Our Team

Leadership

rick-picture-aeraRick Wagner, PhD, Principal Investigator

Rick Wagner’s research is focused on the normal acquisition of reading and dyslexia. His body of work has furthered the understanding of phonological processing in relation to learning to read and the development of reading disability. His public service in the field of literacy has included appointment as chair of the National Institute for the Literacy Advisory Board, member of the study section for reading and writing of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, and principal investigator of the Learning Disability Research Center. He has also developed widely used assessments of phonological processing and early literacy.

Fotena Zirps, PhD, Lab Manager

I was Rick’s first PhD at FSU in 1990. After I graduated, I worked for 25 years in human fz-in-office-1services. My expertise was in quality improvement and leadership development. I came back to FSU in 2014 and am the Lab Manager and Senior Research Associate.  Studying dyslexia and how we might support people with dyslexia is so worthwhile.  In my spare time, I love to read, write, bake, sing, and play with my 5 incredible cats. My faith is a very important part of my life as is working to better life for animals. I believe strongly that we are all here in this life to learn and to serve. I could not be happier than to work with the great folks of the Wagner Lab, FCRR, The Collective (previously known as the FLDRC) and at FSU. I retired in 2024, but came back part time in 2025 and am beyond excited about our work in progress. 

POST DOC 

Dr. Dorota Kossowska-Kuhn, Post Doc 

Dr. Kossowska-Kuhn received her PhD from Florida State in 2024. Her research interests include dyslexia, meta-analysis, statistics, and she has a great passion for applying cutting edge statistics to the issues of aging and cognitive impairment.  Dorota is leading a large group of undergraduate students on two meta-analyses, including one connected with the WagnerLab on dyslexia. 

 

GRADUATE STUDENTS 

Rachelle Johnson, Graduate Student 

Rachelle Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in developmental psychology and an Institute of Educational Sciences predoctoral fellow through the Florida Center for Reading Research. She researches environmental and emotional predictors of reading development using advanced quantitative methods. A significant portion of her research focuses on children’s fear of reading, referred to as reading anxiety. Rachelle’s goal is for learning disabled children to succeed in their reading achievement while maintaining their emotional well-being.

Rachelle

Landon Heller, Graduate Student   

Landon is a second-year student in the developmental psychology Ph.D. program at Florida State University. His research centers on the use of assistive technologies to support students with reading disabilities, with a particular focus on text-to-speech (TTS) tools and other accommodations designed to mitigate phonological processing deficits common in dyslexia. He takes a broad, translational approach to intervention research, aiming to identify practical and evidence-based solutions that enhance reading comprehension and academic access for struggling readers. Outside of his academic work, Landon enjoys rock climbing and staying active through fitness training.

Our Spring 2025 Meta Analysis Team

Our Team Mascot! 

 team wagner

Our Collaborators

Dr. Mercedes Spencer, is the principal investigator of the Reading, Education, and Development (READ) Laboratory and is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. She earned her PhD in Psychology from the Florida State University and completed her postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University. Broadly, Dr. Spencer’s research focuses on the cognitive-behavioral correlates of reading development and associated difficulties. Her research aims to identify early indicators of reading comprehension difficulties to better predict and prevent future reading problems in children. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Outside of work, Dr. Spencer enjoys reading novels, watching films, and spending time outdoors.

Publications:

Dr. Nancy Marencin received her PhD here in 2024 and spent 6 months as our lab manager when Dr Zirps retired. In 2025 she took a dream job at USF, but continues to collaborate with The WagnerLab. Currently, Dr. Marencin is collaborating on several projects in the Wagner Lab that investigate reading development and related learning disorders. These projects utilize meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) and structural equation modeling techniques. Additionally, she is leading an investigation that aims to further clarify the relation between children’s word reading accuracy and the quality of their word specific phonological representations over time utilizing Rasch-based Explanatory Item Response Models.

Dr. Marencin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and holds a courtesy appointment at the Florida Center for Reading Research. She is an ASHA Certified speech language pathologist and completed a Graduate Certificate in Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention from the University of Florida. Prior to her doctoral work, she worked as a speech language pathologist and reading specialist at an independent school for children with language-based learning disabilities and dyslexia.

Dr. Marencin’s research is broadly focused on language and reading development and disabilities with consideration of the cognitive and language processes that underly a child’s development of and access to high quality mental representations of words. Her current work uses quantitative methods to understand the unique interaction between specific word/item demands and a child’s skills and knowledge in word reading, word spelling, and word learning.