Dr. Colangelo is the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Iowa. He is also the Myron & Jacqueline Blank Professor of Gifted Education and Director Emeritus of The Belin-Blank Center.

He is author of numerous articles on counseling gifted students and the affective development of gifted and acceleration. He has co-edited three editions of The Handbook of Gifted Education, and co-authored A Nation Empowered. He has served on the editorial boards of major journals, including Counseling and Development, Gifted Child Quarterly, The Journal of Creative Behavior, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, and The Roeper Review. Dr. Colangelo has received many prestigious awards recognizing his research and service to the field of gifted education, including the Distinguished Scholar Award by the National Association for Gifted Children (1991); the Alumni Achievement Award presented by the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1995); the State of Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence (2000); the Michael J. Brody Award for Faculty Excellence in Service from The University of Iowa (2008); and the International Award for Research presented by the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children (2013).