Meet Our Team
Executive Team
Seewan Eng
Executive Director
Seewan Eng
Executive Director
Seewan is a lifelong learner and educator with experience leading for equity in education non-profits, start-up charters and urban public schools. Seewan initially joined Mindful Schools as the interim Executive Director in January 2020 with the charge of engaging the community and building organizational capacity to scale and meet the growing need for social and emotional well-being in schools. She recently served as VP of Digital Transformation at the New Teacher Center and as a researcher with WestEd’s Innovation Studies team. She is passionate about empowering teachers and building a community of educators who drive for resilience, compassion, equity, and justice in schools. Seewan received a B.A. in American History/Educational Studies from Brown University and an Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She also earned her National Board Certification as a middle school teacher in 2003.
Martha Brown
Senior Director, People & Operations
Martha Brown
Senior Director, People & Operations
Martha has been with Mindful Schools since 2013. She brings over 20 years of experience in operations and human resources management from an eclectic career spanning hospitality and tourism; TV and film production; PR and media communications; and performing arts education. She also spent several years running after school programs for the City of Oakland, working as a substitute teacher for OUSD, and serving as a one-on-one aide for autistic children.
Martha received her BA in Communications and Ethnic Studies from U.C. Berkeley. She holds a credential in copy-editing and a Society for Human Resources Management Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) credential.
Martha continues to be inspired by working with a diverse team of passionate, powerful change-makers. She is a Bay Area native and currently resides in Richmond with her husband and young son. Martha enjoys singing, traveling, camping, and cooking.
Megan Sweet
Senior Director, Program & Impact
Megan Sweet
Senior Director, Program & Impact
Megan Sweet is an experienced Network Lead with a demonstrated history of working in the education management industry. She is skilled in Educational Consulting, Lesson Planning, Educational Technology, Instructional Design, and Curriculum Development. She is also a strong entrepreneurship professional with a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) focused in Educational Leadership and Administration. Megan Sweet has experience as a school teacher, school and district administrator, and a leader in school transformation. Megan Sweet is also a published author, speaker, and experienced presenter.
Staff
Mia Arakaki
Head of Program
Mia Arakaki
Head of Program
Before joining Mindful Schools, Mia was the Chief Program Officer for the national nonprofit, Girls Leadership. As Chief Program Officer, Mia led the organization in developing culturally responsive curriculum and training to address the needs of girls across the socioeconomic spectrum. Mia also introduced mindfulness and self-compassion as a foundation through which social-emotional learning skills would grow.
Mia received her Bachelors Degree in Political Science and East Asian Studies from Yale, and her M.A. in School Leadership from Columbia Teachers College Summer Principals Academy.
Mia is inspired to join Mindful Schools to build an expansive mindfulness movement in diverse schools and communities, where all young people thrive.
John Bowman
Accounting Associate
John Bowman
Accounting Associate
John is our kind-hearted Accounting Associate. He’s a Bay Area local and UC Berkeley graduate who brings over 30 years experience in accounting and finance. He first introduction to mindfulness was through a high school meditation class.
Beck Engwerda
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Beck Engwerda
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Beck brings more than 10 years of non-profit communications and development experience to the Mindful Schools team. She is passionate about creating positive change in the world through programs that develop mindfulness, self-awareness and social/emotional skills. Her previous experience includes managing communications strategy for nonprofits, including the GO Project and DREAM in New York City, and Inner-City Arts in Los Angeles. Beck also worked as a fundraiser for the Studio Theatre in Washington, DC, and for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Charlotte, NC.
Beck loves working within positive, mission-driven teams. She is originally from Australia, where she earned her B.A. in Arts/Professional Writing and Editing, and now resides in Oakland with her husband and two young boys.
Betsy Hanger
Social Media Consultant
Betsy Hanger
Social Media Consultant
Betsy works as the principal writer across our social media channels, providing resources, research, and inspiration to practice for educators, parents, and new mindfulness practitioners. Long interested in collaboration with classroom teachers to create mindful classrooms, Betsy completed the Year-Long Certification Program at Mindful Schools in 2014.
As a Community Mentor in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Betsy has taught over 1400 children and teachers. Her chapter on working skillfully with diverse youth is featured in Teaching Mindfulness Skills to Kids and Teens (Guilford Press, October, 2015). She has presented nationally on mindfulness practices for youth, as well as to groups of parents, teachers, and graduate students in clinical psychology and social work.
A long-time ally in the LGBTQ movement for equal rights, Betsy received the Outstanding Trans Ally of 2014 Award from the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and consults with parents of transgender children and their teachers to insure a safe school experience for all children.
Her mindfulness practice started in 2004 and includes retreats and courses in MBCT.
Darius Ingram
IT Manager
Bio coming soon …
Alison Lee
Head of Marketing & Project Management
Alison Lee
Head of Marketing & Project Management
Alison is a Bay Area native and passionate about sharing the Mindful Schools story with the global community of educators. She brings over fifteen years of marketing experience – from product marketing and sales roles at a leading studio in Burbank, CA and in Bay Area tech. When she returned to Oakland to raise her children near family, she immediately engaged in the parenting community. Prior to joining Mindful Schools, Alison managed Development and Communications for one of the largest nonprofit parent organizations in the Bay, and also co-founded a children’s apparel brand. Alison is excited about progressive and bilingual education and is trying her best to raise her two daughters with resilience, joy, and kindness.
Sarah Rudell Beach
Coordinator of Course Development
Sarah Rudell Beach
Coordinator of Course Development
Sarah Rudell Beach taught high school social studies for 17 years before founding Brilliant Mindfulness, LLC. She holds a Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Minnesota, and is a licensed teacher in the state of Minnesota. She served in the Wayzata Public Schools from 1998 to 2015, and was honored as an Esteemed Teacher seven times by the district. Additionally, she writes about mindfulness, mindful teaching, and mindful parenting for the Huffington Post.
Sarah has had a personal mindfulness practice for many years, and describes mindfulness as life-changing. She firmly believes that teaching compassionate attention and self-care to students, teachers, parents, and families can change the world.
Matthew Schmookler
Customer Care Specialist
Matthew Schmookler
Customer Care Specialist
Matthew is a Bay Area native and brings over two decades of customer service to the Mindful Schools team. His experience spans a wide range of sectors including non-profit, hospitality, and wellness. Matthew has dedicated his life to serving people and communities through various not-for-profits including cultural, educational, environmental, humanitarian, and social justice organizations. His unique life path has helped him hone a diverse array of skills including Public Relations, Design, Technology, Event Management, Marketing, and Sales.
Before coming to Mindful Schools, Matthew co-founded a wellness company and managed corporate wellness accounts from end-to-end for small and large corporations throughout the Bay Area.
Matthew thrives on connecting and communicating with people. He has been practicing presence and awareness in his own life for over 15 years. He most enjoys mindfulness movement practices and is certified to teach unique forms of dance, yoga, and breathing exercises. In his free time you may find him gardening, camping, learning new skills, and most importantly, trying to model mindful behavior, together with his wife, for their young son and daughter.
Lacey Segal
Development Manager
Lacey Segal
Development Manager
Lacey’s mindfulness practice began thanks to an elective class offered in high school. This inconceivably influenced her life’s trajectory—she became a high school teacher herself, for ten years, and offered semester-long mindfulness electives. She helped to create online teacher-training curriculum, mentored new educators, participated in research studies, and presented best practices at conferences. She holds a Master’s Degree in English Literature and a Spanish/English Teaching Credential.
Lacey continues to study and teach mindfulness under the guidance of qualified masters, carving out time for retreat whenever possible. In 2019 she completed a two-year Mindfulness-Based Leadership Program with the Dharmata Foundation.
Lacey loves fundraising for Mindful Schools, drawing upon six years of partnership-building in the Bay Area philanthropic landscape, working within nonprofits and charitable foundations.
David Selsky
Group Enrollment
Specialist
David Selsky
Group Enrollment
Specialist
David Selsky joined Mindful Schools in May 2017 as a Group Enrollment Specialist, working with groups of educators to provide mindfulness trainings to youth K-12. He has worked in the nonprofit space since 2000 for a variety of arts, environmental, technology, and human rights organizations, most recently at VolunteerMatch where he helped businesses grow their employee volunteer and community engagement programs.
David received his BA in Film Studies from UC Berkeley and his MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University. He has explored a variety of mindfulness practices over the last two decades and is excited to be able to help bring the benefits to younger audiences. In his free time he enjoys photography, vegan food, long walks around cities and redwoods, and hanging with his cat Sufi.
Brooke Sever
Group Enrollment
Specialist
Brooke Sever
Group Enrollment
Specialist
Beth Williams
Accountant
Beth Williams
Accountant
Beth has spent her career in nonprofits administration and public accounting. As a parent and volunteer PTA board member, she’s worked closely with teachers, parents, and children to support public schools. She is now excited to combine her finance and nonprofit experiences to support the Mindful Schools mission – giving children the positive tools they need to handle their complex emotions and supporting educators with professional development opportunities.
Lead Faculty
Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Alan Brown is Director of Integrative & Co-curricular Learning at Grace Church School in New York City, where he leads mindfulness & positive education programs for students, faculty, and for parents. He also consults privately for schools, providing professional development and plans to implement school- or district-wide mindfulness programs and speaks regularly on these topics. Diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome in middle school, Alan came to mindfulness through yoga and a search for stillness in the body and regulation in the nervous system, so he has a keen interest in working with students with TS, ADHD, OCD, and other nervous system vulnerabilities. Over the past 15 years, Alan has taught in both public and private settings as a humanities instructor and dean, and has worked with many other schools and districts as a trainer for GLSEN (the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network), where he now serves on the National Advisory Board. Alan is a passionate advocate of personal development as professional development, and the possibility of building organizations in which the whole system inclines toward wellness.
Argos Gonzalez
Argos Gonzalez
Argos Gonzalez is a teacher, lecturer, mindfulness teacher and yoga instructor. He has 14 years of experience teaching high school in the Bronx and teaches pre-service and in-service teachers at Hunter College School of Education in NY. Argos is certified through both the Mindful Schools Year-Long Certification Program and Little Flower Yoga (LFY). Argos was a contributing editor to Best Practices for Yoga in Schools, and his work has been featured in national media including NPR and The Atlantic. As a frequent speaker at conferences including the Kripalu Yoga in Schools Symposium, Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth, the Omega Mindfulness in Education Conference and the Yoga Service Conference, Argos is an important contributor to the yoga in schools movement and a trusted expert with feet in the yoga, mindfulness, and education worlds. His deep passion for empowering children and adolescents and supporting other educators to do the same, comes through in all aspects of his work.
Em Morrison
Em Morrison
Em has taught mindfulness and served as a youth worker at after-school programs, summer camps, and on adult, young adult and teen retreats for the past 16 years. In Washington, DC, Em created a flagship restorative justice retreat for youth and made mindfulness practice a central piece of the experience.
Em has trained informally with many teachers over the years and has done trainings with Mindful Schools, Minds Inc., and iBme. Em focuses on Non-Violent Communication and restorative justice along with teaching the practices for personal AND collective liberation.
Patti Ward
Patti Ward
Erin Woo
Erin Woo
Erin Woo is a teacher at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University where she develops and leads mindfulness programs for K-12 educators and students. She is also an adjunct professor at NHTI Community College, where she teaches a Communicating Mindfully course to classes of diverse students. Her passion for teaching mindfulness to educators naturally grew out of her dedicated mindfulness practice and her experiences as a classroom teacher. Erin was the director of White Pine Montessori, the school she founded in 2005 and ran until 2018. Concurrently she taught mindfulness to students in elementary, middle and high schools as well as to teachers and interested adults. She has a Master’s in Education and has been practicing mindfulness since 2006. As a graduate of the Mindful Teacher Certification Program herself, one of the many sweet and lasting benefits, are the dear friendships she’s developed through a weekly online meditation group that she started in 2015.
Faculty
Neena Barreto
Neena Barreto
Neena comes to this work with 20 years as a classroom teacher and teacher leader. She has taught mindfulness in over 30 classrooms from transitional kindergarten through sixth grade. Neena has also coached teachers, provided teacher and staff training, parent classes, as well as educator retreats and public speaking engagements.
A Bay Area native, she now lives in Southern Oregon, where she draws upon the natural world as a deep resource to embody her mindfulness practice. Neena is founder of Into the Forest Revelations, an organization that seeks to bring clarity and wisdom for those seeking their life’s purpose.
April Frazier
April Frazier
April Frazier considers herself a lifelong learner of yoga and mindfulness as a tool for self-empowerment and social justice in diverse, resilient communities. In 2010, she completed her 200-hr teacher certification through Dharma Yoga certification and has since held space for yoga in under-performing schools, trauma centers, and addiction centers to cultivate inner healing.
Prior to being a yoga instructor, April was a middle school teacher at an under-served school in the South Bronx. She believes, regardless of background, we are all in our breath and body, so might as well tap back into our inner wisdom to navigate life’s challenges.
April was part of the first year cohort at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University where she combined education, social activism, entrepreneurship and mindfulness. April has also been certified in laughter yoga, yoga for 12 step recovery, off the mat and into the world, and various trauma-informed and mindfulness in-schools programs.
She earner her bachelor’s degree with a focus on Anti-Racist education from Mount Holyoke College and her master’s degree from Columbia’s Spirituality Mind Institute Masters in Education.
Aáron B. Heard
Aáron B. Heard
A’aron B. Heard is an artist, learner, and educator rooted in love, curiosity, and community. Described as the ‘heart of the team,’ she is grounded in purpose, leads with enthusiasm, questions with a critical curiosity, and prioritizes learning, reflection and growth. A’aron started her teaching career in East Oakland teaching ELA, Social Studies, and Theatre and she now facilitates workshops for educators on the topics of Art, Healing, and Social Justice.
Aáron received her Bachelor’s Degree in English: Creative Writing from University of Southern California and her Master’s in Urban Education from Loyola Marymount University. In addition to this, Aáron holds a certification as an Arts Integration Specialist.
Megan Hook
Megan Hook
In addition to working at Mindful Schools Megan is a Teaching Artist teaching vocal music K-12 in multiple schools in the greater Los Angeles area. Megan also teach mindfulness in schools and have been running her own mindfulness business for the past seven years. Megan is also a GRIP facilitator teaching a transformational yearlong curriculum, created by Jacques Verduin, to incarcerated men at Avenal State Prison.
Megan has a Bachelors Degree in Music/Vocal Performance from Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY. She has trained at Mindful Schools and is a certified Mindful Schools teacher. Megan is currently enrolled in the UCLA/MARC 2020 TMF program.
Megan is a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher and certified sound bath practitioner.Megan loves connecting with students from all over the world on the practice, understanding, and transformational powers of mindfulness.
Stefanie Lachenauer
Stefanie Lachenauer
Stefanie brings 14 years of experience as a middle school educator in Montgomery Township School District, NJ. Specializing in global leadership and character education, she brings Mindful Schools curriculum to her classroom, conducts professional development for teachers and parents, and hosts before and after school sessions to support students. Stefanie is also active in sharing mindfulness locally and globally with the Mariposa Foundation DR, Girl Scouts, The Boys and Girls Club, and Health Body Healthy Mind Initiative. She frequently speaks on topics of wellness, leadership, and the global community. Stefanie is passionate about sharing mindfulness with youth and empowering her students to mindfully change the world one breath at a time. Her favorite pastime is engaging in sustainable travel where she has explored over 35 countries.
Stefanie received her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and her Master’s Degree from Rutgers Graduate School of Education in Elementary Education and a specialization in middle school social studies. Stefanie is a certified MBSR-T instructor, Mindful Schools teacher, and a certified yoga teacher through Little Flower Yoga and Rainbow Yoga.
Rachel Lewin
Rachel Lewin
Rachel is a school administrator and she creates and teaches mindfulness classes, workshops and retreats. She provides information, coaching and mentoring for organizations and schools seeking to create comprehensive mindfulness programs. Rachel has certificates in mindfulness facilitation from UCLA”s MIndful Awareness Research Center and Mindful Schools.
Kelli Love
Kelli Love
Kelli Love, M.Ed brings 15 years experience to the field of contemplative education since receiving her degree in Early Childhood Education from Naropa University in 2001, where mindfulness was integrated into the higher education experience. She develops mindfulness curriculum with a focus on self-awareness and emotion regulation and currently teaches at Girls Prep Bronx Elementary, where yoga and mindfulness are embraced as a school wide content area. In 2015 Kelli created a short film, Aliza and the Mind Jar, to demonstrate the impact of yoga and mindfulness curriculum on school communities. She is a former classroom teacher and believes all children have a right to experience the empowering life skills that yoga and mindfulness offer. Kelli is a national speaker at related conferences, is partnering with Columbia University and NYU to contribute to the research in mindfulness education, and consults organizations on implementation and curriculum development related to yoga and mindfulness in K-8 schools.
Lucy MacGregor
Lucy MacGregor
For over 20 years, Lucy has taught children and youth in a variety of classroom and therapeutic settings from instructing teens at North Outward Bound School to educating young people in preschool. She currently teaches Kindergarten.
As co-founder of Design to Connect, LLC, Lucy facilitates professional communities of practice focused on cultivating restorative school communities and increasing capacities of mindful well-being in students, educators, and families.
Lucy received her Masters In Education, Mindfulness for Educators, from Antioch University New England and her Early Childhood Montessori Credential form the Center for Guided Montessori Studies.
Renee Metty
Renee Metty
Renee founded a mindfulness-based preschool in Seattle, WA in 2010 and has since transitioned to working with individuals, teams and organizations as an Executive Coach, Leadership Development Consultant and Facilitator using mindfulness as the lens. She began her corporate journey in several Fortune 100 companies. Renee has a Master’s in Early Childhood Education and a Master’s in Special Education. Currently she is a doctoral student studying Business Psychology pursuing her PhD on the impact mindfulness can have on leadership development, organizational effectiveness using change management.
Renee has a M.Ed in Special Education and an M. Ed in Early Childhood from Boston College with a B.S. in Business Administration from St. Joseph’s University. Renee loves working at Mindful Schools because it is the very place that kicked off her mindfulness journey and the foundation of her mindfulness based preschool.
Erica Marcus
Erica Marcus
Erica Marcus has over fifteen years of experience in formal and informal educational settings, serving as a mindfulness educator, middle school English teacher, outdoor educator, and wilderness youth therapy field guide. She has a MAT from Trinity Washington University, a BA in sociology from Haverford College, as well as Mindful Schools and Kripalu Yoga certifications.
She founded Wise Minds. Big Hearts. in 2015 to bring mindfulness to students, families, and faculty around New England. In the fall of 2020, she is transitioning to the role of Mindfulness Director for Cape Elizabeth Middle School in Maine.
Erica published a book about mindfulness for new mothers in the fourth trimester, and is currently working on a new project about mindful technology use for teens. She is invested in exploring the myriad of ways mindfulness can support us in actively working towards a more compassionate equitable world.
Crystal McCreary
Crystal McCreary
Crystal is registered with Yoga Alliance at the E-RYT-500 level, with a specialty RCYT for children’s yoga. She leads Yoga Alliance certified yoga teacher trainings, facilitates professional development workshops, and speaks nationally about the impact of yoga and mindfulness on the health and well-being of children, adolescents and adults. Crystal also teaches public classes in New York City and curates transformative wellness retreats which explore her own mindful vinyasa practice, her curiosity about anatomy, and her passion for intelligent sequences that sow vigor and softness in body, and a more peaceful mind through mindfulness meditation.
Aiming to build and strengthen community through a deeper understanding of our individual, complex human selves, Crystal teaches to who is in the room, making all of her programs accessible, relevant, inclusive and adaptive to the physical, emotional and social needs of a full spectrum of populations.
Ali Miller
Ali Miller
Ali Miller is a psychotherapist in private practice, where she integrates mindfulness and Nonviolent Communication into individual, couple, and group therapy. She is the creator of the website Befriending Ourselves: Resources for Inner Peace and Compassionate Self-Care. She has been practicing mindfulness since 2001, studying with various teachers and attending silent, intensive retreats annually. In 2006 she discovered Nonviolent Communication and has been learning, practicing, and sharing this work ever since. Ali is a graduate of BayNVC’s Immersion Program and has been a member of that program’s leadership team for several years. She collaborates with the founder of the Communication Dojo, co-leading communication classes in San Francisco. Additionally, she provides “NVC in the Therapeutic Setting” trainings to mental health professionals at conferences, agencies, and out of her office in Berkeley, CA.
Nathalie Monin Voelker
Nathalie Monin Voelker
Before joining Mindful Schools Nathalie worked for 15 years for non-for-profits providing continuing education, and arts for all programs for low income and immigrant families. She also managed wide community service events with corporate foundations in NY
Nathalie is French with a Caribbean and Parisian background. She practiced dance for 7 years before taking her first yoga in 2003 just after her daughter’s birth. Yoga and meditation has been a long and interesting journey ever since. A journey where learning was not only about the body, but the self. Tapping into her former study of philosophy, she loves to make mindfulness a simple and practical tool for our everyday life.
She led “Education & Art For All” programs in France for many years before coming to New York. Combining her passion for movement and philosophy, she teaches yoga and mindfulness on a regular basis to young students, teachers and parents in NYC public schools with The School Yoga Project.
Angela Newport
Angela Newport
Angela is a long time high school teacher of language arts, drama, speech, and leadership in Oregon. She has also served as a district-wide instructional coach and new teacher mentor. About a decade ago she began building and teaching a yoga and mindfulness program that has become her full time assignment and serves hundreds of students each term.
Angela earned her BS in Speech Communication and Theatre Arts from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon and then her Master of the Art of Teaching from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. In 2011 she became a Registered Yoga Teacher after training with Sarahjoy Marsh of The Daya Foundation in Portland, Oregon. In 2018 Angela earned her Mindful Teacher Certification from Mindful Schools.
Angela enjoys working at Mindful Schools where mindfulness and the support it offers educators, students, and communities are at the core of every step toward our growth and service. Being able to participate in and contribute to this momentum keeps her learning, stretching, and enjoying the process.
Elizabeth Perryman
Elizabeth Perryman
She is a Qualified Teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a Certified Teacher of Koru Mindfulness (for college-age students), a Registered Yoga Teacher, and the founder of Upstream Mindfulness, a professional wellness consultancy specializing in mindfulness-based applications. She currently works with an independent school (Pre-K through Grade 12) as it seeks to prioritize the health and well-being of the whole-school community – students, families, and educators alike – to ensure a vibrant learning environment of kindness, curiosity, exploration, and discovery.
Elizabeth holds a PhD from Cambridge University. Her firsthand experience with the stressors that are endemic in rigorous academic environments inspires and informs her work with students, parents, educators, schools, and universities.
Jelena Popovic
Jelena Popovic
Jelena is a school psychologist by training and a peacebuilder by heart. As a mom and Teaching Peace in Schools Leadership Council Lead for The Peace Alliance, Jelena aspires to educate, advocate, and mobilize others in co-creating a culture of peace. Her passion is facilitating dialogs that are grounded in mindful awareness and empathy.
Jelena spends most of her time in circle with educators and students, is a facilitation trainer for Soliya and Erasmus + Virtual Exchange where she guides others in facilitating virtual cross-cultural exchange dialogs. She serves on the advisory board for Cities4Peace, facilitates virtual circles for Millennium Forum and the Peace of Mind, and hosts weekly Hope Story Circle podcast series for the Peace Alliance. She guides mindfulness retreats for educators at the Copper Beech Institute, leads international At Home In the World family retreats, and is co-founder of Design to Connect LLC, an educational consulting organization, that assists schools in their efforts in skillful, integrated and sustainable schoolwide implementation of mindfulness and peace education practices. She believes in the power of storytelling, single-tasking, and the importance of starting conversations that create genuine connections, move us toward transformation and help us foster a culture of nonviolence.
Course Instructors
Lisa Baylis
Course Trainer
Lisa Baylis
Course Trainer
Lisa Baylis is a High School Counselor and leader in positive education and mindfulness in schools. Lisa has been sharing wellbeing strategies for the last 20 years as an instructor, a counselor, a facilitator, and a mother. Lisa has a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and a bachelor’s degree in Physical Education. She has taught internationally and locally. Much of her vast teaching experience was gained in classrooms across Canada’s British Columbia — from Fort St. John to the Comox Valley. Trained by mindful self-compassion pioneers Chris Germer and Kristin Neff, Lisa is also a trained Mindful Self-Compassion teacher. No matter the setting — classroom, counseling session, or teacher development — Lisa incorporates concepts of positive psychology, self-compassion, and mindfulness.
Matthew Brensilver
Course Trainer
Matthew Brensilver
Course Trainer
Matthew Brensilver, PhD, holds a master’s degree in clinical social work and has done psychotherapy with adolescents, adults and groups. He received a PhD from USC, where his research investigated explanations of psychiatric comorbidity. Currently, Matthew conducts research on addiction treatment at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine. He also teaches at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center on the intersection of mindfulness and psychotherapy.
Megan Cowan
Co-Founder and
Course Trainer
Megan Cowan
Co-Founder and
Course Trainer
Megan Cowan is a co-founder of Mindful Schools and comes to this work with over 15 years of formal and intensive mindfulness training, a background in teaching and education, and a degree from UC Berkeley in Alternative Health. Megan is the primary author of the Mindful Schools Elementary School Curriculum, and created their first Adolescent Curriculum. She has taught more than 3500 youth via Mindful Schools’ in-class direct-service program, trained more than 2000 educators, mental health professionals, and parents in mindfulness practices and applications for youth, and lead our Mindful Educator Essentials domestically and internationally for seven years. In 2012, Megan was featured in “Room To Breathe,” the first feature-length film documentary on the effort to integrate mindfulness training into U.S. public schools.
Vinny Ferraro
Course Trainer
Vinny Ferraro
Course Trainer
Vinny Ferraro is a long-time mindfulness practitioner and instructor and a nationally recognized leader in designing and implementing interventions for at-risk adolescents. The child of an incarcerated father, Vinny spent the majority of his teenage life hustling and living on the streets. In 1987, after recovering from drug addiction, he began leading youth groups in drug rehabilitation centers, juvenile halls, schools and half-way houses through the Hospitals and Institutions Program of Narcotics Anonymous. Vinny continued this work for nearly a decade before transitioning to a more intensive focus on mindfulness and emotional intelligence work. In 2001, he began teaching for the Challenge Day organization, a nationally recognized, school-based emotional intelligence and life skills program, eventually becoming Challenge Day’s Director of Training and leading workshops for over 110,000 youth on four continents. In 2008, Vinny became Training Director of the Mind Body Awareness Project (MBA) and is the principle author of MBA’s mindfulness-based curriculum for incarcerated youth. Vinny has received national media coverage for his work with adolescents; he is the subject of the MTV series “If You Really Knew Me…” In addition to his work with youth, Vinny teaches mindfulness retreats to adults around the U.S. and the world.
Christopher Germer
Course Trainer
Christopher Germer
Course Trainer
Christopher Germer, PhD, is a co-developer of the Mindful Self-Compassion program and a co-founder of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. He is the author of the popular book, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, and co-author (with Kristin Neff) of the professional text, Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program, and The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook. Chris is an MSC Teacher Trainer and leads MSC intensives and workshops around the world.Chris is also a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. Chris has been integrating the principles and practices of meditation into psychotherapy since 1978. He has co-edited two influential volumes – Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, and Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy – and he is a founding faculty member of both the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School. Chris maintains a small private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts, USA, specializing in mindfulness and compassion-based psychotherapy.
Chris McKenna
Course Trainer
Chris McKenna
Course Trainer
Chris McKenna has served as Program Director at Mindful Schools and was 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. During his tenure, MBA published the first formal research on the impact of mindfulness programming on youth in the U.S. juvenile probation system. In collaboration with Colorado State University, MBA also developed mindfulness training programs that met the specific needs of diverse youth populations, including youth of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana, and military youth in Ft. Collins, CO.
Chris has spent over a decade working with diverse communities suffering from high incidents of trauma, including five years with an organization launched out of Amnesty International that provided legal and psychosocial services to victims of torture and war crimes from over 20 countries. He has an eighteen-year history with mindfulness meditation and has taught mindfulness practices to diverse youth & adult populations. He is on the Curriculum Advisory Committee of Dalai Lama Fellows and the Advisory Councils of the Mind Body Awareness Project, Inward Bound Mindfulness Education and Honoring the Path of the Warrior – a project which teaches mindfulness to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He holds a degree in Religion & Asian Studies from Columbia University.
Kristin Neff
Course Trainer
Kristin Neff
Course Trainer
Kristin Neff, PhD, is co-founder of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion and co-developer of Mindful Self-Compassion. She is Associate Professor in the Educational Psychology Dept. at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, being the first person to operationally define and measure the construct. She has published widely including numerous academic articles and book chapters, as well as the bestselling books Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook, and Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program. Kristin’s work has received extensive coverage in the popular press, including The New York Times, MSNBC, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and many others. She is also a frequent guest on shows such as the BBC Women’s Hour and Dan Harris’s 10% Happier podcast. Kristin gives talks on self-compassion and leads MSC workshops around the world.
Kory O’Rourke
Course Trainer
Kory O’Rourke
Course Trainer
Kory is our has been a public high school teacher and school leader for over a decade, and sees her work in education as an opportunity to bring her passion for mindfulness and social justice, social-emotional learning and wellness for all humans (especially those in schools), and 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.
Kory is a Mindful Schools Certified Mindfulness Instructor, class of 2016.
Oren Jay Sofer
Course Trainer
Oren Jay Sofer
Course Trainer
Oren Jay Sofer has had a dedicated mindfulness practice since 1997, and has taught classes, workshops and retreats for youth and adults nationally since 2007. He has extensive experience with mindfulness-based programs for children and adolescents; he was one of the first generation of teachers at Mindful Schools and made significant contributions to the development of the Mindful Schools curriculum. Oren also teaches Nonviolent Communication to individuals and organizations both locally and nationally. He is trained in Somatic Experiencing for healing trauma, holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University, and is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication.
Board of Directors
Anu Cairo, Board Chair
S.H. Cowell Foundation, Program Director
Anu Cairo, Board Chair
S.H. Cowell Foundation, Program Director
Anu is the Director of Programs at the Cowell Foundation. Previously, she served as Bay Area Director at the New Teacher Center, a national non-profit organization that works with school districts to build and sustain robust programs for teachers and school leaders to improve their instructional practice.
Anu also served as Senior Program Officer at Walter & Elise Haas Fund and Program Officer at the Bechtel Foundation. Earlier in her career, she worked in public school districts on the East and West coasts. Her prior roles included serving as Special Assistant to the Superintendent in San Francisco; establishing and directing the Washington, DC public school district’s Office of Parent Affairs; and serving as a Family Support Worker in the Seattle public schools.
Anu completed doctorate and master’s degrees in Administration, Planning and Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She also holds a BA from Swarthmore College.
Anne Roise, Board Vice-Chair
Program Director, Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Anne Roise, Board Vice-Chair
Program Director, Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Anne oversees planning for retreats and classes at Spirit Rock. Earlier, Anne was an instructor of Urban Studies and Planning at Savannah State University, and the CEO of Roise & Associates, a consulting firm in Savannah, GA, specializing in strategic planning, project development and organizational coaching. For several years, Anne developed and managed community and economic development initiatives in collaboration with non-profit organizations, community groups, law enforcement organizations, the private sector and educational institutions. She is a Certified Economic Developer and former Director of Economic Development for the City of Savannah. She has served on numerous boards and community task forces, and was a trustee for the Historic Savannah Foundation. Anne has a master’s degree in City Planning from MIT, and a B.A. from Antioch University.
Dani Bowling, Treasurer
GD Bowling Meditation
Dani Bowling, Treasurer
GD Bowling Meditation
Dani is a mediator, conflict resolution trainer, and meditation teacher. They also identify as non-binary and given their childhood in South Carolina in the forties and fifties as the son of a Southern Baptist minister, their path to self-awareness and acceptance was challenging. They are a former staff attorney, mediator, and trainer for the US District Court for Northern California. They began mediating in 1986 and co-founded the first mediation organization in South Carolina and served as its first president for many years.
Dani was also the first Public Defender for Charleston County, SC, from 1974 to 1978, never losing a client to the death penalty. They previously were a staff attorney for the very first public interest law firm in the US, the Urban Law Institute in Washington, DC. They served as Chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution’s Publications Board from 2005 to 2017 and have taught meditation, mediation, and public policy dispute resolution worldwide.
Dani began practicing meditation and yoga in 1976 and began teaching both in 1980. They taught at Kripalu Yoga Center in the Berkshires from 1985 to 1995, served as its General Counsel, and founded the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association. They are also a member emeritus and Past President of the Board of Directors of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA and continue to serve as Chair of its Ethics and Reconciliation (EAR) Council, as the first layperson to serve on that sensitive council. They graduated from Harvard Law School and from Furman University with Honors.
Richard Shankman
Mindful Schools, Co-Founder, and Author
Richard Shankman
Mindful Schools, Co-Founder, and Author
Richard is the co-founder of Mindful Schools. He has practiced mindfulness for 46 years, and has been a mindfulness teacher for more than 25 years.
Richard brings 25 years of management and individual contributor experience working for large corporations including Intel Corp., Cisco Systems and Advanced Micro Devices, as well as several startup companies. He managed engineering teams developing computer hardware at the computer chip and system levels.
Richard has been active in bringing mindfulness into prisons, jails and drug rehabilitation programs in California. He taught meditation in San Quentin State Prison, the Marin County jail Salinas Valley State Prison and the Men’s Correctional Training Facility.
Richard is the author of several books on meditation. He holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and an MA degree in Philosophy and Religion.
Dr. Nicole Shechtman, Secretary
Stanford University, Director of Evaluation, Vice Provost for Graduate Education
Dr. Nicole Shechtman, Secretary
Stanford University, Director of Evaluation, Vice Provost for Graduate Education
As an education researcher for over 18 years, Nicole leads multidisciplinary teams to create innovative solutions to complex educational problems, building deep understandings of educational systems from all stakeholder perspectives to discern, design, and communicate actionable insights and strategies for educators, administrators, employers, technology designers, policymakers, and researchers. She is currently the Director of Evaluation and the Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Stanford University where she received her Doctorate in Psychology. Additionally, Nicole is a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction leader, teaching the research-based curriculum based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn for using mindfulness practices to take a proactive approach to mental and physical health and well-being.
Spencer Sherman, MBA
Abacus, Founder and Adviser
Spencer Sherman, MBA
Abacus, Founder and Adviser
Denis Udall
George Lucas Education Foundation, Senior Program Officer
Denis Udall
George Lucas Education Foundation, Senior Program Officer
Denis is a senior program officer with the George Lucas Education Foundation where he manages the strategic direction of the Foundation’s research related to project based-learning in the humanities. Prior to joining Lucas, Denis was a program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for eight years where he managed strategy and grants related to a wide range of areas including improving the quality of curriculum and instructional materials, California education policy, and classroom/school-level formative assessment, and at the Walter S. John Foundation where he focused on vulnerable, disconnected youth. Denis has also had a 10-year history with Outward Bound including helping to found Expeditionary Learning (now EL Education), a national school improvement network, and the New York City Outward Bound Center, Outward Bound’s first urban center. Denis is the founder of the North Oakland Community Charter School, and received an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Before joining Mindful Schools Patricia worked as a special education teacher, a special education teacher consultant, a curriculum director, adjunct teacher at several universities, and as an educational consultant.
Patricia received her Associates Degree in Social Work from Ferris State University, her Bachelors Degree in Special Education from Grand Valley State University and her Masters Degree in Learning Disabilities from Grand Valley State University. She has teaching certifications in K-8 General Education, Cognitive Impairment, Emotionally Impaired and Learning Disabilities.