Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, PhD, is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), an interdisciplinary research unit in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Prior to her graduate work, Schonert-Reichl was a middle school teacher and then a teacher at an alternative high school for “at risk” adolescents.
As a renowned expert in social and emotional learning, Schonert-Reichl’s research focuses on identification of the processes that foster positive human qualities including empathy, compassion, and altruism in children and adolescents. She serves as an advisor to the British Columbia Ministry of Education on the redesign of the Curriculum and Assessment Framework that includes a focus on the promotion of students’ personal and social competencies. Additionally, she is an Advisor to Education 2030, a project of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD); a board member of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL); and an advisor to the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education.
Schonert-Reichl is the recipient of the 2015 Joseph E. Zins Distinguished Scholar Award for outstanding research on SEL. In 2009, she was awarded the Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia in recognition of her sustained outstanding contributions to the community beyond the academy through research over the major portion of her career.