Cross, Tracy L.

Tracy L. Cross (born 1958, in Tennessee, United States) is an educational psychologist and developmental scientist. Since 2009 he has held the Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Psychology and Gifted Education endowed chair at The College of William & Mary, has been the executive director for William & Mary's Center for Gifted Education (CFGE), and founded the Institute for Research on the Suicide of Gifted Students in 2012. Previously he served as the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Gifted Studies Ball State University (2000–2009), the founder and executive director of both the Center for Gifted Studies and Talent Development (2003–2009), and the Institute for Research on the Psychology of Gifted Students (2007–2009). Over forty years, he made important contributions to the field of gifted education, including the development of the school-based conception of giftedness, the information management model, and the continuum of visibility, and was also influential in applying social-cognitive theory and stigma theory to gifted children, and created an ecological model of suicidal behavior of gifted students.