American Mensa Hires New Gifted Youth Specialist

ARLINGTON, TEXAS, December 9th, 2010 — American Mensa is proud to announce that Lisa Van Gemert has joined the organization as our new Gifted Youth Specialist.

Lisa will be working with Mensa’s Gifted Youth Program which serves more than 2,000 Young Mensa members as well as provides resources for gifted youth and their parents.

Lisa comes to American Mensa from the Arlington Independent School District where she worked as a secondary teacher and administrator. Additionally, she is a professional development facilitator and popular conference speaker who has trained more than 5,000 teachers how to better educate the gifted and talented. Lisa has also been a consultant for the Mensa Education & Research Foundation for the last year.

Lisa will continue her work with the Foundation by creating new and re-developing current lesson plans and resources that are available for all teachers and parents who are working with gifted youth. These resources are available at www.mensaforkids.org. Lisa is also creating a gifted youth program for the Dallas/Fort Worth area Young Mensans that will be used as a model for local groups nationwide. For more information about Mensa’s Gifted Youth Program, log on to www.us.mensa.org/giftedyouth.

“I'm very excited to be working with Mensa and the Foundation, because I embrace its mission of promoting the education of and research about the gifted,” said Lisa Van Gemert, Gifted Youth Specialist for American Mensa. “Both organizations are uniquely qualified to serve the gifted youth of the world, and I hope that we can accomplish our goals of doing that through a multi-faceted approach that will benefit members and non-members alike.”

“Lisa Van Gemert is a wonderful addition to the American Mensa,” said Pamela Donahoo, CAE, Executive Director of America Mensa. “With her experience, we can create new and exciting programs that will help in educating gifted children and steering our Young Mensa members in the right direction.”

Lisa obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington. She currently resides in Arlington, Texas with her husband Steven and has three sons—one of whom is a member of American Mensa.

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American Mensa is an organization open to anyone who scores in the top 2 percent on an accepted standardized intelligence test. Mensa has more than 50,000 members in the United States and more than 130,000 members globally. For more information about American Mensa, visit americanmensa.org or call (817) 607-0060.

The Mensa Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization focused on intelligence and giftedness in the community at large. It's mission supports two of the three stated purposes shared by all Mensa organizations, to identify and foster intelligence for the benefit of humanity and to encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence. The Mensa Foundation pursues these goals, in partnership with American Mensa and/or Mensa International where appropriate, with resources donated by Mensans and non-Mensans alike and aspire to use the intelligence of Mensans and non-Mensans to make the world a better place. For more information about the Mensa Foundation, visit mensafoundation.org or call (817) 607-5577.