Dr. Lorea Martínez Pérez is the award-winning founder of HEART in Mind, a company dedicated to helping schools and organizations integrate Social Emotional Learning in their practices, products, and learning communities. She has worked with schools, districts, and organizations to guide SEL implementation efforts, including training teachers and leadership teams, and provided guidance to educational technology and media companies to help them integrate SEL in their products.
An educator who has worked with children and adults internationally, Dr. Martínez is a faculty member at Columbia University Teachers College, educating aspiring principals in Emotional Intelligence. She has conducted extensive research in the SEL field with a focus on SEL implementation, principals’ Emotional Intelligence, teacher preparation, and school climate. She frequently blogs about how to incorporate SEL in teaching practices, leadership and parenting.
She received her Doctor of Philosophy, magna cum laude, in Quality and Innovation in Education from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2014, she was awarded the American Education Research Association Graduate Student Award for Excellence in SEL Research from the SEL Special Interest Group.
Dr. Martínez started her career as a special education teacher and administrator. A native of the Costa Brava in Spain, she currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.