Bridges 2e Hall of Fame

The Bridges 2e Center for Research and Professional Development founded its 2e Hall of Fame in 2017. The award celebrates the contributions of educators, mental health professionals, and other leaders whose work has positively impacted not only the lives of 2e students and their families, but also the broader 2e movement. Members of the 2e Center board vote on nominees for induction. ​ 

The center is delighted to announce the induction of three new honorees to be inducted in 2022: Jonathan Mooney, Jann Leppien, and Dan Peters. Mooney is a speaker, activist, and author of Normal Sucks. Leppien is a professor, recently retired from her post at Whitworth University, with expertise in differentiated instruction, curriculum design and assessment, and program development. Peters, a psychologist, is the executive director and co-founder of the Summit Center. All have devoted their careers and hearts to advocacy, support, and programming for 2e students

Dr. Susan Assouline Inducted 2019 ​Dr. Assouline is the director of the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa and recipient of several federally funded grants. Her work provides research-based information on characteristics and identification criteria and has created awareness of the twice-exceptional population for educators, counselors, and psychologists. Belin-Blank now is leading research into potential genetic commonalities among twice-exceptional learners.

Mark Bade & Linda Neumann Inducted 2019 Bade and Neumann — journalists, writers, and parents — are the founders of the 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter. In raising their two boys, Bade and Neumann discovered a void when searching for accessible, reliable, and practical information about twice-exceptionality. Understanding the need, they began compiling and sharing what they discovered, which then became an essential component in the creation of an informed 2e community.

Dr. Sally Reis Inducted 2019 Reis holds the Letitia Neag Morgan Chair in Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. She has championed the benefits of encouraging strengths and interests, including gifted students with special needs. Her vision extends to innovative work on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, gifted girls and women, and projects about 2e students, including “Music & Minds,“ a study of young adults with Williams syndrome. Her work highlights the success of recognizing and working with strengths in populations that traditionally only receive remediation.

Dr. James Webb Inducted 2019 (posthumously) Webb was an activist, author, idealist, and organizer who founded SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) nearly 40 years ago. Webb, who passed away in 2018, also was a founding member of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University, and founder of Great Potential Press (with over 50 titles about gifted children and adults. His vision, leadership, and unwavering commitment provided critical support for those who live with the complexities of the often misunderstood and misdiagnosed twice-exceptional population.

Dr. Lois Baldwin Inducted 2017 Lois, with her mentor, Abraham Tannenbaum wrote two chapters in Learning Disabled Gifted Students: Identification and Programming written by Fox, Brody, & Tobin in 1983. Lois was the teacher of one of the first public school programs for gifted handicapped run by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Southern Westchester in White Plains, New York. She directed, supervised, and provided comprehensive educational and support services for students in grades 1-12 who have average or above average/gifted intelligence and are learning disabled and/or emotionally disturbed. Her research included a longitudinal study of the students who graduated from the program. Lois is the current president and one of the founders of AEGUS.

Dr. Linda E. Brody Inducted 2017 Linda co-founded and directs CTY’s Diagnostic and Counseling Center at Johns Hopkins University, which specializes in diagnosing and serving twice-exceptional students. She also directs the Study of Exceptional Talent (SET), which provides academic counseling to students who score exceptionally high on the SAT before the age of 13 and follows their progress over time. She co-authored another early publication, Learning Disabled Gifted Students: Identification and Programming. Along with Carol Mills, Linda’s review of the field in 1997 was the first major overview of research findings and program development. Gifted children with learning disabilities: A review of the issues. Journal of Learning Her ongoing research focuses on evaluating strategies that facilitate talent development, particularly acceleration, and studying special populations of gifted students including highly gifted students, giftedness/ LD, and gender differences in achievement.

Dr. Mary Ruth Coleman Inducted 2017 Mary Ruth’s research has been focused on students with exceptional learning needs, specifically students with learning disabilities and those who are gifted.  She was Co-Principal Investigator for the Early Learning Disabilities Initiative, director of several FPG projects including Project U-STARS~PLUS (Using Science, Talents, and Abilities to Recognize Students ~ Promoting Learning for Under-Represented Students) and Project ACCESS (Achievement in Content and Curriculum for Every Student’s Success). Additionally, she Co-Directed North Carolina’s Statewide Technical Assistance for Gifted Education Center from 1994 to 1998 and has also served as Associate Director of the Gifted Education Policy Studies Program at the Frank Porter Graham Center. Dr. Coleman has numerous publications , including co-authoring the 12th Edition of the seminal textbook, Teaching Exceptional Children.

Dr. L. Dennis Higgins Inducted 2017 Dennis worked directly with twice-exceptional students officially 1988 until his retirement in 2010. He has authored and co‐authored numerous articles, two chapter books and has produced several music and video recordings that focus on twice‐exceptional children. His program is featured in the PBS Television Special, “A Chance to Read” for the syndicated program Reading Rockets. He was a consultant for The Twice-Exceptional Dilemma, published jointly by the National Education Association and the National Association for Gifted Children. Dennis coordinated for the Albuquerque Public Schools Summer Programs for the Gifted and Talented. Dr. Higgins has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including being  inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame for his national contributions to children’s music and the New Mexico Autism Society for his work with children with Asperger Syndrome.

Dr. C. June Maker Inducted 2017 C. June Maker’s publications relating to the development of talents in exceptional students provided insight to the lives of persons who were both gifted and disabled. Her seminal work in the field, Providing Programs for Gifted Handicapped, was published in 1977. She later co-authored Intellectual Giftedness in Disabled Persons with Joanne Whitmore. As director of the Javits’ Grant Projects, Discover, she continued to show how alternative assessments could be used to identify giftedness in students from underrepresented populations of gifted students including twice exceptional. Much of Dr. Maker’s current research focuses on identifying gifted students from underserved or overlooked groups such as Native American, Hispanic American, African American, Asian-American and students with disabilities.  June is currently a professor at the University of Arizona and continues to work both locally and internationally to identify and support children who are gifted.

Dr. M. Elizabeth Nielsen Inducted 2017 Dr. Nielsen’s focus on gifted learners with learning disabilities has provided those working in the field with insights to the needs of  these unique individuals. She was the principal investigator for two university and public school district collaborative projects. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Grants, these research initiatives focused on the unique needs of  twice exceptional students. Elizabeth has published numerous articles and textbook chapters regarding these twice-exceptional students and has been a keynote speaker at national and international conferences.  Dr. Nielsen is currently Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and serves as the coordinator for the Gifted Education Teacher Training Program.

Dr. Joanne Rand Whitmore Schwartz Inducted 2017 Joanne Rand Whitmore Schwartz’s early work was grounded in the motivation of gifted children and the extreme variance in achievement and motivation among students classified as gifted. She was able to increase awareness of and concern for children with exceptionally high intellectual ability who were severely underachieving in school Her study of primary aged students with high intelligence who were underachieving in school was published her book, Giftedness, Conflict, and Underachievement (1980). After several years of research Joanne provided evidence that most of these youngsters had learning disabilities that stood in the way of their academic success. She then continued her interest in giftedness and handicapping conditions when she co-authored Intellectual Giftedness in Disabled People (1985) with June Maker.