Dr. Camilla Persson Benbow is Dean of Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University and a Professor of Psychology and Human Development there. Previously, she was a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University and interim dean of ISU's College of Education. She also co-directs the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) at Vanderbilt and co-directed the Office of Precollegiate Programs for Talented and Gifted (OPPTAG) located at ISU. OPPTAG serves 4,000 gifted students aged 12-16 annually, either through its talent search or through its academic year and summer programs. SMPY, now in its third decade, is conducting a 50-year longitudinal study of 5,000 intellectually gifted individuals, first identified at age 13. Its purpose is to study the unfolding of childhood potential into exceptional adult achievement and thereby identify the factors that contribute to the optimal development of talent.

Dr. Benbow received her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1981. Having authored over 100 publications, she is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society as well as a member of the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. She was the first recipient of the National Association for Gifted Children's (NAGC) Early Scholar Award, and in 1992, the NAGC honored her with the Distinguished Scholar Award.