Van Gemert was born Lisa Paige Morey on October 6, 1966, in Newport Beach, California.

She was identified for the program, at the time called MGM for Mentally Gifted Minors, later changing to GATE, when she was in 6th grade through the administration of a Stanford-Binet LM.

[6] She graduated summa cum laude from the Honors College at the University of Texas at Arlington in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in English.

Van Gemert began teaching at Roquemore Elementary in Arlington, Texas, and then at Lamar High School in the same city.

[11] In 2013, Van Gemert published a novel, Loving Longest, a modern retelling of Persuasion by Jane Austen.

In 2017, she published her first non-fiction book in the field of gifted education, Perfectionism: A practical Guide to Managing Never Good Enough with Great Potential Press.