Gifted education expert Dr. Ann Robinson, director of the UALR Jodie Mahoney Center for Gifted Education, has been named  the 2012 Distinguished Scholar by the National Association for Gifted Children.

Robinson, professor and coordinator of the graduate programs in Gifted Education in UALR’s College of Education, is immediate past president of the National Association for Gifted Children. She is also past president of Arkansans for Gifted and Talented Education and the Arkansas Association for Gifted Education Administrators.

The award will be presented to Robinson at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, at the group’s annual convention in Denver. Her Distinguished Scholar Address “What Can We Learn From Creative Lives?” will be presented the next day.

“Ann has a continued record of distinguished scholarship and contributions to the field,” said Dr. Bruce M. Shore, professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal. “Concurrent with decades in university and organizational leadership, Ann remains a wonderfully productive, creative, and inspiring scholar; a successfully funded researcher, a mentor for researchers and professionals, a resourceful and original scholar, a collegial collaborator in scholarship and administration, and a gem of a person.”

Robinson is a national leader in gifted education. Her most recent empirical work focuses on the effect of school intervention on students and teachers, research resulting from multiple-year field studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Her work has made UALR an international university leader in gifted education. Earlier this year, she won the $5,000 UALR Faculty Excellence Award in Research, an honor sponsored by Pepsi.

An example of her work is the Jodie Mahony Center at UALR, founded by Robinson and named for the late state legislator responsible for a vast body of educational legislation and policy. The center has been the hub of the intervention research studies carried out in schools, the Advanced Placement professional development for teachers, and the services to children through the Summer Laureate/University for Youth program.

“It is immensely rewarding not only to be able to work with colleague scholars like Dr. Ann Robinson, but also to see that others in her field of scholarship research, teaching, and service, also recognize and appreciate Dr. Robinson’s talent, dedication and contribution to the field of gifted education.,” said Dr. Angela M. Sewall, dean of UALR’s College of Education.

“Robinson came to UALR in 1986. She earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from the University of Wyoming and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Purdue University in 1983.