Dr. Jessica Toste

Biography

Jessica R. Toste is an associate professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas at Austin. She holds research affiliations with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and the Texas Center for Equity Promotion. Dr. Toste's research focuses on effective methods for intensifying intervention for students with persistent reading challenges and reading disabilities. She has been a principal investigator on various research grants funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Institutes of Health. A trained reading intervention research postdoctoral fellow from Vanderbilt University, Dr. Toste is also a Fulbright scholar from the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University. Her past experiences include working as an elementary special education teacher and a reading specialist in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dr. Toste serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities and is actively involved in grant review panels concerning reading, writing, and language development. She has received several awards for her teaching excellence and advocacy work, including the 2023 President's Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award and the 2022 Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award. Currently, she chairs the Graduate Assembly and holds leadership positions in the Council for Exceptional Children. Dr. Toste is also an advocacy member of the Board of Directors for GLSEN, focusing on LGBTQ+ issues in K-12 education, and she previously served as chair of the Board of Directors for Disability Rights Texas.

Research Interests

Courses