Christa Biel

Christa Haring Biel, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is a research scientist with Virginia Literacy Partnerships where she serves as the content lead for the professional development team and oversees the regional K-8 literacy coaches across the Commonwealth. She received her Ph.D. in special education from the University of Texas at Austin with a dual emphasis in learning disabilities and behavior disorders. 

She has served as an educator, speech-language pathologist, and researcher in the field of education for more than twenty years. During this time, she has collaborated on multiple federally funded and foundation grants (IES, Dobbs Foundation, Diehl Foundation, Zeist Foundation) at universities and research centers across the country measuring the impact of coaching on language and literacy outcomes for students, educators, home visitors, and families. 

Her research interests include language and literacy assessment and intervention, with a specific focus on families in under-resourced communities. She is particularly interested in how coaching practices impact implementation fidelity of science-based reading instruction. Additional research focuses on how language development primes reading outcomes. 

Haring’s work has been published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, Journal of Special Education, Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, Teaching Exceptional Children, and Preventing School Failure. Haring is also the co-editor of Coaching in the Home Visiting Space.

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2013
M.S., Florida State University, 2007
B.S., Brigham Young University, 2000