Prof. Jennings is a 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. Jennings led the team that developed CARE for Teachers, a mindfulness-based professional development program that improves teacher well-being, emotional supportiveness and student engagement in the largest randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based intervention designed specifically to address teacher occupational stress. Jennings is leading the development of the Compassionate Schools Project curriculum, an integrated health education program designed to align with state and national health and physical education standards. She is Co-Principal Investigator on a large randomized controlled trial being conducted in Louisville, KY to evaluate the curriculum’s efficacy. Jennings was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Fostering Healthy Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Development among Children and Youth. Dr. Jennings was recognized by Mindful Magazine as one of “Ten Mindfulness Researchers You Should Know.” Earlier in her career, Jennings spent over 22 years as a teacher, school director and teacher educator. She is the author of Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom and The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom: Building Resilience with Compassionate Teaching, both part of the WW Norton Series on the Social Neuroscience of Education.
