Vincent O’Leary Professor of Educational Psychology and Methodology

University at Albany, State University of New York

Welcome to my homepage!

This site serves as a repository of my scholarship and research, teaching, and writing. The easiest way to nagivate this site is to use the headings above, each having a drop box leading you to various categories of information. I am updating this homepage as of October 2025. I am officially retired and is appointed by UAlbany as a Vincent O’Leary Professor for a three-year period.

My scholarship and research in recent years has been on conceptual foundations of various psychological, educational, and policy aspects of gifted education. Particularly worth noting are three books I wrote in recent years Talent Development from a Developmental Science Perspective (2023, Springer), which focuses on substantive and methodological issues in research on human excellence, , The Nature and Nurture of Talent: A New Foundation for Human Excellence (2024, Cambridge University Press), which is a treatise introducing my Evolving Complexity Theory (ECT) of talent development, and The Path to Human Excellence: An Introduction to Talent Studies “通向卓越之路：人才学导论” (2025. East China Normal University Press, in Chinese 中文 ), which provides a comprehensive review of the origins, nature, and development of research on human exceptional achievement and the processes of talent development, with a focus on how this line of research can be framed from a developmental science perspective. I will update my research publications under “Scholarship” shortly.

My teaching covers main topics of educational psychology. I have taught several graduate-level courses such as Educational Psychology, Advanced Educational Psychology, Advanced Topics in Learning, Motivation in Education, Seminar on Giftedness, Talent, and Creativity. You can click the course numbers (use the drop box under "Teaching") to find syllabi and reading materials for a specific course.

My speeches include a couple of dozens of keynote and invited speeches I gave on topics of my interest and expertise on various occasions, including the most recent keynote speech titled “Gifted Education in the Age of AI” at the World Conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children (WCGTC) in August-September, 2025, Braga, Portugal.

My Essays include a set of essays (travel notes and life stories) and a few poems I wrote, in Chinese for most part, which reflect the personal side of my life, such as my travels, my family, my stories, my hobbies, and my reactions and reflections. I believe that personal experiences, feelings, and perspectives are what make us human, and sharing them is to affirm our humanity. I did not update this list, though I wrote more than 70 pieces since 2021.

My books display a list of authored or edited books I published over the years.

I hope you enjoy my site. Here is my CV for your information (click to view), which I will update shortly, and here is my email address if you have any question: ydai@albany.edu. You can also visit my faculty webpage: http://www.albany.edu/educational_psychology/68192.php.

David Y. Dai