Erinn Fears Floyd

Dr. Erinn Fears Floyd is NAGC's Director of Professional Learning. Prior to joining NAGC, Erinn served as State Gifted Education Specialist for the Alabama Department of Education. With nearly twenty-six (26) years of experience in education, she has diligently served as an Assistant Principal, Gifted Education Coordinator, School Improvement Specialist, Literacy Coach, Academic Specialist and District Gifted Specialist and Coordinator. Additionally, she served as an elementary instructor in self-contained and departmentalized classrooms, a secondary Integrated Science! instructor, mentor, and teacher leader in K-12 general and gifted education in rural school systems in Alabama. Erinn conducted training in the areas of school improvement, strategic instruction, literacy, diversity and equity, and gifted identification, support, and advocacy for educators, school leaders, and parents throughout the state of Alabama, nationally, and internationally. Her personal goals are to raise educator awareness about the characteristics of gifted African American students, and improve practices toward their appropriate and equitable identification.

Erinn's scholarship and research focus on racial equity in gifted education, educator efficacy, equity and diversity training for educators, mentoring, identification of gifted African American students, and rural African American gifted students. She has published book chapters in Mentoring at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs): Theory, Design, Practice, and Impact (in press); "Gifted Children of Color Around the World: Diverse Needs, Exemplary Practices and Directions for the Future, Advances" in Race and Ethnicity in Education (2016); Young, Triumphant, and Black: Overcoming the Tyranny of Segregated and Desegregated Minds (2013); and Special Populations in Gifted  Education: Understanding Our Most Able Students from Diverse Backgrounds (2008). Erinn has also published in peer-reviewed journals. She is co-author of "Using Picture Book Biographies to Nurture the Talents of Young African American Students" (Gifted Child Today, 2010). She is an inaugural recipient of the national Dr. Mary Frasier Teacher Scholarship for Diverse Talent Development.

Erinn attended the Alabama School of Fine arts as a Dance major, and is a graduate of Hampton University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology. She earned a Master of Arts Degree in Elementary Education from Alabama State University, a Gifted Education Endorsement from The University of Alabama, a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology from The University of Georgia, and Certification in Personal Improvement from Harvard University. Following the terminal degree, Dr. Floyd returned to school and earned a Master of Education Degree in Administration of Elementary and Secondary Education from Auburn University.

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