CNN – Genius: Quest for Extreme Brain Power

	Camilla Benbow, PhD
	Jan & Bob Davidson, Davidson Academy
	Jesse Gronwall
	Richard J. Haier, PhD
	Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth
	IO
	Rex Jung
	Christopher Paolini
	Misha Raffiee
	Vanessa Robinson
	Dr. Cappy Rothman
	Matt Savage
	Dr. R. Keith Sawyer
	Terence (Terry) Tao, PhD
	Dr. Darrell Treffert
	Ellen Winner, PhD

Camilla Benbow, PhD, has been tracking the careers of young math and science prodigies for more than three decades. Her best-known work tracks elite students identified by the Talent Search at Johns Hopkins University. Contrary to the expectations of many psychologists that there were few differences among high-achieving students, Benbow has found huge differences between students with the most raw ability and other, simply “gifted” students. Her long-term studies find that achievement at an early age, as measured by the SAT, closely predicts achievement in that field later on. She has also found that there is no threshold effect: the higher the SAT score at age 12, the more likely the student is to make a high salary, earn an advanced degree, take out patents on new inventions and achieve other markers of success.

Benbow is dean of Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education. She also is a member of the National Science Board, chosen by President George W. Bush this spring.

Jan and Bob Davidson are entrepreneurs who made a fortune selling educational software like the best-selling Math Blaster and Reading Blaster. They sold their company in 1997 and started a foundation devoted to developing the country’s very brightest young minds.

This fall, they opened the Davidson Academy – a school for students at the sixth grade level who score in the highest 1/10,000^th on IQ tests or various achievement tests. More than 30 students are in the inaugural class. Half of these students' families have moved from around the United States and as far away as Australia to attend the academy, which is based on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. The Davidson Academy is a public school, funded by the Davidson Institute but charging no fees and meeting all public school requirements of the state of Nevada.

Other Davidson Institute programs include the Davidson Scholars, a long-distance consulting program (offered at no cost but only to students who score at high levels on the IQ or other tests), and the Davidson Fellowships, an annual scholarship award to more than a dozen youths who have demonstrated not just great potential but high achievement in fields ranging from music to hard science to technology to philosophy.

The Davidsons also are co-authors, with Laura Vanderkam, of Genius Denied, about the struggles of gifted children.

At age 14, Jesse Gronwall learned that his biological father was not the man who raised him, but “Donor Yellow” from the Repository for Germinal Choice, a controversial sperm bank with deposits from Nobel Prize winners and other high-achievers.

The bank was founded in 1980 on the idea that you could breed genius, and closed in 1999, a year after the death of its founder, Robert Graham.

Gronwall, 21, is a senior at the University of California, San Diego, majoring in political science, with plans to attend law school. Both he and his parents contend that his development owes at least as much to his upbringing as his genes.

Dr. Richard J. Haier is a world-renowned expert on the brain structures and processes which underlie human intelligence. His recent work has focused on the genetic basis of intelligence and brain structure differences between men and women.

In one controversial finding, Haier found that while men and women tend to score equally on intelligence tests, they use very different brain processes to achieve the same results. Haier is professor of pediatric neurology at the University of California, Irvine, and a researcher at the MIND Institute in Alburquerque, NM.

Affectionately called “nerd camp” by many of the kids, the CTY summer program immerses students in the subjects they love, teaching a full-year of classwork – often college-level – in a mere three weeks. The program is open to students who’ve completed 7^th grade and who are between 12 and 17 years old. It offers a small number of scholarships. CTY also administers other educational programs including distance learning courses for bright students.

IO, formerly known as Improv Olympic, is a legendary club and performance school which features long-form improvisational comedy. Alumni who went on to fame include Rachel Dratch, the late Chris Farley, Tina Fey, Mike Myers, Amy Poehler and Vince Vaughn.

IO was founded in 1981 by the late actor and comedian Del Close; today it is run by his protégé, Charna Halpern. Halpern is also the author, most recently, of Art By Committee: the Art of Improvisation. IO also runs IO West, a performance and teaching stage in Los Angeles.

Rex Jung is a research scientist at the MIND Institute in New Mexico. His work focuses on the use of brain imaging to better understand the mental functions involved in creativity.

The MIND Institute is a non-profit partnership committed to expanding neuroscience research by discovering new ways to understand human behavior, as well as to treat and cure brain disease and mental illness. Based in Albuquerque, MIND scientists collaborate with colleagues at nationally renowned partnering sites. Led by many of the country’s leading neuroscientists, this partnership combines more than 400 researchers and staff with an annual budget of $50 million to unlock the brain’s remaining secrets.

Home-schooled in the mountains of southwest Montana, Christopher Paolini finished his high school studies when he was just 15. Unsure what to do next, he decided to write a book. The result was Eragon, a coming-of-age story about a boy and his dragon battling an evil empire. It became a New York Times No. 1 bestseller when Paolini was still a teenager. His sequel, Eldest, was also a No. 1 best-seller.

Paolini is now working on the third book in his dragon trilogy, and Fox Pictures is scheduled to release the film version of Eragon in December. Paolini says it was a daunting adjustment from being a bright, precocious kid, to becoming a mature writer. He says the most important things were intense dedication to his work and a learning environment that left him free to pursue his interests, and to dream.

By the time she was two years old, Misha Raffiee was playing the violin and astonishing her parents’ friends with an ability to read. Now 11, Misha is the youngest member of the Reno Youth Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, she joined at age 9, and is principal violinist.

School, on the other hand, has been frustrating. Even at a highly regarded private school, teachers told Misha to fit in and to not ask so many questions. But that’s all changing. This fall, Misha is one of 32 students at the brand-new Davidson Academy – a public school strictly for students with IQs higher than 150 or the equivalent on another achievement test. School founders Jan and Bob Davidson say the students are pioneers, cutting a path of individualized, highly ambitious learning.

Vanessa Robinson is a vivacious 10-year-old girl in Enterprise, AL, typical except for one thing: on intelligence tests she scores higher than all but one in 10,000 of her peers.

Vanessa loves Lindsay Lohan and Harry Potter, but she also loves learning at a pace that no one in her small town can keep up with. Her public school, Hillcrest Elementary, offers a more extensive gifted education program than most schools, but Vanessa and her parents still find themselves frustrated.

Her parents continue to seek out new educational options: Vanessa has already been selected by Duke University’s Talent Identification Program, and as a Young Scholar by the elite Davidson Institute for Talent Development. This fall, with the help of a Davidson consultant, Vanessa and her parents will try home-schooling.

Her parents say they’re trying to strike a balance between keeping their daughter happy and “normal,” and meeting her intellectual ambitions.

Dr. Cappy Rothman is medical director of the California Cryobank, the world's largest sperm bank. Rothman is also the founder of the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine and co-director and co-founder of the IVF Center at Century City Hospital. Rothman, a pioneer in techniques of sperm freezing and storage, is a clinical instructor of urology at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Born autistic, jazz-playing piano prodigy Matt Savage did not like any music as a young child. But with the help of audio therapy and a toy piano, Matt’s musical gifts emerged when he was 6 ½ years old, and he is now considered a prodigous savant – one of fewer than 100 in the world. His first CDs came out a year later. Matt has since twice won ASCAP’s prestigious Young Jazz Composer award and has played in such legendary jazz venues as Manhattan’s Blue Note and Birdland. Matt’s seventh CD is scheduled for release Tuesday, Sept. 19.

Keith Sawyer is a professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, and the author of “Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation.”

Before turning to psychology, Sawyer designed video games and worked with artificial intelligence systems at MIT. He has also conducted creativity workshops for many businesses. Sawyer’s research is focused on the idea that collaboration, done properly, produces more creative results than a lone genius ever could.

An amateur pianist, Sawyer has focused much of his work on artistic groups such as jazz combos and comedians. In Genius, he takes Dr. Gupta to Chicago’s famed IO Comedy Club for an unconventional look at improvisation and group creativity.

Terry Tao, PhD, has been called the “Mozart of Math.” A whiz kid who was solving problems by the age of two, Tao is one of the most successful and best-known math prodigies ever.

As a youth, he took part three times in the prestigous International Math Olympiad. He began high school at age 7, got his Ph.D from Princeton by 20 and was a full professor at UCLA by 24.

The Australian-born Tao stands out today as a well-adjusted, exceptional talent who has made the leap from "prodigy"-status to groundbreaking work as an adult mathematician.

Today, he is considered a leading candidate for the Fields Medal, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the field of mathematics, for his work with Harmonic Analysis and Non-Linear Dispersive and Wave Equations.

Beyond the difficulty of his work, at age 30, Tao says that one of his biggest challenges is raising a 3-year-old son who is already showing an interest in math.

Dr. Darrell Treffert has studied savant syndrome for close to 40 years and is considered the world’s leading expert on the condition. Treffert, a practicing psychiatrist, was an adviser on the movie Rain Man and has written the seminal book on savants: Extraordinary People: Understanding Savant Syndrome.

Treffert, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, tracks reports of savants around the world on the website: www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant

Ellen Winner, PhD, is the author of Gifted Children, an acclaimed overview of the known research on talented youngsters. She is a psychologist at Boston College, where her work focuses on arts education and research on giftedness in music, drawing and other artistic fields.

Winner is also senior research associate at Project Zero of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a center devoted to understanding creativity and the arts. Winner is married to Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychology professor best-known for developing the theory of multiple intelligence – that intelligence is best understood as several different mental abilities, rather than by a single, unifiying brainpower.