GERI Director, Grad Student Recognized at Conference

Marcia Gentry, professor of gifted, creative and talented studies, and doctoral candidate Enyi Jen both received awards at the annual conference of the National Association of Gifted Children in Phoenix, Arizona.

The NAGC’s Special Populations Network recognized Gentry, director of the Gifted Education Research and Resource Institute (GERI), with their signature award. The term “special populations” refers to gifted children who have additional circumstances or characteristics that can interfere with academic achievement, social/emotional growth, and optimal development of their potential. The award recognizes individuals who have helped advance the recognition and development of the talents and abilities of special populations, including, but not limited to, children who are from cultural, linguistic and ethnically diverse backgrounds, who are from rural or urban settings or are impacted by socio-economic status (SES). Gentry has worked extensively with students in Native American, rural and low SES backgrounds.

Enyi Jen, a doctoral candidate in gifted, creative, and talented studies, received NAGC’s 2015 Doctoral Student Award. Enyi has previously received the College of Education’s Dean’s Doctoral Scholarship, the Feldhusen Doctoral Fellowship, and the 2014 Jack Kent Cooke Dissertation Fellowship Award. She has been coordinating GERI talent development programs for the past five years. Her research interests include talent development, social and emotional development of gifted learners, qualitative methods and design-based research. Enyi is the fifth Purdue student to receive NAGC’s Doctoral Student Award in the past four years. Previous winners include Jiaxi Wu (2014), C. Matthew Fugate (2013), Nielsen Pereira (2012) and Yang Yang (2012).