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#ECHA2026

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Aoife Brennan

Head of School of Inclusive and Special Education, DCU Institute of Education

Dr. Aoife Brennan is an Associate Professor and Head of School of Inclusive and Special Education at DCU Institute of Education. She previously worked as a primary teacher and as a Literacy Advisor with the National Professional Development Service for Teachers. Aoife teaches across a number of undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education programmes up to and including doctoral level and currently leads the Inclusive and Special Education Area of Professional Focus (APF) on the Doctor of Education (EdD) programme. Aoife’s research focuses on a range of areas, including professional learning for inclusion, inclusive pedagogy, education policy, and inclusive school leadership.

Prof. Sally Reis

Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut

Prof. Sally M. Reis held the Letitia Neag Chair in Educational Psychology, is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, and was the former Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the Neag School of Education at University of Connecticut. She served as Principal Investigator of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented and Department Head of the Educational Psychology Department. She was a classroom teacher and administrator in public education before her work at UConn. She has authored and co-authored more than 270 articles, books, book chapters, monographs and technical reports, and worked in a research team that has generated over 60 million dollars in grants in the last 15 years. Her scholarship on academically talented students and strength-based pedagogy is diverse and broad, as summarized in over 250 articles, books, book chapters, monographs, and technical reports. She has won multiple awards, including being named a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and a fellow of Division 15 of The American Psychological Association.

Dr. Paula Olszewski-Kubilius

Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University

Dr. Paula Olszewski-Kubilius is the immediate past director of the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University and professor emeritus in the School of Education and Social Policy. Over the past 40 years, she created multiple programs for diverse groups of gifted learners from preschool through high school. Dr. Olszewski-Kubilius speaks and writes extensively on conceptual models of giftedness and talent development, issues in talent development across the lifespan, best practices regarding the identification and programming for under-represented gifted students and outside-of-school, and accelerative models of gifted education. She has published over 140 articles and book chapters. Her recent theoretical work includes a co-edited book with Rena Subotnik and Frank Worrell, The Handbook of High Performance: Developing Potential Into Domain-Specific Talent, published by the American Psychological Association, which examines talent development across diverse fields of academics, the arts and sport. She has served as editor of Gifted Child Quarterly, co-editor of the Journal of Secondary Gifted Education and on the editorial review boards of Gifted and Talented International, The Roeper Review, and Gifted Child Today. She served as president of the National Association for Gifted Children (2011-2013) and received the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2009; and with colleagues, the Gifted Child Quarterly Paper of the Year Award in 2011, 2018 and 2020; the Gifted Child Quarterly Paper of the Decade in 2020. She also received the Palmarium Award for vision and leadership in gifted education in 2022 from the University of Denver. She is a fellow in the American Psychological Association.

Prof. Frank Worrell

Berkeley School of Education

Prof. Frank C. Worrell, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor of School Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research areas include at-risk youth, cultural identities, scale development, talent development/gifted education, and time perspective. Author of over 350 scholarly works, Dr. Worrell is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and six divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA), and an elected member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology and the National Academy of Education. A former editor of Review of Educational Research, Dr. Worrell is a recipient of awards from the National Association for Gifted Children, Divisions 15, 45, and 52 of APA, the California Association of School Psychologists, the Council of Directors of School Psychology Programs, Heidelberg University, the Mensa Education and Research Foundation, and the International School Psychology Association. He was the 2022 President of APA.

Dr. Rena Subotnik

Center for Psychology in Schools and Education (APA)

Dr. Rena F. Subotnik PhD serves as Research Associate at the Academic Talent Development Program, University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Education. From 2001 until June 2023, she was Senior Director of the Center for Psychology in Schools and Education at the American Psychological Association. The Center’s mission was to generate public awareness, advocacy, practical applications, and cutting-edge research ideas from psychological science that enhance the achievement and well-being of talented children in schools. She is co-author, with Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, and Frank Worrell, of the Talent Development Megamodel, appearing in publications such as Scientific American, Scientific American Mind, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Frontiers in Psychology, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, and the Annual Review of Psychology, and co-editor with Paula Olszewski-Kubilius and Frank Worrell of The Psychology of High Performance: Developing Human Potential Into Domain-Specific Talent.

Dr. Jessica Potts

Davidson Academy Online

Dr. Jessica Potts is the Curriculum Coordinator at Davidson Academy Online, a fully virtual school for profoundly gifted students. She earned a doctorate from the University of Nevada, Reno in Secondary Education, with an emphasis on gifted education and online learning. Her research focuses on the intersection of these two fields, and along with authoring a chapter in a book on gifted underachievement, she has published articles in Gifted Child Quarterly, Gifted Child Today, Parenting for High Potential, Teaching for High Potential, and EdWeek. She has presented at numerous conferences and has delivered webinars and workshops both online and in-person on topics as wide ranging as online pedagogy, gifted education, administrative organization, social-emotional learning, and parent engagement. She is a four-time recipient of the Blackboard Catalyst Award, a winner of Blackboard’s Exemplary Course Award, a recipient of the J-WEL Vox Innovators Award, and a winner of the World Giftedness Center School Global Award Initiative. Jessica is the NAGC Curriculum Studies Network Chair, serves on the NAGC Professional Standards Committee, is a board member for CTY Ireland, leads an ECHA Special Interest Group, and is a member of the ECHA Treasury Committee. Jessica and her husband live in the Czech Republic with their sons.

Adam Harris

Founder and CEO, AsIAm

Adam Harris is the Founder and CEO of AsIAm, Ireland’s Autism Charity. Adam founded AsIAm based on his own experiences growing up as an Autistic person in Ireland. In addition to his leadership at AsIAm, Adam was appointed to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission in July 2020 and served as an Executive Council Member for Autism Europe. He is a Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awardee and has sat on and advised many government consultative and policy committees on disability rights and inclusion, which have helped shape national policies for a more inclusive society. A passionate public speaker and advocate, Adam regularly contributes to media and conferences in Ireland and overseas, engaging with government and the public to promote greater understanding and acceptance of Autistic individuals. His work has positioned AsIAm as a cornerstone of autism advocacy in Ireland, driven by his belief that Ireland must become a country in which every Autistic person is accepted “as they are” – equal, valued and respected.

Prof. Mojca Juriševič

University of Ljubljana

Prof. Mojca Juriševič, PhD, is a Full Professor of Educational Psychology at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her research focuses on motivation to learn, teachers’ professional development, and gifted education. She is Head of the faculty’s Centre for Research and Promotion of Giftedness, President of the Association for Technical Culture of Slovenia, and a member of the Professional Expertise Council of the Slovenian Psychologists’ Association. She authored the chapter on gifted education in the White Book on Education of the Republic of Slovenia in 2011 and in the National Report on the Quality of the Education System in Slovenia in 2026. Internationally, she is a member of the executive committees of the European Talent Support Network and the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, and a full member of the International Society for the Study of Creativity and Innovation. She also serves as an associate editor of CEPS Journal and European Psychologist. In 2025, Professor Juriševič received the National Educational Research Institute Award for outstanding achievements in educational research and the Slovenian Psychologists’ Association Award for her contribution to promoting psychological science in education in Slovenia and internationally.

Speakers

Prof. Tracy Cross

College of Education & Human Development, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Prof. Tracy L. Cross, Ph.D., is Dean of the College of Education & Human Development at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He previously served for 15 years as the William & Mary Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Psychology and Gifted Education, and the executive director of the W&M Center for Gifted Education and the Institute for Research on the Suicide of Gifted Students. He has published more than 300 articles, book chapters, and columns; made hundreds of presentations at conferences; and published numerous books. He is past editor of numerous journals, including Gifted Child Quarterly, Roeper Review, and the Journal for the Education of the Gifted.

Dr. Jennifer Cross

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Dr. Jennifer Riedl Cross, Ph.D. is a research professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. For more than a decade, she was the Director of Research at the William & Mary Center for Gifted Education. She is Editor of the National Association for Gifted Children’s research journal, the Gifted Child Quarterly. She co-edited, with Tracy L. Cross, the Handbook for Counselors Serving Students with Gifts and Talents, now in its second edition. Her research in the field emphasizes social and psychological aspects of gifted education.

Dr. Matt Zakreski

The Neurodiversity Collective

Matthew “Dr. Matt” Zakreski, PsyD is a high energy, creative clinical psychologist and professional speaker who utilizes an eclectic approach to meet the specific needs of his neurodivergent clients. He is proud to serve the neurodivergent community as a consultant, a professor, an author, and a researcher. He has spoken nearly a thousand times all over the world about supporting neurodivergent clients, organizational wellness, and mental health. Dr. Zakreski is a member of Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), the New Jersey Association for Gifted Children (NJAGC), and Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education (PAGE). Dr. Zakreski graduated from Widener University’s Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology (IGCP) in 2016. He is the co-founder of The Neurodiversity Collective, LLC, co-host of the podcast “Nerding out on Neurodiversity,” and the author of the Neurodiversity Playbook: How Neurodivergent People Can Crack the Code of Living in a Neurotypical World.

Prof. Nancy B. Hertzog

University of Washington

Dr. Hertzog received her masters’ degree in Gifted Education from the University of Connecticut under the tutelage of Dr. Joseph Renzulli, and her Ph.D. in Special Education under her advisor Dr. Merle B. Karnes. Her research examines curricular practices and policies in the field of gifted education. From 1995 to 2010 she was on the faculty in the Department of Special Education and directed University Primary School, an early childhood gifted program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Collaboratively with the head teachers, she won several curriculum awards from the Curriculum Division of the National Association for Gifted Children. She joined the University of Washington in 2010 as a professor in the area of Learning Sciences and Human Development, and the Director of the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars (2010-2020). Currently her research focuses on equity and access to advanced learning opportunities in schools, and pedagogical strategies that help teachers challenge all students.

Dr. Joseph Renzulli

University of Connecticut

Dr. Renzulli is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut. He has been a pioneer in gifted education since the 1970s. His innovative strategies, like the “Three Ring Conception of Giftedness” and “Enrichment Triad Model,” have transformed the field of gifted education by applying gifted education principles and practices to all students. He was recognized as one of the top 25 most influential psychologists in the world by the American Psychological Association, has consulted for the White House Task Force on Education of Gifted and Talented, and received the prestigious Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Award, known as the Nobel Prize of education. Dr. Renzulli has authored many books and contributed hundreds of chapters and articles, many translated worldwide. He has secured millions in grants to advance knowledge and practices for gifted, twice exceptional, and diverse students. He founded the University of Connecticut’s Confratute Program, attended by over 35,000 teachers since 1978, and the Mentor Connection Program, where high-potential high school students work beside professional experts from multiple fields. Together, he and Dr. Sally Reis, established the Joseph S. Renzulli Gifted and Talented Academy, a model for urban school reform.

Matt Fugate

Elmbridge University

C. Matthew Fugate, Ph. D., is Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Elmbridge University. He received his doctorate in Gifted, Creative, and Talented Studies from Purdue University. His research interests include twice-exceptional students and students from underrepresented populations. He has presented to audiences nationally and internationally on a variety of topics including twice exceptionality, creativity, and intersectionality of gifted identities. Matthew is the Immediate President of the Texas Association for Gifted and Talented (TAGT) and has held a variety of leadership roles in the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). He has received the NAGC Early Leader Award, the Dr. Marcia L. Gentry Special Populations Early Career Award from the NAGC Special Populations Network, and was named one of Variations magazine’s “22 People to Watch in the Neurodiversity Movement”. Matthew serves as the Associate Editor of Teaching for High Potential and has published several articles, book chapters, and books related to his work.

Susan Baum

Elmbridge University

Susan Baum, Ph.D. is Chancellor of the Elmbridge University and former director of the 2e Center for Research and Professional Development at Bridges Academy, a school for twice exceptional students. An award-winning researcher, she has multiple publications concerning the needs of special populations of gifted students, including co-authoring ‘To Be Gifted and Learning Disabled: Strength-Based Strategies for Helping Twice-Exceptional Students with LD, ADHD, ASD, and More’, which was awarded NAGC Book of the Year in 2018. Susan is a popular international speaker focusing on the celebration of gifts, talents, and interests.

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