Teachers
Patricia Jennings, PhD
Tish Jennings is an associate professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. She is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of social and emotional learning and mindfulness in education. Her research focuses on building resilience among teachers and students to transform educational environments. Jennings recently led the team that developed CARE, a mindfulness-based professional development program shown to significantly improve teacher well-being, classroom interactions and student engagement in the largest randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based intervention designed specifically to address teacher occupational stress. Currently, she is leading the development of the Compassionate Schools Project curriculum, an integrated health and physical education program designed to align with state and national health and physical education standards, and is co-Investigator on a large randomized controlled trial being conducted in Louisville, KY, to evaluate the curriculum’s efficacy.
You can learn more about Tish here.
Mind & Life Fellow and Mind & Life Varela Grantee
Kevelin Jones
Kevelin B. Jones II has been an educator and motivational speaker for 15 years. With a master’s degree in educational leadership, he’s served in the capacity of principal for the past 8 years. As an educator, he’s been a part of two turn around schools who’ve made great strides in literacy and math, also highlighted in the Detroit free press for outstanding reading gains. He's recently received an award of achievement called the “Putting Students First Award” from Flint Community Schools, and believes nothing is more important as a leader than building relational capacity with colleagues, parents, and scholars.As a leader, Kevelin states often, “My goal is OUR success!” He’s happily married to his wife of 19 years, Tanisha, and blessed to have three gifted children, Alicea, Kevelin III, and Charles. As a musician for over 30 years with an undergraduate degree in Music Performing Arts, he’s also produced and recorded 5 gospel albums to date along with playing piano behind many well known artist.
Kevelin and Doyle Ryder Elementary School work with Crim Fitness Foundation to bring mindfulness curriculum to students. To learn more about the organization you can visit their website here.
Amishi Jha, PhD
Amishi Jha, is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami, and Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, prior to which she was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD from the University of California–Davis, and received her postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University in functional neuroimaging. She studies the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion and resilience. With grants from the Department of Defense and several private foundations, she has been systematically investigating the potential applications of mindfulness training in education, corporate, elite sports, and the military contexts. In addition to her own published body of research, her work has been featured at TED.com, the World Economic Forum, NY Times, NPR, the Aspen Institute, the Pentagon, the Journal of Special Operations Medicine, and Joint Force Quarterly.
Mind & Life Fellow
Kristin Neff, PhD
Kristin Neff is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion over fifteen years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, released by William Morrow. In conjunction with her colleague Dr. Chris Germer, she has developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook is now available by Guilford, as well as Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals. For more information on self-compassion, including a self-compassion test, research articles, practices, and Dr. Neff's teaching schedule, you can visit her website.
Crystal McCreary
Crystal McCreary is a yoga, mindfulness and wellness educator, speaker and writer. Crystal participates as a curriculum developer, consultant and lead teacher for research studies on yoga and mindfulness conducted by CUNY-Hunter’s public health department and also serves on the Yoga Alliance Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Advisory Committee. She is involved with organizations that impact youth including Mindful Schools, New York based Bent on Learning and Little Flower Yoga, and the Lineage Project. Crystal’s programs emphasize the importance of self-care as the gateway to social justice and community healing in the world. Crystal graduated from Stanford University with a BA in African and African American studies and completed The American Conservatory Theater’s Master of Fine Arts program in Acting. She is registered with Yoga Alliance as an ERYT500 and RCYT and works full-time at The Dalton School in New York.
You can connect with Crystal on her website.
Rick Hanson, PhD
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York Times best-selling author. His books are available in 26 languages and include Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakeable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture. He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin and has numerous audio programs. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at NASA, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and he offers the free Just One Thing newsletter with over 120,000 subscribers, plus the online Foundations of Well-Being program in positive neuroplasticity that anyone with financial need can do for free.
Learn more about Rick at his website.
Barnaby Spring
Barnaby Spring was born in Arizona. He graduated from Cornell University's College Scholar Honors Program in 1983. In the mid-90’s Barnaby became a teacher in the New York City Department of Education teaching adolescent and adult women incarcerated on Rikers Island. He has been a dean of students, a principal, a school leader advisor and is now tremendously grateful to be a Student Services Director in the Office of the First Deputy Chancellor whose workflow includes being the Director of Mindfulness in Education in the NYCDOE. He is inspired by the NYCDOE Chancellor’s vision for Advancing Equity Now in the NYCDOE. He is an artist/actor currently appearing in the recent film The Rainbow Experiment by independent film-maker Christina Kallas. He is also developing a multi-media project called "Doctor Chango Partlow's Traveling Medicine Show". He is even more honored and grateful to be married to NYCDOE long-time educator, Rachel Masters, and to be the proud father of Eli Spring, a student in the NYCDOE, attending Edward R. Murrow High School.
Caverly Morgan
Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, nonprofit leader, and visionary. She is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Peace in Schools, which created the nation's first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools and training programs for educators. She is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Presence Collective. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent monastery. Caverly leads meditation retreats, workshops, and online classes internationally. Learn more about Caverly and her work and access recorded teachings, online courses, and upcoming events on her website.
Dan Siegel, MD
Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute which focuses on the development of mindsight, which teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families and communities. Dr. Siegel has published extensively for both the professional and lay audiences. His five New York Times bestsellers are: Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, and three books with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D: The Whole-Brain Child, No-Drama Discipline, and The Power of Showing Up (to be released 1/7/20). His other books include: The Developing Mind, The Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology, Mindsight, The Mindful Brain, The Mindful Therapist, and The Yes Brain (also with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D). Dr. Siegel also serves as the Founding Editor for the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology which contains over seventy textbooks.
You can learn more about Dr. Siegel at his website.
Meena Srinivasan
Meena Srinivasan is the Executive Director of Transformative Educational Leadership (TEL). Prior to this role, she spent five and a half years working in partnership with the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to implement SEL in the Oakland Unified School District. She is the author of Teach, Breathe, Learn: Mindfulness In and Out of the Classroom and SEL Every Day: Integrating Social and Emotional Learning with Instruction for Secondary Classrooms. To learn more about Meena and her work, visit her website.
Richard Davidson, PhD
Dr. Richard Davidson’s research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style and methods to promote human flourishing including meditation and related contemplative practices. He has published over 400 articles and edited 14 books. He is the author (with S. Begley) of The Emotional Life of Your Brain and co-author with D. Goleman of Altered Traits. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017 and appointed to the Governing Board of UNESCO’s MGIEP in 2018. To learn more about Dr. Davidson and his work, visit Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Mind & Life Chief Scientific Advisor and Founding Steward, Mind & Life Fellow
Lisa Flook, PhD, MA
Lisa Flook is deeply interested in individual and societal transformation and well-being. Her research on children's social and academic stress and the effects of mindfulness interventions with teachers and students has been published in leading scientific journals. She has worked as a research scientist with the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, and the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and most recently with an education policy think tank, the Learning Policy Institute. She earned her PhD and MA in (Clinical) Psychology from UCLA, and BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Mind & Life Grantee
Bidyut Bose, PhD
Bidyut (BK) Bose, PhD, learned mindfulness from his father and other teachers since he was a child, and is paying it forward by bringing mindfulness to children and youth in K-12 schools and alternative schools, juvenile halls and jails. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Niroga Institute, a 15-year-old non-profit that has brought evidence-based trauma-informed Dynamic Mindfulness (DMind) programs directly to 65,000 students in hundreds of schools, and trained over 15,000 educators, who have brought DMind to an additional 600,000 youth. He also is the author of Teaching Transformative Life Skills to Students.
You can learn more about Niroga Institute on the website, and connect through Facebook and Instagram.
Ali Smith
Ali Smith Co-founded the Holistic Life Foundation in 2001, where he currently serves as Executive Director. He is a native of Baltimore, Maryland and graduate of the Friends School of Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park, receiving a BS in Environmental Science and Policy with a Biodiversity specialization. He has over 16 years of experience teaching yoga and mindfulness to diverse populations all over the planet. Ali has authored a series of children's books, and co-authored several yoga and mindfulness based curriculums, as well as developed numerous workshops and trainings. He also helped develop and pilot HLF’s Mindful Moment program, known for turning “detention into meditation”.
You can learn more about Ali's work at the website for the Holistic Life Foundation.
Eve Ekman, PhD, MSW
Eve Ekman, Ph.D., MSW, is the director of training at the Greater Good Science Center. She is contemplative social scientist and teacher in the fields of emotional awareness and burnout prevention. She draws on advanced training and life experiences in clinical social work, integrative medicine research, and contemplative meditation practices and science. Eve is a second generation emotion researcher and has had meaningful collaborations with her father, renowned emotion researcher Dr. Paul Ekman. Their most recent project, The Atlas of Emotions, is an online visual tool to teach emotional awareness, a project commissioned and supported by the Dalai Lama. Eve is a founding teacher for Cultivating Emotional Balance, an evidenced based training committed to utilizing the experience of emotion as a path for developing the happiness of being for ourselves and in relationship to others.
David Treleaven, PhD
David Treleaven, PhD, is a writer, educator, and trauma professional whose work focuses on the intersection of trauma and mindfulness. He is author of the book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing (W. W. Norton, 2018), which was acclaimed by Rick Hanson as “a rare combination of solid scholarship, clinically useful methods, and passionate advocacy for those who have suffered from trauma.” He’s lectured on trauma-sensitive mindfulness at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and the Omega Institute in New York. Trained in counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia, he received his doctorate in psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is currently a visiting scholar at Brown University.
You can learn more about David's work and upcoming events on his website. You're also invited to join the free, online Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Community, where David continually offers various resources around TSM work, including monthly calls with TSM practices and time for Q&A.
Susan Kaiser Greenland
Susan Kaiser Greenland is an internationally recognized leader in teaching mindfulness and meditation to children, teens, and families. She is the author of books The Mindful Child and Mindful Games. Susan and her husband, author Seth Greenland, founded The Inner Kids Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that taught secular mindfulness in schools and community-based programs in the greater Los Angeles area. Susan was on the clinical team of the Pediatric Pain Clinic at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, co-investigator on several UCLA research studies on the impact of mindfulness in education, and a collaborator on an investigation of mindful eating for children and caregivers.
Check out Susan's blog and her website, where you can listen and watch recordings of mindful games, guided meditations, songs, classes, and other resources for the classroom.
Argos S. González
Argos González is a teacher, lecturer, educational consultant, and mindfulness and yoga instructor. He has 14 years experience teaching high school in the Bronx and teaches pre-service and in-service teachers at Hunter College School of Education in NY. Argos currently serves as Director of Professional Development for The School Yoga Project, a program of Little Flower Yoga and as a Lead Teacher for Mindful Schools. His passion for empowering children and adolescents, while supporting other professionals to do the same, is evident in all his work.
To learn more about Argos' work with youth and educators, check out Mindful Schools and Little Flower Yoga. Additionally Argos offers online training, retreat, and practice support through his organization Embodied Wisdom.
Kathy Flynn-Somerville, EdD
Dr. Kathy Flynn-Somerville is a seasoned, "In-the-Trenches" teacher, currently enlisted as a Teacher on Special Assignment. Her mission is to systematically transform an urban school district into one of more compassion. Dr. Flynn-Somerville works throughout all classrooms, K-12, and delivers professional learning, including Social and Emotional Learning with an emphasis on Mindfulness, to transform educational experiences of the students, staff, community, and beyond. Kathy lives in Pittsburgh with her wonderful husband, Joe, and their dog, Colby. She hosts a live stream Global Mindfulness Practice for the Community, which you can join for free on Sunday evenings from 8PM - 8:30PM EST using this link to tune into the free call: https://zoom.us/j/489248217
Linda Lantieri, MA
Linda Lantieri, MA has been in the field of education for almost 50 years in a variety of capacities She is a Fulbright Scholar and internationally known speaker in the areas of Social and Emotional Learning, Contemplative Teaching and Learning and Spirituality in k-12 Education. Linda is one of the co-founders for the Transformative Educational Leadership (TEL) Program and the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). She currently serves as the Senior Program Advisor for TEL. Linda is the author of numerous articles and book chapters and coauthor of Waging Peace in Our Schools (Beacon Press, 1996), editor of Schools with Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers (Beacon Press, 2001), author of Building Emotional Intelligence: Practices to Cultivate Inner Resilience in Children (Sounds True, 2008, 2014) and coauthor of Nurturing Gratitude From the Inside Out: 30 Activities for Grades k-8 (Greater Good Science Center, 2017).
Learn more about Linda and her work on her website.
Mind & Life Fellow
Kim Schonert-Reichl, PhD
Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl is an Applied Developmental Psychologist and a Professor in Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP). Before beginning her graduate work, she was a middle school teacher and a high school teacher for at-risk youth. Known as a world renowned expert in the area of social and emotional learning (SEL), Dr. Schonert-Reichl is the recipient of many outstanding achievement awards for her research. Dr. Schonert-Reichl serves as an advisor to the British Columbia (BC) Ministry Education, an Expert Advisor to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s (OECD) Education 2030 initiative, a Board Member of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), an advisor to UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) on SEL, a member of the Educational Testing Service’s panel on research, and an advisor to the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education.
Mind & Life Fellow
Cornell Carelock
Cornell Carelock also known as Lord Judah is a mindfulness practitioner and instructor, professional artist, teacher, and student of comics, creative writing, music production, and music culture. He has worked along with many civic-based organizations, schools, and community groups, regarding Social Justice and Social Action and Continues to develop creative strategies for translating positive proactive messaging into his Art and Art workshops. He utilizes the practice of mindfulness and heart-based meditation to stay grounded in his service to humanity to allow all participants to receive the most from the space that he creates for them. Through a unique blend of all his learned techniques and strategies, he has developed a self-healing instructional program he calls "True He (ART) Academy". It is Judah's mission to be a leader in mindfulness and arts integration, and influence those from his generation to take a deeper look into how art, but more specifically music has an impact our mental health.
Jill Merolla
Jill Merolla is entering her 33rd year as an educator (10 years as an elementary teacher, 13 years as a principal, and 10 years as District Administrator), working the entire time in the Warren City Schools in Warren, Ohio. She is currently serving as Supervisor of Community Outreach and Grant Development. She supervises all District School Counselors and School Community Liaisons working to connect local resources to support our families at risk. With her SEL work, she has collaborated with CASEL (Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning) attending numerous trainings. She conducted a CASEL webinar in 2016 and presented at the Reno CASEL National Convening and the National School Psychologist Public Policy Forum. Jill is a member of the national TEL-Transformative Educational Leadership cohort started in 2018 that furthers the work of transforming our schools through social emotional learning, mindfulness, and equity activism.
Patrick Tolan, PhD
Patrick Tolan is Director Emeritus of Youth-Nex, the UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, and Professor in the Curry School of Education and in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Science in the College of Medicine. Patrick is the Principal Investigator for the Compassionate Schools Project, serving as its overall director. He is an internationally respected and renowned leader in the field of sound scientific evaluation of youth development and prevention of health problems. Patrick has influenced his field to focus on how education and health are related and can be simultaneously promoted. He has lead several large randomized control research studies of school and community based programs that have shown important effects for youth behavior, school completion, and family functioning. He led one of the largest school intervention studies of the past twenty years, a $25 million effort over 7 years. He also regularly consults with and speaks to agencies, foundations, and governments on use of evidence-based practices to guide programming. He has published 8 books and over 120 scientific articles about promoting successful youth development.
Megan Sweet
Dr. Megan Sweet is the Director of Training at Mindful Schools where she oversees the development and facilitation of all of their courses. Megan comes to Mindful Schools with 25 years of experience in education, including classroom teaching, school administration, and district leadership. Megan also brings more than two decades of mindfulness practice. Her blend of experience enables Megan to bring the two worlds together in a way that is meaningful to Mindful Schools' participants and impactful to the educational contexts where they work. In addition to her duties at Mindful Schools, Megan is an author and host of two podcasts related to mindfulness and education.
Kory O'Rourke
Kory has been a public high school teacher and school leader for over a decade, and sees her work as the Mindful Schools Head of Program as the perfect place to bring her passion for mindfulness, social justice, social-emotional learning and wellness for all humans (especially those in schools), the pursuit of equity, and the support of communities as they work to break free from systems of oppression. Kory continues to be privileged to work in classrooms - learning with and from her students at the University of San Francisco as an adjunct professor within the Undergraduate Teacher Education Center. In the little free time that she has, you can find her reading, embroidering, walking her two misbehaved dogs for long walks on Ocean Beach, and spending time with two children.
Vicki Zakrzewski, PhD
Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., is the education director of the Greater Good Science Center. She gives talks and workshops, and leads the GGSC’s Summer Institute for Educators. Vicki also consults with organizations on how to incorporate the science of well-being into their work. Recent collaborations include the CASEL California Collaborating States Initiative; Science for Monks and Nuns in Dharamsala, India; the Knowledge and Human Development Authority in Dubai, UAE; the Millennium School in San Francisco; the Mind and Life Institute (of which she is a fellow); the Jim Henson Company on a new television show for preschoolers; the International School of Brussels on the Common Ground Collaborative curriculum; several social-emotional learning programs, including Second Step, MindUp, Open Circle, and Inner Resilience; and Pixar/Disney on The Emotions Survival Guide—a follow-up book for children based on the movie Inside Out. A former teacher and school administrator, Vicki earned her Ph.D. in Education and Positive Psychology from Claremont Graduate University. In her doctoral research, Vicki spent two months in India at a school awarded the Peace Education Prize by UNESCO and the Hope of Humanity Award by the Dalai Lama, researching their methods for developing teachers’ ability to create caring relationships with students.
To find out more about GGSC's upcoming Greater Good in Education online resource and Purpose Challenge Toolkit for students, click here.
Mind & Life Fellow
Alan Brown
Alan Brown is a Lead Teacher and Curriculum Designer for Mindful Schools' flagship training program, the Mindful Teacher Certification Program. Through his consulting firm, Learning to Thrive, he is a frequent speaker and presenter to schools and districts on mindfulness and positive education. A teacher and school administrator for over 15 years, Alan also runs the mindfulness and experiential programs for Grace Church School in New York City. In addition to his work in education, Alan is an advocate for mindfulness to the Tourette Syndrome community and is currently collaborating with Massachusetts General Hospital and Bowdoin College to assess the efficacy of mindfulness-based treatment for Tourette Syndrome and tics.
Oscar Medina
Oscar Paul Medina is a meditation educator, purpose guide, and somatic counselor born in East Los Angeles and raised in the Mojave Desert. His personal battles with trauma and addiction led him to the path of meditation, healing and rites of passage work. As a Dalai Lama Fellow and co-founder of Mindful Garden Collective, he created a community wellness garden and environmental restoration project centered around meditation, yoga, ecology, and growing organic food for Oakland community families in need. As project manager and facilitator at Mind Body Awareness Project, he has been leading mindfulness and healing circles with inner-city youth and incarcerated individuals in the Bay Area since 2014. He is a graduate of the Hakomi and Purpose Guides Institute, where he studied mindfulness based somatic psychology, and nature based- purpose guiding. As a Mexican American, he is currently building a movement to empower Latinx communities and the leaders who serve them with the leading edge science on mindfulness, well-being and wisdom.
Chris Willard, PsyD
Dr. Christopher Willard (PsyD) is a father, psychologist, author and consultant. He has been practicing meditation for 20 years, and has led hundreds of workshops around the world, with invitations to more than two dozen countries. He currently serves on the board of directors at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, and is the past president of the Mindfulness in Education Network. He has presented at TEDx conferences and his thoughts have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, mindful.org, and elsewhere. He is the author of Growing Up Mindful, (2016) Alphabreaths (2019) and multiple other books for parents, professionals and kids. He teaches at Harvard Medical School.
Jessica Morey
Jessica Morey is the Executive Director, lead teacher and cofounder of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, a nonprofit organization bringing in-depth mindfulness and compassion training to teens, young adults and the parents and professionals who support them. Jessica began practicing meditation at age 14 on teen retreats offered by the Insight Meditation Society. Contemplative practice has been central to her life and work – whether focused on clean energy and climate policy or growing an international youth mindfulness organization. She loves dancing, yoga, and being outside.
Chris McKenna
Chris McKenna is the Education Program Officer at Mindful.org. Previously, he was the Program Director of Mindful Schools, a leading organization integrating mindfulness into education and youth mental health. He also served as Executive Director of the Mind Body Awareness Project, a nonprofit that pioneered the development of mindfulness-based interventions for high-risk adolescents with complex trauma. He currently lives with his family in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia where he offers intensives and retreats with his wife Megan Cowan at www.risingfalling.co.
Dzung Vo, MD
Dzung X. Vo, MD, FAAP, FSAHM, is the Head of the Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, and clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, Vancouver, Canada, and co-founder and director of the BC Children's Hospital Centre for Mindfulness. He co-developed a mindfulness training program called MARS-A, or Mindful Awareness and Resilience Skills for Adolescents. Dr. Vo also developed a Mindful Healing course for health care providers, adapted from Mindful Practice (Ron Epstein and Michael Krasner) and other sources. Dr. Vo is the author of The Mindful Teen: Powerful Skills to Help You Handle Stress One Moment at a Time. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the BC Association for Living Mindfully (BCALM) and the Mindfulness in Education Network (MiEN).
Sam Himelstein, PhD
Sam Himelstein, Ph.D., is a Licensed Psychologist (PSY25229) specializing in working with adolescents. He’s worked in the Teen Chemical Dependency Program at Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City, CA, the Alameda County Juvenile Detention Center in the maximum security unit as a clinician, and in private practice in Oakland, CA. Dr. Himelstein researches the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions with marginalized, incarcerated, substance abusing, and underserved adolescent populations, is an author of multiple scholarly journal articles and three books, travels the country speaking at conferences and conducting professional trainings, and is the founder and president of the Center for Adolescent Studies. Dr. Himelstein is passionate about training professionals from multiple disciplines in creating authentic, healing relationships with adolescents that contribute to positive outcomes. A formerly incarcerated youth himself, Dr. Himelstein was privileged to change his life from a path of drugs, violence, crime, and self-destruction to that of healing and transformation. His mission is to help teens thrive by becoming aware of the power of self-awareness and transformation, and train professionals with similar interests. Learn more about his philosophy and approach in his trainings on his website, and check out his books, Trauma-Informed Mindfulness With Teens: A Guide for Mental Health Clinicians (Norton, forthcoming 2019), Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Treatment for Adolescents: A 12-Session Curriculum (Routledge, 2015), and A Mindfulness-Based Approach to Working with High-Risk Adolescents (Routledge, 2013).
Rona Wilensky, PhD
Rona Wilensky is Director of Mindfulness Programs at PassageWorks Institute where she teaches SMART in Education, a mindfulness program for educators. From 1992- 2009 she was founding principal of New Vista High School, an innovative public high school of choice in Boulder, Colorado. She is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute and was member of the Leadership Council of the Garrison Institute’s Initiative on Contemplative Teaching and Learning. Rona holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and taught that subject at Williams College and the University of Denver in the early 1980’s.
Check out Rona's work at PassageWorks.
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