Nadine Gaab is the Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professor in Learning Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the director of the GaabLab. Her research focuses on typical/atypical learning trajectories from infancy to adolescence with an emphasis on language/reading development within a learning disabilities framework. Her work is at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, learning sciences, EdTech, and education policy. Her research employs longitudinal behavioral and neuroimaging studies to characterize differences in learning as a complex outcome of cumulative risk and protective factors interacting within and across genetic, neurobiological, cognitive, and environmental levels from infancy to adolescence. Her theoretical work focuses on multifactorial frameworks of learning differences with an emphasis on early identification and ‘preventative education’. One important aspect of her work is the translation of research findings to address contemporary challenges in educational practice and policy.
She is the 2024 awardee of the Translation Award from the International Society of Mind, Brain, and Education and the 2023 recipient of the Academic Research Recognition Award from the World Literacy Foundation. Furthermore, she received the Learning Disabilities Association of America Award in 2019, the Norman Geschwind Memorial Lecture in 2020, and the Alice Garside Award from the International Dyslexia Association in 2017. She also received the Allan Crocker Award in 2018 from Boston Children’s Hospital for her advocacy on behalf of children with reading disabilities and her efforts to pass the Massachusetts dyslexia screening legislation. Furthermore, she is the co-founder of EarlyBird Education, a gamified EdTech platform for identifying children at risk for language-based learning disabilities and a board-certified special education advocate.