William J. Therrien

Bill Therrien, Ph.D., BCBA, holds the Thomas G. Jewell Professorship of Special Education. He is the president of the Aletheia Society, which seeks to democratize special education research (https://aletheia-society.org/). The Aletheia Society’s goal is to promote rigor and openness in special education research and, in turn, improve services for children with disabilities. Therrien is also the co-director and co-founder of the Special Education Research Accelerator (SERA) (https://edresearchaccelerator.org/), a groundbreaking platform that unites research teams to collaboratively conduct high-quality, large-scale, and open studies with diverse samples in special education.

Additionally, Therrien serves as the co-editor of two prominent journals: The Journal of Special Education (https://journals.sagepub.com/home/SED), a flagship journal in the special education field, and Research in Special Education (RiSE) (https://journals.aperio.press/rise/submissions/), a new all open-access journal with no fees, supported by the University of Virginia Libraries and the Aletheia Society.

Therrien has extensive experience designing and evaluating academic programming for students with learning disabilities and autism, particularly in science and reading. His work spans a variety of methods, including single-subject, experimental, and quasi-experimental research designs. He has conducted numerous meta-analyses in reading, science, and special education. Therrien has successfully directed and co-directed numerous federal and state grants, securing over $30 million in funding from agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University
M.Ed., Arizona State University
B.A., The Pennsylvania State University

Curriculum Vitae