Ont he occasion of the upcoming WCGTC biennial conference, the Scholarship & Awards Committee of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children awarded six individuals in four different areas of recognition: research, creativity, leadership, and distinguished service. In 2013 the International Award for Research were given to two American researchers Nicolas Colangelo and Sally M. Ries.
Professor Nicolas Colangelo is internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in the field of gifted education and academic acceleration. He is the co-founder of the Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education which over the past 25 years grew into a national and international model of success in research, training, and service in the field. Besides being director emeritus of the Belin-Blank Center he is the interim dean of the College of Education, University of Iowa. Colangelo has made his mark in the publishing world as well, authoring a book titled A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students with Susan Assouline and Miraca Gross and by being the senior editor of the Handbook of Gifted Education.
Sally M. Reis is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, and Teaching Fellow in Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut where she also serves as Principal investigator of The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented and has been the most productive researcher at the Center. Her scholarship is diverse and broad, as summarized by her numerous articles, books, book chapters, monographs, and technical reports. Her specialized research interests are related to diverse populations of gifted and talented students, including students with learning disabilities, gifted females, and culturally and linguistically diverse talented students. She is a Distinguished Scholar of the National Association for Gifted Children and a fellow of Division 15 of The American Psychological Association.
The International Award for Creativity was given to Todd Lubart and Péter Csermely.
Todd Lubart is Professor of Psychology at the Université Paris Descartes, and Member of the Institut Universitaire de France. His research focuses on creativity, its identification and development in children and adults, and development within the multivariate, investment approach, creative potential and creative giftedness, the creative process and the effect of context on creative work. He is Director of the scientific laboratory “LATI” (Laboratoire Adaptations Travail-Individu); and has been in charge of several research grants on creativity and has organized international scientific congresses on creativity. He is author or co-author of approximately 100 scientific reports on creativity. He is the co-founder of the International Centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE), and the associate editor of Gifted and Talented International.
Péter Csermely is a professor of the Semmelweis University (Budapest, Hungary) studying networks and talent support. In 1995 he established a research network for more than 10,000 gifted high school students. Together with Leon Lederman Nobel Laureate in 2000 he started the Network of Youth Excellence fostering talent support collaboration of 13 countries. From 2006 he chairs the Hungarian National Talent Support Council running and starting a European network of talent support. He became the president of the European Council of High Ability in 2012. He wrote and edited 15 books (including 5 talent-related books) and published 220 research papers. He was the member of the Wise Persons’ Council of the Hungarian President, an Ashoka, Fogarty, Howard Hughes and Rockefeller Fellow and received the 2004 Descartes Award of the European Union. In Besides being member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences he is a member of the Academy of Europe.
The Distinguished Service Award was given to Joyce VanTassel-Baska. She is professor emerita at The College of William and Mary, where she founded the Center for Gifted Education. Formerly she initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University. Joyce has also served as state director of gifted programs in Illinois, a regional director, a local coordinator of gifted programs, and a teacher of gifted high school students. Her major research interests are in the talent development process and effective curricular interventions with the gifted. She is the author of 22 books and has written more than 500 other publications on gifted education. She was the editor of Gifted and Talented International for several years and received numbers of awards for her service in the field of gifted education.
Taisir Subhi Yamin, the President of the Word Council of Gifted and talented Children was awarded the A. Harry Passow International Award for Leadership in Gifted Education. He is a professor of gifted education who is active in the field of science popularization, and has written 20 books, a large number of articles, chapters in edited books, and research papers. In addition, he has developed a number of training packages to develop productive thinking skills. He has presented a number of research papers at national and international conferences and has been a keynote speaker on numerous occasions. He is an active member of an impressive list of academic institutions. Professor Yamin was involved in developing UAE project for the gifted and talented in Ulm University. In addition, he has established, in cooperation with Todd Lubart and Sandra Linke, the International Centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE). In 2013, both Prof. Yamin and Prof. Ken McCluskey founded the International Journal for Talent Development and Creativity (IJTDC).
