Dr. Rima Binder has devoted herself to the education of gifted children since the 1970s. She began her research into dyslexia and expanded her interest to engage in identification, encouragement, and advocacy. She served as Director of Curriculum and Instruction and Coordinator of Gifted Programs in Barrington CUSD 220, President of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children (IAGC), served on the Professional Standards Committee for the National AGC. After leaving public school administration, she consulted with school districts throughout the United States developing programs for gifted/talented students in instruction and assessment and was on the faculty of Northeastern Illinois University Graduate College Master Program preparing and mentoring teachers in gifted education.

Dr. Binder authored an instructional guide to Lithuania for the American Peace Corps World Wise Schools program. She assists non-English speaking families to navigate language and scholastic barriers. Currently she is the Vice President and Botany Director of Friendship Botanic Gardens in Michigan City, Indiana, President of the Lithuanian University Women Association in North America and is a Board member of the LaPorte County Symphony Orchestra. Her leadership, advocacy, and volunteerism have influenced countless lives.

Danae Deligeorges, PhD, is a Psychopedagogist with a focus on the educational and social-emotional development of gifted individuals. Holding a PhD from the Medical School at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, she also possesses a robust background in Psychology from the same institution and a Master's degree in Gifted Education and Emotional Support Needs from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Her expertise spans the identification and support of children, families, and adults with the neurodiversity of giftedness.

From 2010 to 2015, Dr. Deligeorges was employed at the Hellenic American Academy in Chicago before returning to Greece. Since 2012, she has been an active contributor to the National Association for Gifted Children’s (NAGC) scientific newsletter, “Conceptual Foundation.” In 2013, she trained and became certified as a counselor/coordinator for parent groups of gifted children at the SENG’s 16th Annual Conference on gifted and talented education.

Dr. Deligeorges is distinguished in Europe, notably as Greece's sole certified expert by Linda Kreger Silverman, PhD, and the Gifted Development Center in understanding overexcitabilities. She is internationally certified to use the World Game for measurement and evaluation purposes.

In 2018, she founded the Φ Center for the Advancement of Noesis in Athens, serving as its Scientific Director. The center conducts psychoeducational programs on giftedness and talent development for children and adults across Greece and Europe. Dr. Deligeorges published her first book, “Giftedness: Notes I,” (“Χαρισματικότητα: Σημειώσεις Ι”) in 2020 and co-organized the pioneering “Gifted World Experience” conference in 2023.

Irene Gottlieb is a Senior Project Manager, PMP with over 10 years of experience including multimillion dollar corporate international projects and numerous start-ups.

She is also a mom of academically talented gifted children. Finding disappointment in educational options after trying several public and private schools in Chicago, a problem that many gifted parents face, Irene decided to build a school for the gifted.

Irene holds degrees in Science and Biology and enjoys a good game of scrabble, endurance sports, and sharing the joy of nature with her children.

Willem Kuipers MSc, has been a career coach, counsellor, explorer and writer for uncommonly intelligent and intense adults since the beginning of this century. Previously, he graduated from Delft University of Technology with a degree in mathematical engineering, and became a management consultant. He wrote Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon: Extra Intelligent, Intense, and Effective, and his website www.ximension.com has been a source of information on the subject for almost two decades now. Willem runs his own practice in Schagerbrug, the Netherlands.

As Willem often felt different to others and was wondering how to interact, he has always been eager to add new chapters to his own ‘manual’. Likewise, he always felt committed to understand ‘what it’s like to be you’ and share his reflections. That is how he morphed into being a coach and counsellor.

When around 1999 ‘giftedness’ entered his world through his daughter, he did not find its formal definitions very relatable. His experientially defined concept of extra intelligence and intensity, or Xi for short, enables his clients and himself to become aware of their characteristics of ‘uncommonness’, without pigeon-holing.

These last ten years Willem has focused on the need of gifted/extra intelligent people to actively balance their intense sensorial input and elaborate cognitive reasoning, as these qualities lead to structurally different ‘worldviews’ and actions. He wants to foster compassionate understanding of and support for their diversity of expression, both of themselves and of all members of their ‘uncommon families’. Personal growth is his favorite journey.

As eloquently stated by Dr. Janucz Korczak, "Children are not people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and respect, as equals."

Elina traded her electrical engineering career for advanced study of gifted education in order to seek guidance and resources for her gifted son. This quest dovetailed with lifelong passions for art, science, and mathematics and led to discovering her calling as a math educator.

A firm advocate of integration of the mind and the heart, Elina holds a profound belief in taking care of both the cognitive and the affective aspects of the self. Her approach is holistic. The children are respected, listened to, and taken seriously. Her students become invested in and take responsibility for their own learning.

For the past eight years, Elina has been teaching at the Russian School of Mathematics in-person and virtually. She has also successfully tutored students privately in high school math and standardized test prep, and taught several courses at the Northwestern University Center for Talent Development. She is on staff at the Center for Identity Potential, where her unique approach is especially suited to serving the needs of gifted/neurodiverse young people.

As a mathematics educator, Elina ensures that her students gain mathematical mastery and confidence. She imparts the sense of joy and beauty of mathematics to her students, allowing them to see math as a means of understanding the world.

Dimitra Alexandri is a certified Dietician-Nutritionist from the Technological Educational Institute of Nutrition and Dietetics in Sitia, Crete.

She specialized in Eating Disorders at the National Centre of Eating Disorders (NCFED), in London, UK.

She has also specialized in Metabolomics from the European Institute of Nutritional Medicine (EINuM) and in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

She has been teaching nutrition in various institutes as well as working in various areas in the nutrition field.

After many years of experience and knowledge she works predominantly with people with autoimmune/ chronic diseases, cancer ,and people with eating disorders such as obesity, bulimia, anorexia, etc.

She is a scientific collaborator of NLP Greece.

From 2020 she collaborates with Dr. Danae Deligeorges at the Center for the Advancement of Noesis working with gifted people and also took part as a speaker at the 1st Gifted World Experience conference in 2023 in Athens, Greece.

Last but not least, she has a passion for constant studying upon the human microbiome and the neurobiology in its interaction with food and the body’s function and symptoms.

Her goal is that the people who choose her as their ‘’therapist’’ see all the possibilities they can have and realize that being healthy, or eliminating or controlling a disease or symptom, or whatever keeps them away from their healthy self, is completely under their own control and is also simple and attainable despite what most people believe. Then, to experience health!

Patricia Gatto-Walden, PhD, is a nationally recognized psychologist who has worked holistically with moderate, highly, and profoundly gifted children, adolescents and adults for four decades.

Her adjunct consulting practice helps parents, educators and administrators recognize and embrace the multifaceted innate characteristics and needs of gifted individuals, to promote self-confidence, academic and professional success, and holistic health and well-being.

Dr. Patty was honored with the Clinician of the Year award by SENG, 2016. She provides world-wide digital teleconferencing and has offices in Colorado and Florida. Her foundational book, Embracing the Whole Gifted Self, personifies giftedness. She is a featured presenter at international, national and state gifted webinars and conferences. Website: www.patriciagatto-walden.com.

Jane Hesslein, BA--Elementary Education; MA--Educational Administration (Thesis: The Institutionalization of Creativity), is a retired lifetime educator with over 30 years of experience in gifted education in both public (New Jersey, Houston, Minneapolis) and private schools (Toronto, Seattle). A former SENG Board member and group facilitator, she has trained SENG facilitators, presented at numerous conferences, and written articles, most often about parenting gifted children and selecting literature for gifted children.

Taking an inquiry approach to Reading, Writing, Spelling, and Social Studies, she stressed the importance of critical and creative thinking as well as the need for well-chosen words. The curriculum intertwined the cognitive and emotional sides of giftedness. Her students understood that their job was to grow a brain.

In addition to teaching, she has been an editor, an advisor to children’s authors, a toy tester, and a creativity judge. She’s parented two gifted children and is now a grandparent to three gifted teens. Her husband is her longitudinal study of a gifted child. She enjoys travel, arts and literature, cooking, engaging conversations, spending time with family and friends—and collecting people.

Michele Kane, Ed.D., is Professor Emerita in Special Education from Northeastern Illinois University, where she coordinated the Master of Arts in Gifted Education program for over a decade.

Michele is Past President of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children and Past Chair of the Global Awareness Network of the National Association for Gifted Children and Past Chair of the Parent, Family and Community Network.

Beginning her career as a parent, Michele has additionally served the gifted community as an educator, leader, author, and counselor. A frequent presenter at state, national, and international conferences, Michele has numerous articles in print and chapters in Living with Intensity, Off the Charts, and Accelerating and Extending Literacy for Diverse Students. Additionally, she co-authored, with Dorothy Sisk, Planting Seeds of Mindfulness.

She was honored by SENG as their 2018 Educator of the Year. Inspired by her experience raising six gifted (now adult) children, she has been a passionate advocate for enhancing well-being for gifted people across the lifespan for more than forty years.

Biography coming soon!

Matthew C. Ringenberg is MSW Program Director and Associate Professor of Social Work at Valparaiso University. He is co-author of The Education of Alice Hamilton. Previously, Dr. Ringenberg designed the Parent And School Survey and Co-led of the School Success Longitudinal Study (2011-2017). He served from 2013-2015 as the Director of the Valparaiso University Study Center in Cambridge, England. He has successfully written multiple social service grants for agencies throughout Northwest Indiana. He also conducted a program evaluation of the Oshkosh (Wisconsin) Farmers Market.

Dr. Ringenberg has 25 years of teaching experience at Valparaiso University, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and St Olaf College. He mentored dozens of students in developing their own research projects and presenting the results in various conferences. He has taught a variety of topics including human behavior, counseling/ interviewing skills, social policy, research methods, grant-writing, and spirituality in the helping professions.

He developed professional partnerships with various social service and community organizations. He has served on the boards of a homeless shelter, farmers market, and United Way. His grant-writing, evaluating, and supervision services have been provided to agencies ranging in focus from child abuse, afterschool programming, summer education services, and family reconciliation.

Matthew Ringenberg enjoys a variety of activities outside of work. He cycles regularly and hikes as opportunities arise. Matthew is an avid board game player and enjoys learning new ones. He is learning to play piano but makes no claims of talent. Birdwatching is also a casual hobby, although, like piano, he is no expert.