Françoys Gagné
Professor
Françoys Gagné joined the Department of Psychology at l’Université du Québec à Montréal
(UQAM) in 1978, and focused his research on the education of gifted and talented students. He is best known for his Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent, which has been endorsed by educational authorities in Australia.
Prof Gagné is founding president of Douance-Québec (Giftedness-Quebec), an advocacy group of parents and educators. He has published extensively and has won major awards in the field of gifted education. In November 1996, he was given the Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Gifted Children “for significant contributions to the field of knowledge regarding the education of gifted individuals”.
He has retired from his professorship at UQAM but remains active as a writer and consultant.
John Geake
John Geake is Professor of Education at the Westminster Institute of Education, Oxford Brookes University, and Research Collaborator with the Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, Department of Neurology, University of Oxford. His post includes leading the Institute’s research developments in gifted education through the Research Centre for Able Pupils. He is also the co-founder and convenor of the Oxford Cognitive Neuroscience Education Forum.
Prof Geake has over 30 years
of teaching experience in primary, secondary, further education and tertiary sectors, and has been the recipient of several awards for innovative curriculum design in the areas of science and technology. He has published over 60 journal articles, educational books, book chapters, reports, and papers and keynote addresses in conference proceedings.
His research interests include the neuroscience of high intelligence and creativity, nonlinear dynamical modelling of brain functioning, and the implications of cognitive neuroscience generally for pedagogy and curriculum.
Joanne Haroutounian
Dr Joanne
Haroutounian is an adjunct associate professor on the piano
faculty of George Mason University, USA. A distinguished pedagogy
author, clinician, soloist, and chamber musician, she consults
nationally in the combined fields of music and gifted/arts
education. Her recent book, Kindling the Spark: The Recognition
and Development of Musical Talent, published by Oxford
University Press, has been described as “a must for teachers,
parents, students, non-musicians, and performers who want a readable
and well documented guide for the complex task of recognising and
nurturing musical talent”. Dr Haroutounian is also President and
Executive Director, of MusicLink Foundation, a non-profit
organisation that seeks out promising music students in financial
need and provides them long-term musical training and musical
opportunities.
Sandra Kaplan
Sandra Kaplan is associate clinical professor for learning and instruction at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. She has served as the lead consultant for the Carnegie Middle Schools Project, Texas Education Agency, from 1993 to present. She has authored and co-authored many books and articles on the nature and scope of differentiated curriculum for gifted learners.
Dr Kaplan is a past president of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), of which she has been a member of since 1982. She is also a past president of the California Association for the Gifted. One of the world's foremost authorities in the field of gifted education, she has made presentations at the World Congress on Gifted and NAGC and TAGT conferences. Recent honours include the Award of Achievement from the California Association for the Gifted and the Distinguished Service Award from NAGC.
Kishore Mahbubani
Professor Kishore Mahbubani is Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY SPP) of the National University of Singapore. He is also a Faculty Associate for the LKY SPP’s Centre on Asia and Globalisation. Concurrently, Prof Mahbubani continues to serve
on boards and councils of several institutions in Singapore, Europe and North America, including the International Institute for Strategic Studies Council, the Asia Society's International Council, the Institute of Policy Studies
and the Yale President's Council on International Activities.
Prof Mahbubani has spoken and published globally. He was also listed as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines in September 2005. His articles have appeared in a wide range of journals and newspapers, including
Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Washington
Quarterly, Survival, American Interest,
National Interest, Time, Newsweek and New York
Times. He is the author of Can Asians Think? and Beyond The Age Of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World. His forthcoming book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East will be published in early 2008.
Shen Jiliang
Professor Jiliang Shen is the current chairman of the Division of Educational Psychology, CPA;
Chairman of the Council for School of Psychology as well as the Director of the Institute of Developmental Psychology at Beijing Normal University. His main research interests are in creativity development and education, and teacher professional development, and he is especially interested in the cross-cultural perspective in both these areas. His project on a cross-cultural comparison of adolescents’ scientific creativity development on students from mainland China, UK, Germany, Japan and the USA has yielded many interesting results. So far, he has edited and authored more than 10 books and 100 papers.
Shi Jiannong
Professor Jiannong Shi was originally trained in
chemistry, and shifted his major to psychology in 1985 after he graduated from the Chemistry Department at Xuzhou Teachers’ College. Since he graduated from the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, he has been working at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he is now a full professor of psychology. He also serves as the
academy’s Director for the Center for Supernormal Children. He focuses his research on theory and practice in the field of giftedness and creativity. Based on his natural perspective of giftedness, he developed a bio-socio-psycho model to guide gifted education and creativity cultivation in kindergarten, primary, and secondary schools in China. He is leading a research team with various academic backgrounds to conduct a series of experiments from neuro-science to educational practice. He is currently directing six projects in the field of gifted education and creativity.
Robert J Sternberg
Professor Robert J
Sternberg is Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. He was IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University and President of the American Psychological Association
(APA). Prof Sternberg sits on the editorial boards of numerous journals, including American Psychologist.
His research interests cover a wide range of areas, including intelligence, creativity, wisdom, leadership, love and close relationships, and hate. He is the author of over 1,000 books and articles, and has won roughly
two dozen awards for his scholarship. His research has taken him to
five different continents, where he has studied the relationship between culture and competence.
Prof Sternberg received his PhD from Stanford University and his BA summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with honours with exceptional distinction in psychology, from Yale University. He has also received
five honorary doctorates. Prof Sternberg is a past-president of APA, and has served on the Boards of Directors of the APA, APA Insurance Trust, American Psychological Foundation and Eastern Psychological Association.
Kirsi Tirri
Kirsi Tirri is a Professor at the Department of Practical Theology at the University of Helsinki and Visiting Professor (2006
to 2009) in the Department of Education and Professional Studies at King's College, University of London. She is also a Docent of Education at the University of Tampere.
Prof Tirri’s research interests include moral and religious education, gifted education, teacher education and cross-cultural studies, and she has many publications in these areas. She is currently leading Finnish research teams in the following projects: "Actualizing Finnish Giftedness", "Leading Schools Successfully in Challenging Urban Contexts: Strategies for Improvement" and "Educating through Diversity in Europe".
She has been the President-Elect of
the European Council for High Ability since January 2007.
Joyce Van Tassel-Baska
Joyce Van Tassel-Baska is The Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Education and Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where she has developed a graduate programme and a research and development centre in gifted education. She has worked as a consultant on gifted education in all 50 states and for key national groups, including the US Department of Education, National Association of Secondary School Principals, and American Association of School Administrators. She has consulted internationally in Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Jordan, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
Prof Van Tassel-Baska’s research interests are on the talent development process and effective curricular interventions with the gifted. She has published widely including 20 books and over 345 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly reports. She also served as the editor of Gifted and Talented International, a publication of the World Council on Gifted and Talented from 1998
to 2005.
