Berkeley, Sheri

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Phone: (703) 993-9689
Email: sberkele (@gmu.edu)

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Sheri Berkeley, PhD, is a Professor in the Division of Special Education and disAbility Research at George Mason University. From 2020 to 2025, she served in multiple leadership roles within the PhD in Education Program—including Director, Interim Director, and Director of Program Improvement Initiatives—where she guided program assessment, accreditation, and curricular innovation to strengthen doctoral education across the college.

Berkeley has been awarded two highly competitive U.S. Department of Education personnel preparation grants that train future leaders and researchers in special education. She serves as Subcontract Principal Investigator on Training special edUcatoRs To Lead with Evidence and Support (TURTLES) (in partnership with Auburn University and the University of Oklahoma) and Virginia Is for Leaders (in collaboration with the University of Virginia). These projects prepare doctoral scholars to advance evidence-based practices for students with disabilities and to assume leadership roles in the field.

Her broader research examines how students with learning disabilities self-regulate and comprehend text, and how teachers can effectively support these processes. She has also led federally funded studies through the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences exploring students’ self-regulation in science and writing instruction in inclusive middle school classrooms. Her work appears in leading journals such as the Journal of Learning Disabilities, Exceptional Children, and Learning Disability Quarterly, and she co-authored two books: Reading Fundamentals for Students with Learning Difficulties (Routledge, 2020) and Maximizing Effectiveness of Reading Comprehension Instruction in Diverse Classrooms (Brookes, 2015).

A past president of the International Council for Learning Disabilities, Berkeley serves on editorial boards for Learning Disabilities Research & Practice and Learning Disability Quarterly. She has received several honors for her research excellence, including Mason’s Emerging Researcher/Scholar/Creator Award and the DLD Dissertation Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research.

At Mason, Berkeley teaches doctoral and master’s courses on research methods, language and development, and special education trends. Her work as both scholar and mentor reflects her commitment to developing evidence-based instructional practices and preparing the next generation of leaders in special education.
 

• Self-regulation and metacognition in learning • Reading comprehension and strategy instruction

• Special Education
• Helen A. Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities
• School of Education
• Special Education: General Curriculum
• Special Education: Non-licensure

• Problems and Methods in Education Research (EDRS 810)
• Language Development and Reading (EDSE 403)
• Introduction to Special Education (EDSE 501)
• Language Development and Reading (EDSE 503)
• Special Education Research (EDSE 590)
• Current Issues in Special Education (EDSE 744)
• Comprehensive Topics in Special Education: Trends and Issues (EDSE 782)
• Internship in Special Education (EDSE 790)
• Special Topics (EDSE 794)
• Evaluating Intervention Research (EDSE 841)
• Current Issues in Special Education (EDSE 844)
• Policy-driven Initiatives in Special Education and Disability Research (EDSE 847)
• Writing Grants (EDSE 885)
• Doctoral Internship in Education (EDUC 890)
• Independent Study for the Doctor of Philosophy in Education (EDUC 897)
• Advanced Internship in Education (EDUC 994)
• Doctoral Dissertation Proposal (EDUC 998)
• Doctoral Dissertation Research (EDUC 999)