Dr. Tracy Cross Receives Mensa Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award

Contact: Lauren Fernandez
817/607-0060 

ARLINGTON, TX (9/8/09) – The Mensa Education & Research Foundation has honored Dr. Tracy L. Cross, Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education and a professor at the College of William and Mary, with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was presented at The College of William and Mary by Mensa Foundation Trustee Dave Remine.

Cross received the award based on his dedication to research in the field of gifted students over the span of 15 years. Cross has become the most active researcher in the world on the suicidal behavior of gifted students, and has written five books on the topic. He has served as editor of every research journal in the field of gifted education: Gifted Children Quarterly, Roeper Review, Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, and currently, Journal for the Education of the Gifted.

He was honored in 2005 with the John E. Worthen Outstanding Contributor to Education Award; and in 2004, he received the Paper of the Year Award (for his work published in Gifted Child Quarterly) from the National Association for Gifted Children, and the Outstanding Service Award from the Association for the Gifted (TAG) of the Council for Exceptional Children.

 “The innovative research of Dr. Cross sheds light on an important issue, suicidal behavior, in the realm of gifted students,” said Greg Timmers, President of the Mensa Education & Research Foundation. “He has worked tirelessly for the past 15 years in the area of intelligence and gifted students, which is the forefront focus of the Mensa Foundation. Dr. Cross deserves this award and we look forward to his future research.”

The Mensa Lifetime Achievement Award was created in 1999 to honor an individual’s lifetime of contributions to the field of intelligence, giftedness or creativity. To win this award, an individual must have published an exceptional body of work in research, theory or other scholarly areas over a period of not less than 15 years. Winners may be educators and/or practitioners in the fields of giftedness, brain function, human intelligence, creativity or intelligence testing. Winners receive $1,000 and a crystal award. To learn more about this award, visit www.mensafoundation.org.

For more than thirty years, the Mensa Education & Research Foundation has been a strong voice in supporting intelligence. The Foundation fosters the best and brightest through scholarships and awards, and encourages research and intellectual inquiry through the Mensa Research Journal, Colloquiums and its podcast series, Conversations with Mensa. Governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees, the Mensa Foundation is a 501c(3) organization and is funded by support from American Mensa, Mensa members and other charitable donations. To learn more about the Foundation, log on to www.mensafoundation.org.

###