PROFILE

Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, Ph.D., is the NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning and professor in the community and applied developmental psychology (CADP) program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on identification of the processes that foster positive human qualities such as empathy, compassion, altruism, and resiliency in children and adolescents. Her projects in this area include studies examining the effectiveness of classroom-based universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. Her work also includes a focus on SEL and teachers—and she has authored several articles on teachers’ well-being and the integration of SEL into teacher preparation programs. Some of her other projects include collaborations with neuroscientists and psychobiologists examining biological processes, including stress physiology and social epigenetics, to children’s social and emotional development in school settings.

Dr. Schonert-Reichl is a board member of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a steering committee member for Karanga: The Global Alliance for SEL and Life Skills, the chair of the Scientific Research Advisory Committee for the Goldie Hawn Foundation, and an advisor to UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) on SEL. She served as an advisor to the British Columbia (BC) Ministry of Education on the development and implementation of the redesign of the Curriculum and Assessment Framework that focuses on the promotion of students’ personal and social competencies (SEL) and was an expert advisor to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s (OECD) Education 2030 initiative.

Prior to her graduate work, Kim worked as middle school teacher and as a teacher at an alternative high school for adolescents identified as at risk.