Susan Assouline, director of the University of Iowa College of Education’s Belin-Blank Center, has been awarded the 2016 Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). She will receive the recognition at the NAGC convention in Orlando on Nov. 5.  NAGC annually presents the Distinguished Scholar Award to an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of gifted education and demonstrates a continuous record of distinguished scholarship and ongoing scholarly productivity as recognized by experts in the field.

Assouline also is the Myron and Jacqueline Blank Endowed Chair in Gifted Education and professor of school psychology at the UI. Her areas of expertise within gifted education include acceleration, mathematical talent, and twice-exceptionality. Her most seminal contributions are A Nation Deceived, published in 2004, and A Nation Empowered, published in 2015. These books have changed the way the nation perceives acceleration as an option for gifted learners. Assouline is also the lead author of the Iowa Acceleration Scale, which is used by educational professionals nationwide when making evidence-based decisions about grade skipping.

Assouline has guided the Belin-Blank Center’s research and service to reach gifted and talented students and their educators throughout the nation and around the world. She played a central role in the development of the Assessment and Counseling Clinic and the Acceleration Institute, both housed at the Belin-Blank Center. These two unique and nationally respected programs have changed the path of gifted education research in many positive ways.