Empowering Underrepresented Gifted Students: Perspectives from the Field

Joy Lawson Davis, Ed.D., is a career educator with over 40 years of experience as a practitioner, scholar, author, and consultant with an expertise in equity in gifted education and cultural competency education. Dr. Davis has served in local, regional, and state leadership positions in gifted education. She also served as an at-large member of the National Association for Gifted Children Board of Directors. A graduate of the College of William & Mary, Dr. Davis holds both master’s and doctorate degrees in gifted education and has led professional learning workshops, appeared on podcasts, and been a long-term program consultant, and served as a keynote speaker and distinguished guest lecturer across the nation, in South Africa, Dubai, Turkey, and the Caribbean. Dr. Davis has published numerous articles, technical reports, and book chapters related to achieving equity in gifted education. She is also author of two books: the award-winning Bright, Talented & Black: A Guide for Families of African American Gifted Learners and Gifted Children of Color Around the World: Diverse Needs, Exemplary Practices and Directions for the Future, co-edited with Dr. James Moore III. Dr. Davis is currently the Special Populations columnist for Teaching for High Potential and serves on the Gifted Child Today advisory board. Dr. Davis is co-founder with other equity colleagues of the Jenkins Scholars program, a national program developed to recognize highly gifted Black students. She lives near Richmond, VA.

Deb Douglas, M.S., has spent her professional career as an educator, first as a high school English teacher, then K-12 gifted resource teacher, director of gifted programming, and International Baccalaureate coordinator. She holds master’s degrees in professional development and curriculum and instruction for gifted learners. She served as president of the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted and member of the National Association for Gifted Children Parent Advisory Board. As an educational consultant, she continues to advocate for gifted learners, providing self-advocacy workshops for students, professional development for educators, and assistance to parents. She is a frequent presenter and keynoter at regional, state, and national conferences and contributor to Parenting for High Potential. Her original action research on empowering gifted students to self-advocate has been published in The Roeper Review, with new findings presented at conferences of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children (Sydney, 2017) and the European Council for High Achievement (Dublin, 2018). Her publications, including her book, The Power of Self Advocacy for Gifted Learners: Teaching the Four Essential Steps to Success (Free Spirit Publishing, 2018), provide parents and educators with the tools needed to encourage and support gifted learners as they create their unique routes to graduation and beyond. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.