Meena Srinivasan, MA
Executive Director | Co-Founder | Fellowship Facilitator
Meena Srinivasan is a contemplative leader, celebrated speaker, accomplished author, and visionary edupreneur. With over 20 years of dedicated service, she’s always been an educator-activist at heart, consistently championing the fusion of Mindfulness, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), and Belonging. With over 2 million views, her recent TEDx on Tenderness is one of the most popular TEDx talks of 2024.
Meena's journey has involved collaboration with numerous schools and districts, offering comprehensive support in the systemic implementation of SEL. Prior to co-founding TEL she spent five and a half years working in partnership with the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning to implement SEL system-wide in the Oakland Unified School District. Meena is a National Board Certified Teacher and has taught and led in a variety of educational settings (public, private, urban, and international schools). She holds a Clear Administrative Services Credential in California.
In 2022, she was featured as one of Mindful Magazine's Ten Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement; while also gaining recognition in Educational Leadership Magazine for her insights into Mindful Leadership. Meena is also the creative force behind the SEL Every Day online courses and the author of two influential books: Teach, Breathe, Learn: Mindfulness In and Out of the Classroom and SEL Every Day: Integrating SEL with Instruction in Secondary Classrooms. The latter was honored as one of 2019's Favorite Books for Educators by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Meena also serves as an instructor of graduate-level SEL courses at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare.
Beyond her professional endeavors, Meena has dedicated over 25 years to the practices of yoga and meditation. She has been an ordained Zen Buddhist since 2010 and serves on the Board of the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation. She currently resides in San Diego County, California.