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Erika Gaylor

Early Childhood Researcher

Erika Gaylor, Ph.D., is the principal investigator of the Early Mathematics Education Project evaluation which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) grant program and designed to improve math instruction in prekindergarten to third-grade teachers by providing professional development in the Chicago Public Schools. She also provides technical assistance to the Model Demonstration Coordination Center, an OSEP-funded center for early childhood language intervention projects where she is responsible for developing common measures and synthesizing outcomes across three projects located throughout the United States. Dr. Gaylor serves as project director of the Illinois Statewide Birth to Five Early Childhood Block Grant Program and the Early Childhood Scholarship Program, a market-oriented ECE quality initiative in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is also a certified reviewer on the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC).

Dr. Gaylor has worked as a researcher and evaluator in both clinical- and community-based settings for more than 15 years and she has considerable experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research, including designing research projects; recruiting and coordinating research sites; collecting survey, interview, and observational data; training and supervising research assistants; managing databases; coding, analyzing, and interpreting data; and writing articles and reports for both academic and nonacademic audiences.

Her research and evaluation efforts have focused primarily on understanding the policies and contexts that shape early childhood development. Before joining SRI, Dr. Gaylor was an evaluator in a private, nonprofit mental health agency serving children and families in the greater Bay Area. In addition to early childhood policy, Dr. Gaylor is also interested in the links between health, sleep, and developmental outcomes in young children. She has conducted research studies of the development of sleep disorders in children birth to five years and secondary analyses of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to examine the impact of inadequate sleep on early literacy and math skills.

Dr. Gaylor earned her Ph.D. in human development from the University of California, Davis. She also holds an M.S. degree in child development from UC Davis and a B.S. degree in psychology from the University of Iowa.