The Graduate Student Travel Award is given to graduate students who are the first author on an accepted paper that has been judged excellent by the reviewer(s), reimbursable after presentation and paper upload if selected.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Graduate student is first author.
• Graduate student is a member of ROGCT SIG.
• Graduate student is a verified student at the time of the AERA conference.

In order to receive funding, the graduate student must:

1. Provide verification that the graduate student has not received funding for the conference that would exceed actual expenses, and
2. Upload the final presentation and paper prior to the conference.

Form of Recognition:

Award up to $750 for travel, certificate, and recognition at the SIG business meeting.

Application Timeline:

Applications for the Graduate Student Travel Award should be submitted via the application portal and are due January 1, 2026.

Award winners will be notified in February, 2026. Award will be announced and presented at the SIG Business Meeting at the AERA Conference, April 2026.

For any questions, please contact the chair of the awards committee, Dr. Tracey Sulak (Tracey_Sulak@baylor.edu).

 This award was created to recognize a scholar of giftedness, creativity or talent development and a collaborator who has not previously published scholarship associated with giftedness, creativity, or talent. The award is given to those who seek to promote scholarship in the area of giftedness, creativity, and talent to the larger education research community through collaborations and who concurrently benefit from the insights of important scholars who have not previously studied or written about gifted, talented, or creative populations.

Eligibility Criteria:

The award is given to collaborators of a paper which meets the following criteria:

• Publication (may be “On-line First”) in a gifted or creativity journal (such as Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, Roeper Review, High Ability Studies, Journal of Advanced Academics, Journal of Creative  Behavior, or Creativity Research Journal).
• The paper must have been published after January, 2024.
• One co-author is scholar in the field of giftedness, creativity, or talent and a member of the ROGCT SIG.
• One co-author is post-doctoral degree, has not previously published in the fields of giftedness, creativity, or talent development, but has a strong history of published scholarship in another field.
• The potential impact of the work on the fields of giftedness, creativity, or talent development should be significant.
• The overall quality of the publication should represent high quality methodological design and/or theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

Recognition:

• Cash award of $250 for the first 2 authors of the winning paper
• Plaque for each scholar
• Recognition at the SIG business meeting

Application Timeline:

Applications for the Graduate Student Travel Award should be submitted via the application portal and are due January 1, 2026.

Award winners will be notified in February, 2026. Award will be announced and presented at the SIG Business Meeting at the AERA Conference, April 2026.

For any questions, please contact the chair of the awards committee, Dr. Tracey Sulak (Tracey_Sulak@baylor.edu).

The Path Breaker Award is given in recognition of collaborative research by a scholar and graduate student who co-author an article related to giftedness, creativity, or talent that is published in a journal not traditionally or regularly focused on these fields. The Path Breaker Award is designed to reward scholars in our field for publishing in journals that would not traditionally include articles with a focus on gifted, talented, or creative populations. The article should be published in the last two years (2023-2025).

Selection Criteria (in the following order of importance, beginning with most important):

• Quality of the article (new data or analysis of existing data, strong methodology, etc.).
• Prestige of journal in which the article has been accepted.
• The compelling arguments of the submitted rationale.