Program Officer for Early Intervention and Inclusive Practice, is a highly experienced early intervention/early childhood professional with over two decades of expertise in the field. She has served as the Director of Early Intervention for Baltimore, where she led the Baltimore City Health Department’s Infants and Toddlers Program. Her career has been marked by her tireless advocacy for early intervention services, believing in their invaluable impact on young children’s development.