Meena Srinivasan’s Official Bio and Press Photos

Meena Srinivasan is a seasoned educational leader, celebrated speaker, accomplished author, and visionary edupreneur. With over two decades of dedicated service, she’s always been an educator-activist at heart, consistently championing the fusion of Mindfulness and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). 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 and Wellbeing. Her recent TEDx Talk on Tenderness is one of the most popular talks of 2024 with more than 2 million views.

As a prominent voice in the field, Meena focuses her speaking and writing on Emotional Intelligence and Belonging. She is the creative force behind the SEL Every Day online courses, author of Teach, Breathe, Learn: Mindfulness In and Out of the Classroom, SEL Every Day: Integrating SEL with Instruction in Secondary Classrooms which was chosen as one of 2019’s Favorite Books for Educators by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and Integrating SEL into Every Classroom Quick Reference Guide. 

Meena is the Founding Executive Director of Transformative Educational Leadership (TEL), a social venture project of the Tides Center. TEL is an immersive yearlong fellowship for educational leaders committed to the power of inner transformation, collective impact, and becoming seeds of radical change in their communities. Through TEL she also organizes the longest running annual Mindfulness in Education conference in the world in partnership with the Omega Institute. 

Prior to co-founding TEL, Meena worked in partnership with the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) for five and half years implementing SEL system-wide in the Oakland Unified School District. She has taught and led in a variety of school settings—public, private, urban and international schools. Meena holds a Clear Administrative Services Credential in the state of California, is a National Board Certified Teacher, serves on the State of California’s Transformative SEL Council and is an instructor of graduate level SEL courses at UC Berkeley.

Meena is also the CEO of Karuna Consulting, LLC, an organization that takes its name from the Sanskrit word 'Karuna,' signifying compassion. Karuna Consulting is a nationally certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) driven by a profound mission: to foster a more compassionate world through Meena's keynotes, professional learning, coaching, and consulting services.

A student of the late Ramchandra Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson) and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, Thich Nhat Hanh, Meena was a contributor to Thich Nhat Hanh’s bestselling books Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children (Parallax Press, 2011) and Happy Teachers Change the World: A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education (Parallax Press, 2017). Meena also co-authored a chapter in Applied Mindfulness: Approaches in Mental Health for Children and Adolescents (American Psychiatric Association Publishing, 2019) on “Mindfulness in School Settings.” She trained to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at UMASS Medical School’s Stress Reduction Clinic.

Meena has been practicing Yoga and Meditation for over 25 years. She has been a Registered Yoga Teacher since 2005 in the lineage of Swami Satyananda and has been ordained into the Tiep Hien Lineage (Order of Interbeing) under Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh since 2010, is currently a Dharma Teacher Aspirant, and has been an active member of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism for more than 17 years. She’s also studied extensively with prominent spiritual teachers and lineage holders in other wisdom traditions.

Meena is a recipient of the Hemera Foundation Contemplative Education Fellowship. She’s currently on the Board of the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation, has served on the Board of Directors of the Mindfulness in Education Network (MiEN), was Core Faculty of the Mindful Education Institute, and served on the Advisory Board of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s exhibit, Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the first major exhibition to explore yoga. After graduate school, she spent five years living in her ancestral homeland of India, studying contemplative practices, while teaching at the American Embassy School and bringing mindfulness to educators and children across the region through Thich Nhat Hanh's India based non-profit Ahimsa Trust.

Outside of the education world she has worked in the fields of journalism and public policy and had a variety of professional experiences at organizations including: ABC Network News, Reuters, Bloomberg, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the International Bureau of Education. A contributor to United Nations publications on inclusive education, Meena earned a Masters Degree in Education from UC Berkeley where she also studied Sanskrit and a Bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science from Amherst College. Her international outlook was enhanced by studying abroad at the London School of Economics and teaching at the Graded American School in Sao Paulo, Brazil after graduating from college.

Meena lives in Southern California on the traditional territory of the Luiseño/Payómkawichum people with her husband, Emmy nominated filmmaker, Chihiro Wimbush and their young son, Kailash Sora Wimbush. A decade before the birth of her son, Meena made a pilgrimage to Tibet's sacred Mount Kailash, which now bears the name of her beloved child, a testament to her deep spiritual connection.