Dr. Kathryn Kennedy - Founder & Executive Director

With one foot in digital and online learning and the other in mental health and wellness, Kathryn has been cultivating two primary passions for over 20 years. She serves as executive director of Wellness for Educators and founder and principal consultant of Consult4ED Group. On the mental health and wellness side, Kathryn combined her work in education and wellness to create Wellness for Educators, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is invested in and passionate about supporting educators worldwide with research-based, trauma- and equity-informed trainings, coaching, and strategies for social, emotional, mental, and physical health and wellbeing. Her team at Wellness for Educators consists of inspirational educators, licensed mental health professionals, and certified somatic practitioners. You can read more about her story and passion for starting Wellness for Educators in her upcoming four-part book series focused on The Mind-Body Connection for Educators (expected publication date: April 11, 2023 with Wiley/Jossey-Bass). Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and Qigong have been — and continue to be — practices that bring her refuge, solace, peace, self inquiry, reflection, and exploration. After using these practices in her own healing process, she pursued teacher training to share these transformative practices with others and to live a life focused on more holistic, health, and wellness-centered approaches to living, being, and serving others. She completed her 500-hr Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) with ShivaShakti School of Yoga & Healing Arts. In addition to ShivaShakti, she has certifications in Kundalini Yoga (KRI-certified Level 1 ), Restorative Yoga, Yin Yoga & Mindfulness, trauma-informed yoga, and Applied Polvagal Theory and Yoga. She is pursuing Qigong training with her teacher, Master Lisa O’Shea. In addition to her somatic experience training, she is immersed in continuous learning in the area of somatic psychology. She has earned certificates through The Embody Lab including Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy, Embodied Social Justice, and Somatic Attachment Therapy. She also pursues learning from the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, including the Neurobiology of Trauma, Clinical Application of Compassion, and Working with Shame and Abandonment, to name a few. On the digital and online learning side, Kathryn’s past roles include Director of the Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute, the research arm of Michigan Virtual, Director of Research for the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) (now the Aurora Institute), adjunct professor and advisor for the Ed.D. program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and assistant professor of instructional technology at Georgia Southern University. She is one of the founding editors-in-chief of both the Journal of Online Learning Research and the Handbook of Research on K-12 Online and Blended Learning. She currently serves on the Leadership Team for the National Standards for Quality Online Learning and engages in exciting work with her Consult4ED Group team, which consists of over 30 amazing consultants representing a variety of expertise in the education field.