Stephanie S. Tolan is an award-winning author and a passionate advocate for the rights of gifted children and adults. One of the original members of the Columbus Group, she helped bring the concept of asynchronous development to the gifted community. A Senior Fellow at the Institute for Educational Advancement, she participated in designing Yunasa, a summer camp experience for highly gifted children that focuses on helping them balance mind, body, spirit, emotions, and social self. She was named a SENG Educator of the Year and a North Carolina Gifted Association Outstanding Parent of the Year. She has written and published poetry, plays, and more than two dozen books for children and young adults, including the 2003 Newbery Honor-winning Surviving the Applewhites. For adults, she wrote the now-famous essay “Is It a Cheetah?” about gifted children, which has been translated into more than forty languages.