Dr. Sylvia Linan-Thompson is an associate professor at the University of Oregon in the Department of Special Education and Clinical Sciences and is affiliated with the Center on Teaching and Learning. Her primary research interests are examining appropriate instructional and assessment practices for English learners. She was previously at the University of Texas. She also works on international development projects in education and has collaborated with the World Bank, UNESCO, and the US Agency for International Development on education projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.

Dr. Linan-Thompson has focused her research on the instructional needs of English learners (ELs). She has she been PI or Co-PI of longitudinal intervention research projects that developed and examined reading interventions for struggling readers who are monolingual English speakers, English language learners and bilingual students acquiring Spanish literacy in elementary and middle school. She is currently examining the English writing development of ELs with and with our learning disabilities. She has also studied the efficacy of Response to Instruction frameworks in dual language schools serving a high percentage of ELs.