With funding authorized through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act, the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) has awarded funding for the National Center for Research on Gifted Education (http://ncrge.uconn.edu). Former NAGC President, Del Siegle, is the principal investigator and will serve as director of the newly funded center. E. Jean Gubbins serves as associate director. The new Center will be housed at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. The University of Virginia, University of California – Berkeley, and Florida State University are partner institutions.

Additional co-principal investigators on the UConn team include D. Betsy McCoach, Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead, Christopher Rhoads, and Jonathan Plucker. Carolyn Callahan, Frank Worrell, and Yaacov Petscher serve as Co-PI at the partner institutions.  Catherine Little and Joseph Renzulli serve as co-investigators at UConn. “We have an ambitious research agenda,” Siegle noted, “which is made possible by this talented team of gifted education and research design specialists who wrote an innovative proposal second to none.”

The Center will examine the extent of gifted programming and student participation in three states (Colorado, Florida, and North Carolina); identify districts and schools that show high achievement growth rates among gifted students, including those from underserved groups; and explore how these sites successfully identify, serve, and retain students from underrepresented groups in gifted programs.