Keynote Speaker & Special Guest

Georgia Heard

Keynote Speaker

Georgia Heard is a founding member of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project where she worked as senior staff developer in the New York City schools for seven years. She is currently a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and a consultant and visiting author in school districts throughout the U.S, Canada, and around the world.

Ms. Heard is the author of numerous professional books on teaching writing, including her most recent A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades (Stenhouse, 2009) and Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School (Heinemann), which was cited by Instructor Magazine as “One of the Ten Best Books Every Teacher Should Read.” She has also authored many children’s books, including her most recent, Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems (Roaring Brook Press, 2009).

Paul B. Yellin, M.D., FAAP

Special Guest

Dr. Yellin, the director of The Yellin Center for Mind, Brain, and Education, has dedicated his entire career to improving the well-being and development of young people.

Prior to the establishment of The Yellin Center in 2007, he served for five years as national director of the Student Success Program at the not-for-profit All Kinds of Minds Institute. There, he worked closely with the Institute’s researchers and clinicians to deliver a multi-disciplinary model of learning assessments and personalized learning plans to thousands of students from across the world at sites in New York City and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

In 2007, Dr. Yellin created The Yellin Center to expand this model of assessment. He assembled a team of experienced clinicians and administrators and set out to extend the scope of the assessment program and update it in keeping with the latest scientific research. 

Dr. Yellin is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. The Yellin Center is affiliated with the NYU School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and serves as a training site for its Developmental-Behavioral Pediatric Fellowship Program.

Dr. Yellin has been an active member in the local and national leadership of the American Academy of Pediatrics, having served as president of the New York City Chapter as well as on several statewide and national committees. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Center for Applied Special Technology, the New York Institute for Special Education, and Cornerstone Literacy. 

Dr. Yellin began his career as a neonatologist, caring for medically fragile children. He served as associate chief of neonatal-perinatal medicine at Brookdale Hospital Center and then became director of Neonatal Clinical Services at NYU Medical Center, where he was named Faculty Teacher of the Year. At NYU Downtown Hospital, he served as chief medical officer and senior vice president, as well as director of neonatology. It was this position that he held in September 2001, when he and his colleagues were only a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. 

Influenced by the events going on around him, as well as the difficulties he and his wife experienced in gaining understanding of one of their son’s learning difficulties, he left NYU Downtown and joined All Kinds of Minds, to hone his expertise in learning and assessment. He now works with students from Pre-K through graduate school and beyond, bringing his depth of experience and medical perspective to struggling students.

Dr. Yellin is a native of New York City, where he attended Stuyvesant High School. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University. He received his medical degree at the NYU School of Medicine and completed a pediatric residency at NYU Medical Center/Bellevue Hospital. He completed a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine at Babies Hospital of Columbia University School of Medicine and is board certified in both pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. He and his wife have three sons.