Renzulli Learning Systems

Sally M. Reis
Sally M. Reis is a Professor and the Department Head of the Educational Psychology Department in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut where she also serves as Principal Investigator of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. She was a classroom teacher in public education as well as an administrator before coming to the University of Connecticut. She has authored and co-authored more than 140 articles, 12 books, 50 book chapters, and numerous monographs and technical reports, and worked in a research team that has generated over 35 million dollars in grants in the last 15 years.

Her research interests are related to talent development in all children as well as special populations of gifted and talented students, including: students with learning disabilities, gifted females and diverse groups of talented students who are often underserved. She is also interested in extensions of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model for both gifted and talented students and as a way to expand offerings and provide general enrichment to identify talent and potential in students who have not been previously identified as gifted. Her most recent work has involved methods of using gifted education pedagogy to stimulate interests, learning styles and abilities in all children. She has traveled extensively conducting workshops and providing professional development for school districts on gifted education, enrichment programs, and talent development programs. She is co-author of The Schoolwide Enrichment Model, The Secondary Triad Model, Dilemmas in Talent Development in the Middle Years, and a book published in 1998 about women’s talent development entitled Work Left Undone: Choices and Compromises of Talented Females. Sally serves on several editorial boards and is the past President of the National Association for Gifted Children. She has won several professional awards including the Distinguished Service Award for outstanding service by the National Association for Gifted Children and most recently, she was named the Distinguished Scholar by the National Association for Gifted Children, for her scholarly contributions to the field.

Joseph Renzulli
Joseph Renzulli is the Neag Professor of Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Connecticut where he also serves as the Director of The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. In March of 2000, he was named one of six Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors at the University of Connecticut. He has served on numerous editorial boards in the fields of gifted education, educational psychology and research, and law and education. He also served as a Senior Research Associate for the White House Task Force on Education for the Gifted and Talented. Dr. Renzulli is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, and he has received distinguished research awards from the National Association for Gifted Children and the University of Connecticut.

His major research interests are in identification and programming models for both gifted education and general school improvement. His Enrichment Triad Model (1977) has been cited as the most widely used approach for special programs for the gifted and talented, and the Three Ring Conception of Giftedness, which he developed in the early 1970s, is considered by many to be the foundation of a more flexible approach to identifying and developing high levels of potential in young people.

Dr. Renzulli has contributed numerous books and articles to the professional literature and has been a series author with the Houghton Mifflin Reading Series. His three most recent books are Schools for Talent Development: A Practical Plan for Total School Improvement (Renzulli, 1994), The Schoolwide Enrichment Model: A How-To Guide for Educational Excellence (Renzulli & Reis, 1997), and The Total Talent Portfolio: A Systematic Plan To Identify and Nurture Gifts and Talents (Purcell & Renzulli, 1998). Although Dr. Renzulli has generated millions of dollars in research and training grants, he lists as his proudest professional accomplishments the annual summer Confratute Program at the University of Connecticut, which originated in 1978 and has served more than 18,000 persons from around the world; and establishment of the UConn Mentor Connection, a summer program that enables high school students to work side-by-side with leading scientists, historians, artists, and other pioneering faculty members at the University of Connecticut.