Recipients of the Awards for Excellence in Research

From top universities across the country and around the world, the Awards for Excellence in Research winners represent the best and latest thinking in the pursuit of understanding and best using the human brain. The Mensa Foundation is proud to salute these researchers every year.

Winners, 2022-2023

This year’s recognized research explores the use of DNA to predict intelligence, a review of career outcomes for former math olympians, an examination of the longitudinal potency of intellectually 13-year-olds after 35 years, and the development processes of underrepresented students in STEM disciplines.

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Winners, 2021-2022

This year’s recognized research explores the use of DNA to predict intelligence, a review of career outcomes for former math olympians, an examination of the longitudinal potency of intellectually 13-year-olds after 35 years, and the development processes of underrepresented students in STEM disciplines.

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Winners, 2020-2021

This year’s recognized research includes a historical review of the oldest and longest-running longitudinal study in the field of psychology, a review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of educational intervention efforts, a comparison between high- and low-income students of the perceived barriers to education, and latent profile analysis to develop psychological support programs for honors college students.

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Winners, 2019-2020

This year’s recognized research includes a meta-analysis of Spearman’s g, or general intelligence, manifested in cognitive data from non-Western nations and a longitudinal study of the likeliness of future leadership predictors in elite STEM graduate students.

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Winners, 2018-2019

This year’s winning papers include research into the efforts to achieve equity in gifted education, focusing on the under-representation of non-white and low-income households; an investigation into a school-wide approach to increase the participation of diverse students in programs that develop talents and gifted behaviors in young people; trends in sex differences in cognitive ability level and cognitive ability pattern, or “tilt”; and parental perception of the influences of a Saturday STEM enrichment program, including attitudes toward STEM learning in general.

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Winners, 2017-2018

This year's winning papers include a binary regression of STEM survey data; a retrospective look at Hans Eysenck's Theory of Intelligence; a long-term look at the hurdles faced by the spatially talented yet financially disadvantaged; a quasi-experimental field study investigating an intervention focused on engineering curriculum; and more.

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Winners, 2016-2017

This year's winning papers include a follow-up longitudinal study of intellectually precocious children, research regarding the academic accomplishments of the profoundly gifted, an analysis of friendship quality among gifted adolescents and an examination of the integrity of cognitive abilities measurement as it relates to academic achievement.

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Winners, 2015-2016

This year's winning papers include a longitudinal study of mathematically precocious children, an analysis of discrepancies in child and adolescent intelligence tests, and a qualitative study designed to investigate perceptions of learning experiences of STEM-talented male students in a self-contained, single-gender gifted program.

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Winners, 2014-2015

This year's winning papers include the development of a literacy skills test to measure undergraduate evaluation of scientific information and arguments, a multilevel analysis of teacher judgments as measures of cognitive ability in youth and a longitudinal study of high-ability students across different educational environments.

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Winners, 2013-2014

This year's winning papers include a 15-year longitudinal case study of the Asset-Burden Paradox, research into personal goal setting as it relates to underachievement in gifted students, and an exploration of academic achievement based on the habits of early childhood.

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Winners, 2012-2013

This year's winning papers included examinations of personal intelligence, adult STEM productivity, students' time outside the classroom, trends in education excellence gaps, and reexamining the role of gifted and talented programs for the 21st Century.

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Winners, 2011-2012

This year's winning papers examined careers of the gifted, ethnic bias in college admissions, reasoning ability, gifted adolescents and STEM programs.

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Winners, 2010-2011

This year's winning papers examined gifted students; cognitive epidemiology; eminence, IQ and achievement; and sex differences in cognitive abilities.

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Winners, 2009-2010

This year's winning papers examined gifted education research; spatial ability; and profoundly gifted girls and autism, as well as gifted students as a whole.

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Winners, 2008-2009

This year's winning papers examined IQ and achievement, creativity, eminent African Americans, and teachers' practices in Singapore and the United States.

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Winners, 2007-2008

This year's winning papers examined gifted children and psychology as well as mathematical cognition, psychometric intelligence, enrichment programs, teacher observation scales, and spatial ability.

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Winners, 2006-2007

This year's winning papers examined twice-exceptional students, mental processing speed, gifted adolescents and suicide, emotional intelligence, bullying, and environmental influences on twins.

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Winners, 2005-2006

This year's winning papers examined internet and video game usage, the educational needs of special populations, cognitive stability, sex differences on the WISC, developing structural observation scales, and creative and occupational accomplishments among gifted youth.

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Winners, 2004-2005

This year's winning papers examined the development of creative achievement, practical intelligence theory, structural brain variation, one g, and intelligence and class mobility in Britain.

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Winners, 2003-2004

This year's winning papers examined the relationship between cognitive ability and the SAT, the perceptions of a class of highly gifted students, TV literacy and academic and artistic giftedness, measures of emotional intelligence, implied theories of intelligence, a multicultural assessment of the gifted and talented, intellectual performance and ego depletion, the promise of scientific performance in men and women, and the impressions of first semester college students.

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