McCandliss studies the development of children’s early literacy from the perspective of developing cognitive and brain systems, with an emphasis on questions of how the neural substrates of cognition change via learning and education, and how they differ in children with developmental dyslexia. His research employs several diverse techniques to investigate cognitive change across development and learning, including training studies in adults and children, longitudinal research with school-age children, and naturalistic school-based observational and intervention studies, crossed with neurobiological measures of functional and structural brain development.  After completing his PhD. in Psychology with a focus in electrophysiology and developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oregon,  he became an Assistant Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University.   In 2009, he was granted an endowed professorship at Vanderbilt University, and named the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor, where he founded the Educational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. He is currently a Professor at Stanford University, where he is a member of the Graduate School of Education, the Department of Psychology, and the Stanford Neuroscience Institute.