Patricia Jennings, Advisory Board Member

Jennings has conducted federally-funded research on CARE and has found that the program improves teachers’ general well-being, health, emotion regulation, efficacy and mindfulness.

Patricia (Tish) Jennings, M.Ed., Ph.D.
University of Virginia

Dr. Jennings is an Associate Professor of Education 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 with a specific emphasis on teacher stress and how it impacts the social and emotional context of the classroom and student well-being and learning. Dr. Jennings led the team that developed CARE for Teachers, a mindfulness-based professional development program shown to significantly improve teacher well-being, classroom climate, and student productivity. Dr. Jennings is leading the development of the Compassionate Schools Project integrated health curriculum, which is being evaluated in Louisville, Kentucky. Earlier in her career, Dr. Jennings spent over 22 years as a classroom teacher. She is the author of Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom, part of the Norton Series on the Social Neuroscience of Education.