People

Board of Directors
Rosina M. Gallagher, President
Mary Lovell, Financial Officer
Lori Comallie-Caplan, President Elect
Tiombe Kendrick, Secretary
Rose Blackett
Jane Hesslein
Carolyn Kottmeyer
Vidisha Patel
Steven I. Pfeiffer
Sheri Plybon
Lisa Rivero

SENG Committees
Other SENG Committees

Professional Advisory Committee
James T. Webb, Chair
Richard Clouse
Steven Curtis
Brock Eide
Fernette Eide
Ronald E. Fox
Jean Goerss
Jerald Grobman

Editorial Review Board
Visit the Editorial Review Board Webpage

Staff
Amy Price, Executive Director
Patty Petrillo, Office Manager

Board of Directors

Rosina M. Gallagher
Chicago, Illinois
Vice President
rosina.gallagher@sengifted.org

Rosina M. Gallagher is a psychologist and educational consultant who was born and raised in Mexico City through early adolescence. She has been evaluator of bilingual programs and administrator of gifted programs in a large urban school district. Her research and writings include second language acquisition and working with students and families from diverse cultural backgrounds. Dr. Gallagher has authored and collaborated in several federal grants to include culturally and linguistically diverse students in gifted education. Active in several professional organizations, she is past president of the Illinois School Psychologists Association and past co-chair of the Special Populations Division of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). Currently, she is on the SENG Board of Directors, and a member of the Illinois Gifted Advisory Council, NAGC's Diversity and Equity Committee, and co-chair of the Underserved Populations Committee of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children.  

Mary Lovell
Carrollton, Texas
Financial Officer
mary.lovell@sengifted.org

After a successful business career in the energy industry, Mary Lovell is now applying her leadership and management skills to inspiring educational causes. She is a three-term president of a parent association for the gifted in Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Texas. This public school district is an acknowledged leader in serving highly gifted and gifted students in an ethnically diverse population. She is the proud mother of a highly gifted and inspiring daughter.  She is a contributor to the Texas Association for the Gifted’s publication, Tempo and has presented on effective parent groups at conferences on gifted education.She has led fundraising efforts as a board member of an international adoption agency in Dallas and as a grant writer for several successful community based organizations. She is instrumental in the local AAUW chapter’s annual career conference in math and science for 7th and 8th grade girls.
She continues to provide consulting services to the energy industry. Mary earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA in Communication from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

Tiombe Kendrick, S.S.P., NCSP
Miami, Florida
Director
Tiombe.Kendrick@sengifted.org

Tiombe-Bisa Kendrick is a nationally certified school psychologist and is licensed to practice school psychology in the state of Florida. She has been employed with the Miami-Dade County Public School District as a school psychologist since 2005.

Ms. Kendrick has a very strong passion for addressing the needs of gifted students from culturally and linguistically diverse populations and has been instrumental in significantly increasing the numbers of culturally diverse students participating in the Gifted Program at her schools. In addition, she has many helped parents find services outside the school district to help address the needs of their gifted children. In 2006, Ms. Kendrick was a member of Miami-Dade Public Schools Gifted Task Force Committee and was also awarded the Mary Frasier Scholarship sponsored by the National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC). In 2007, she was both appointed to the NAGC Diversity/Equity Committee and was awarded a grant by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Children Fund Inc to establish a resource center specifically designed for gifted students from culturally and linguistically diverse ackgrounds. Ms. Kendrick completed her undergraduate work at Miami Dade College and Florida State University and her graduate work at Barry University. Ms. Kendrick has presented at numerous professional conventions on the topic of gifted children.

Rose Blackett
Christchurch, New Zealand
Director
Rose.Blackett@sengifted.org

Rose Blackett is a registered educational psychologist with over twenty years experience in the education system. She has worked at the primary, intermediate, secondary and tertiary levels. She has developed extensive knowledge in working with children who are challenged by the education system. This has included time as a classroom teacher, a Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) and a specialist educator in settings for children with significant special needs. Rose is the current president of the New Zealand Association for Gifted Children (NZAGC), founding president of Christchurch Explorers and a committee member for the Canterbury Association for Gifted Education (CAGE). She is a past teacher and current assessor and advisor for the NZ Gifted Education Centre (formerly the George Parkyn Centre). Rose and her husband Rob parent two gifted children and live in Christchurch. She has presented at national and international conferences and workshops on a range of educational topics. Her special interest areas include: specific learning disabilities, children’s social and emotional development, parenting, giftedness and sensory processing.

Carolyn Kottmeyer
Downingtown, Pennsylvainia
Director
Carolyn.Kottmeyer@sengifted.org

Carolyn K., is the founder and director of Hoagies' Gifted Education Page (www.hoagiesgifted.org) and Hoagies' Kids and Teens Page (www.hoagieskids.org). In addition, she serves on the advisory board for the Summer Institute for the Gifted (SIG) (www.giftedstudy.com). She is a software engineer by training and trade, with bachelors and masters degrees in software engineering. She developed an interest in gifted education a few years after the birth of her first child, when she noticed how different her daughter was, and how the 'normal' path through education didn't seem to fit her. Since 1998, she has written for gifted newsletters and journals around the world, including Our Gifted Children, Gifted Education Communicator , Hollingworth’s journal Highly Gifted Children, SENG's newsletter, and a variety of state and local gifted newsletters. She frequently speaks at conferences including National Association of Gifted Children, Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education, Nebraska Association for the Gifted, New Jersey Association of Gifted Children, Washington Association for the Education of Talented and Gifted, Kentucky Association for Gifted Education, and others.

Vidisha Patel, EdD
Sarasoto, Florida
Director
Vidisha.Patel@sengifted.org

Dr. Vidisha Patel has a doctorate of Education in Counseling Psychology and practices as a therapist in Sarasota, Florida, where much of her work is with gifted children and their families, with a focus on stress and anxiety. She is licensed to teach stress management techniques. Dr. Patel is active in her local community and regularly speaks at conferences, schools, and parenting groups throughout the community and the state. As a consultant for Florida State University she trains primary caregivers on infant mental health. Dr. Patel’s professional affiliations include The American Counseling Association, The World Association of Infant Mental Health, The Zero to Three Society, Sarasota County Medical Society Alliance, and the Pine View School Board of Directors. Dr. Patel holds an MBA from Columbia University and worked in finance on Wall Street and overseas before obtaining her doctorate in psychology. Dr. Patel is the mother of two gifted children.

Steven I. Pfeiffer, Ph.D., A.B.P.P.
Tallahassee, Florida
Director
steven.pfeiffer@sengifted.org
Steven Pfeiffer is a Professor in the Psychological Services in Education program in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University. Prior to tenure at FSU, Dr. Pfeiffer was at Duke University, where he served as Executive Director of Duke's internationally renowned Talent Identification Program for gifted students (TIP). Professor Pfeiffer is lead author of a new scale to identify multiple types of giftedness, the Gifted Rating Scales. He also coauthored the Devereux Scales of Mental Disorders and the Devereux Behavior Rating Scale-School Form and he recently co-edited a popular book for parents of young gifted children entitled Early Gifts: Recognizing and Nurturing Children's Abilities. Dr. Pfeiffer maintains a private practice where he works with children, adolescents and families.

Sheri Plybon
Plano, Texas
Director
Sheri.Plybon@sengifted.org

Sheri Plybon is a SENG Model Parent Group Facilitator and Trainer, and she has been a Gifted Specialist for 28+ years in public education, K-12. She has worked on curriculum development and staff development at state and district levels and served for 8 years on the Texas Association for Gifted Board of Directors. Ms. Plybon has presented at both national (NAGC) and state (Colorado & Texas) Gifted Conferences. Her passion for understanding giftedness was inspired by her three gifted children and by her own personal experiences in gifted education. Ms. Plybon earned her Bachelor of Science in Behavioral Science from Loretto Heights College, and a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration from Colorado State University.

Lisa Rivero lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she is a writer, teacher, speaker, and parent.  She has an M.A. in literary studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a B.A. from Marquette University. Her professional interests include gifted education, home education, creativity, literature and the humanities, and the challenges faced by all families in this fast-paced and often perplexing 21st-century life. Lisa’s interest in gifted education began when her son was an early entrant to kindergarten. After two and a half years of public school, where he was in a program for highly gifted students, and one and a half years in a private gifted school, her son began to learn at home rather than in a school classroom. Although their family never planned to homeschool long-term, he made the decision to homeschool through high school. Homeschooling has allowed him to learn and socialize at his own pace and in a way that meets his needs, as well as giving him the time and freedom to know himself and to explore his interests. Some of her books include Creative Home Schooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families, A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Teens: Living with Intense and Creative Adolescents, and Smart Teens’ Guide to Living with Intensity: How to Get More Out of Life and Learning.

Professional Advisory Committee

James T. Webb, Ph.D.
Phoenix, Arizona
SENG Founder, Chair of the Professional Advisory Committee
james.webb@sengifted.org
Jim Webb established the SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of Gifted) program at the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in 1981. This led to the publication of the award-winning book, Guiding the Gifted Child, and later, Gifted Parent Groups: The SENG Model. He was previously President of the American Association for Gifted Children, on the board of directors for the National Association for Gifted Children, President of the Ohio Psychological Association, and a member of the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Webb was recognized as one of the 25 most influential psychologists in gifted education in a national survey published in Gifted Child Today.

Richard Clouse, M.D.
Dr. Clouse is a family practice physician and Associate Professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and has practiced medicine in Pennsylvania and Kentucky for nearly 20 years.

Dr. Steven Curtis is a Licensed Child Clinical Psychologist and Nationally Certified School Psychologist.  He has worked in a variety of medical, school, and university settings for the past 25+ years. Dr. Curtis has specialized in the assessment and treatment of children presenting with emotional, behavioral, developmental, and learning difficulties throughout his training and work experience.   Dr. Curtis completed his doctoral training in 1992 in Professional-Scientific Psychology at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. This program is approved by the American Psychological Association in Clinical Psychology, as well as Counseling and School Psychology. He completed his Pre-doctoral internship and Post-doctoral fellowship in Child Clinical Psychology at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is the former Special Education Director at Seattle University and is currently a clinical faculty member in the Psychology Program at Antioch University in Seattle.  Dr. Curtis now engages in full time private practice with Lifespan Psychological Services, PS.  In his private practice, he provides psychotherapy and assessment services to children and families. He primarily works with elementary-aged children who are struggling with behavioral and learning difficulties at home or school. He has a particular interest in working with gifted children who have additional challenges with behavior, learning, or socialization (dual exceptionalities).  Dr. Curtis is the author of Understanding Your Child's Puzzling Behavior: A Guide for Parents of Children with Behavioral, Social, and Learning Challenges.

Brock Eide, M.D., M.A.
Edmonds, Washington
Dr. Brock Eide is a member of the prestigious Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society from the University of Washington School of Medicine. He has trained in clinical medicine and basic science research at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the University of California–San Francisco School of Medicine.



Fernette Eide, M.D.
Edmonds , Washington
Dr. Fernette Eide is a graduate of Harvard University and received her M.D. from the University of California–San Francisco School of Medicine. She has been on the Neurology faculties of University of Washington , the University of California-San Francisco, and University of Chicago School of Medicine.
The Drs. Eide run the Eide Neurolearning Clinic, which provides neurology consultation, neuropsychological assessment, and learning and school report recommendations for children.

Ronald E. Fox, Ph.D., Psy.D.
Chapel Hill , North Carolina
Dr. Fox received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina in 1962 and held faculty positions at UNC and the Ohio State University before becoming the founding Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton , Ohio . He is a recipient of the American Psychological Foundation’s prestigious Career Contributions to Practice Award, the APA Board of Educational Affairs’ award for Career Contributions to Education, and a lifetime achievement award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues. He holds an honorary Doctor of Psychology degree from the California School of Professional Psychology. He is the Executive Director of THE CONSULTING GROUP, a division of Human Resource Consultants and holds a part-time faculty appointment in the UNC Department of Psychology. Dr. Fox is a past president of the American Psychological Association.

Jean Goerss, M.D., M.P.H.
Glendale, Arizona
Dr. Goerss is a Board Certified pediatrician and a co-author of the book, Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, Asperger’s, Depression and other Disorders. She is the director of the Bove Institute, a nonprofit corporation that will administer a model school for highly gifted children, which she is establishing in Phoenix , Arizona .

Jerald Grobman, M.D.
New York , New York
www.PsychotherapyServicesfortheGifted.com
Dr. Grobman is a board certified psychiatrist in private practice in New York City . He specializes in the psychodynamic and cognitive/behavioral psychotherapy of adolescents and adults. Currently he is a member of the attending staff of the Lenox Hill Hospital ’s department of psychiatry where he is a senior supervisor in the psychology intern and externship training program. For a number of years he was the psychiatric consultant to the open heart surgical team at Lenox Hill Hospital . From 1975-1980 he was an associate clinical professor in the department of psychiatry of the Tufts University School of Medicine. While there, he was the director of the group psychotherapy training program and was a group therapy training instructor in the American Group Psychotherapy Association’s national training institute. He also developed a full service community based mental health center and was the psychiatric consultant to the guidance staff of a middle school. Dr. Grobman has published in the fields of community psychiatry,group psychotherapy and consultation/liaison psychiatry. His paper Underachievement in Exceptionally Gifted Adolescents and Young Adults: A Psychiatrist’s View was recently published in the Journal of Secondary Gifted Education Vol.17 #4 summer 2006.