Engaging children. Supporting educators. Transforming schools.

Our Team

Staff

Megan CowanMegan Cowan

Co-Founder and Executive Director, Programs

Megan Cowan received a BA in Comparative Health and Healing from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been practicing mindfulness since 1996 and working with children in various settings since 1999. She first brought these two passions together in 2001 when she expanded a mindfulness program from 15 to over 100 children and created mindfulness curriculum for monthly and summer programs. As a cofounder of Mindful Schools, Megan has taught mindfulness to over 2000 children and trained over 200 teachers. Megan also consults with families on how to incorporate and apply mindfulness to address a variety of struggles that families encounter and increase the happiness of households.

Her additional teaching experience includes teaching at a private school for mildly to severe physically and developmentally disabled children, tutoring children and adults in reading, and teaching English as a second language. In each of these contexts, she applied her knowledge of mindfulness to enhance her effectiveness.

Additionally, Megan has experience in the business world working as an office manager, bookkeeper or accountant for several companies. She has run the office of several small companies, set up books for start-ups, and is experienced in all areas of accounting for large companies.

back to top

Randima FernandoRandima Fernando

Executive Director, Operations

Randima (Randy) Fernando was a product manager for several award-winning projects over 7 years at NVIDIA Corporation (Forbes Magazine’s 2007 Company of the Year), where he also served as an inaugural member of the employee-run NVIDIA Foundation Board.

He has successfully managed large projects with over 100 people and has worked on all aspects of product development, from technical aspects to public relations and marketing. He has published three highly acclaimed books (two of which held the #1 spot on Barnes & Noble’s “Graphics Programming” list for most of 2003 and 2004), written several papers, and given numerous presentations on real-time computer graphics. (Full Resume)

Randy is from Sri Lanka, grew up in the Philippines, and attended Cornell University, where he received his BS in Computer Science and MS in Computer Graphics. Randy was drawn to Mindful Schools because of the program’s compelling results and preventive nature, and he is excited to combine best practices from Silicon Valley with the sincere core values and intentions of the Mindful Schools team. Randy learned mindfulness as a child, and has been practicing it formally since 2004.

back to top

Kate JankeKate Janke

Director of Training

Kate Janke started studying mindfulness in 2004 and began teaching it in 2008 at venues around the Bay Area. Her passion for bringing the tools of mindfulness to youth started in 2008 when she began developing programs for young adults, primarily in Berkeley and San Francisco. Kate began working for Mindful Schools as a mindfulness teacher and event coordinator in the fall of 2008. She has taught mindfulness to about 1,000 children in Oakland and finds working in schools deeply fulfilling and invigorating.

Kate is now coupling her mindfulness teaching with her past occupational experience, the course coordinator for an internationally recognized online program, as the Director of Training. She has recently developed a multi level mindfulness training program that will be launched in 2010. In addition, she is also the volunteer coordinator and works closely with the scaling team to develop programs and trainings in new remote locations.

back to top

 

Christina CosteloChristina Costelo

Training Coordinator

Christina Costelo received her MA in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her BA in Psychology from San Francisco State University. With a passion in progressive and innovative learning environments, Christina has worked in education for 9 years in a variety of settings. Most recently, she worked as a Camp Director for 3 years for Camp Galileo during the summer and an afterschool program quality assessor for OUSD during the school year. She has also worked as a Program Director for a nonprofit afterschool program funded by No Child Left Behind where she managed academic programming and wrote extensive guided reading curricula for elementary and middle school students in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Mountain View.

The role of Training Coordinator has allowed Christina to bring her love of connecting to people and her project management experience to a mission she feels strongly about. She has cultivated her own mindfulness practice since joining the team.

back to top

Board of Directors

Michael HagertyMichael Hagerty

Professor Emeritus
University of California, Davis

Russell LongRussell Long

Environmentalist and Filmmaker
Board Member, Friends of the Earth

Bill McGlashanBill McGlashan

Entrepreneur (Non-Profit and For-Profit)
Former White House Fellow

Raghavan AnandRaghavan Anand

Former President & Chief Executive Officer
Asha for Education

Richard ShankmanRichard Shankman

Co-Founder
Mindful Schools

Megan CowanMegan Cowan

Co-Founder
Executive Director, Programs
Mindful Schools

Randima FernandoRandima Fernando

Executive Director, Operations
Mindful Schools

back to top

Research Advisory Board

Gina BiegelGina Biegel

Marriage and Family Therapist
Kaiser
Website

David BlackDr. David Black

Founder, Mindfulness Research Guide
Researcher, Preventive and Behavioral Medicine
Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior
University of California Los Angeles

Website

Dr. Kirk Warren BrownDr. Kirk Warren Brown

Assistant Professor of Social Psychology
and Health Psychology
Department of Psychology
Virginia Commonwealth University
Website

Dr. Jennifer L. FrankDr. Jennifer L. Frank

Research Scientist
University of Oregon
Website

Dr. Michael HagertyDr. Michael Hagerty

Professor of Business
University of California, Davis
Website

Dr. Patricia (Tish) JenningsDr. Patricia (Tish) Jennings

Director of the Initiative on Contemplation and Education
Garrison Institute
Website

Research Assistant Professor of Human Development, Prevention Research Center
Pennsylvania State University
Website

Dr. David KeiserDr. David Keiser

Associate Professor
Montclair University
Website

Dr. Jelena ObradovićDr. Jelena Obradović

Assistant Professor
Department of Education
Stanford University
Website

Dr. Nicole ShechtmanDr. Nicole Shechtman

Research Analyst
SRI International
Website

back to top

Volunteers

Volunteers

Brochure Design

Maureen O'Brien (Previous Version)
Chris Clifford (Previous Version)

Legal

Zachary Cincotta

Office Space Search

Lou Giampa

Research Collation

Emily Taylor

Videography

djovida

Website

Anna Bullard (Current)
Jenny Liu
Trupti Glaubman
Sarah Tariq

Website Photography

Kevin Bjorke

...And so many more who have contributed on smaller projects! We are extremely grateful to all our volunteers for their kind and enthusiastic support.

Please contact us if you'd like to volunteer.