Janice A. Doleis Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah. She received her B. A. in psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and her M. A. in reading and educational psychology, and her Ph.D. at the University of Colorado in reading, with minors in curriculum and educational psychology. Her past positions have included appointments at the University of Denver, the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, and Michigan State University. Janice’s K-12 teaching experience includes the primary and middle school grades in Massachusetts, California and Colorado. 

Jan’s major research interests include comprehension instruction, reading reform and professional development. Her past work also includes work on conceptual change learning.  She has conducted research and written theoretical papers on classroom interventions in comprehension and writing strategies. As part of reading reform efforts in Utah, she conducted a five-year evaluation of the Reading First project as well as served as a technical consultant and instructional coach throughout the state and nationally. She has received funding for grants and contracts from the Institute of Education Sciences, the Department of Education, the Utah System of Higher Education and the Utah Office of Child Care: Workforce Services. She is also founder and Co-Director of the Stegner Young Writing Scholars’ Institute for the past ten years, a summer writing program for diverse urban adolescents in Utah.

Jan has been on the editorial consulting board of Reading Research Quarterlyand the Journal of Educational Research, in addition to past work on the editorial boards of Contemporary Educational Psychologyand the American Educational Research Journal. She has extensive experience on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), serving in numerous capacities such as a NAEP panel member in the 1990s, an expert reviewer in the NAEP Judgmental Standards Setting Project, and a member of the College Course Content Analysis Study in the 2010s.

Jan’s publications include books, test reviews, chapters and articles in Reading Research Quarterly, Review of Educational Research, Journal of Educational Psychology, School Psychology Review, The Elementary School Journal,The Reading Teacher and The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, andReading and Writing Quarterly. Her most recent co-authored book is Reading Across Multiple Texts in the Common Core Classroom, K-5. She has extensive experience working with teachers, literacy coaches, administrators, and school boards across the country and serves as a regular consultant to state and federal agencies.