Julian Stanley was interviewed by Camilla Benbow at the 2002 meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

This was the very first of ISIR’s Distinguished Contributor Interviews, and it was a fitting pairing: Camilla Benbow had been Julian Stanley’s student, and she carried on the work he began.

Julian Stanley, who died in 2005, was an educational psychologist at Johns Hopkins University. In 1971 he founded the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), using above-level testing to identify children with exceptional mathematical talent and then following their lives for decades. The talent searches he pioneered grew into the Center for Talented Youth and programs that have since identified and served hundreds of thousands of gifted students. He was a tireless advocate for academic acceleration, arguing that highly able young people should be allowed to move ahead at their own pace.

Earlier in his career Stanley made his mark on research methodology; his book with Donald Campbell on experimental and quasi-experimental designs is among the most cited works in the social sciences. Through SMPY, his influence on the study of intelligence and talent continues to this day.