Dr. Sidney J. Parnes, is a Professor Emeritus from Buffalo State College and the Founding Director of the International Center for Studies in Creativity (ICSC). As the first and oldest degree granting program in creativity in the world, the foundation of ICSC dates back to Alex Osborn's seminal work in creativity education in the 1940s and 1950s. Osborn, the developer of brainstorming and the originator of the Creative Problem Solving process, saw the need for a more creative trend in American education and business. It was this vision and dream that eventually led to the establishment of the Center for Studies in Creativity in 1967. An experimental study carried out on the courses offered in the late 1960s and early 1970s, showed that those courses significantly enhanced undergraduate students' creative abilities, as well as improved their academic and nonacademic performance. Osborn's dream was fully realized when Dr. Sidney Parnes and Dr. Ruth Noller established a permanent academic home for the Creative Studies Program at Buffalo State. Sid Parnes provides an invaluable foundation for identifying challenges, generating ideas, and implementing innovative solutions.

Sid is one of the founders and a lifetime trustee of the Creative Education Foundation which sponsors the world's largest and longest running Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI). CPSI held its 51st annual conference in St. Paul Minnesota in 2005.