Adrian Pasquarella

Associate Professor

Adrian Pasquarella is an associate professor specializing in literacy education in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. He teaches courses related to literacy instruction, specifically for Multilingual Learners (MLLs) and leads the Multicultural Education and Literacy Development (MELD) laboratory at the University of Delaware. Pasqurarella’s research areas include language and literacy acquisition and development in linguistically and culturally diverse populations, understanding universal and language-specific aspects of reading and writing, cross-language transfer, reading comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, and morphological awareness. Additionally, his research focuses on developing and evaluating evidence-based educational programs to improve language and literacy outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse students in the US and abroad.

Adrian’s research has been widely published in prestigious journals, including the Journal of Education Psychology, Scientific Studies of Reading, Developmental Psychology, Reading Research Quarterly, Language Learning, Neuropsychologia, Reading and Writing, Journal of Research in Reading, and Topics in Language Disorders.

Educational Background

• Ph.D., Developmental Psychology and Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, 2014
• M.A., Developmental Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, 2009
• B. A., Psychology, Research Specialist, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, 2007

Professional Experience

• Associate Professor, School of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2019–present
• Assistant Professor, School of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2013–2019

Grants

• Project DELITE: Delaware English Learners’ Impact on Teacher Education. Co-Principal Investigator with Nigel Caplan, University of Delaware. US Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA): National Professional Development (NPD) Program, 2022-2027, $2.6 million. 
• The Learning Library: A mobile library toolkit to develop language, literacy, and content knowledge. Principal Investigator with Roberta Golinkoff and Surinder Sharma, NSF VITAL Prize Challenge, Semi-Finalist: National Science Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Schmidt Futures, Walton Family Foundation, 2024, $20,000.
• The Targeted Reading Intervention: Investigating the Efficacy of a Web-Based Early Reading Intervention Professional Development Program for K-1 English Learners. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, English Learners – Efficacy & Replication Grant, 2016–2021. Co-Investigator alongside Steven Amendum, Henry May, Allison Karpyn, Lynne Vernon-Feagans, Melissa Bratsch-Hines, and Leslie Babinski, $3.3 million.
• Examining cross-language relationships in reading fluency and reading comprehension (RC) for      English language learners: Insights from eye-tracking and think-aloud protocols. Principal Investigator; funded by the University of Delaware General University  Research (GUR) grant program, Newark, DE, 2015-2017. $7,000.

Recent Professional Awards

• Dean’s Research Award, College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware, 2015