Kathryn Lee is the associate director of RULER for families at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and has been an innovative educator for over 30 years. In her current role, Kathryn’s focus is on developing the mindsets, practices, and pathways that support RULER schools with becoming social and emotional learning hubs for their entire school communities, which includes parents, grandparents, and other adult caregivers.

Most recently, the Families team developed take-home activities for families to enjoy and learn from together and a series of 10-minute relationship-building workshops designed to empower parents to lead with one another. They are also exploring a text-messaging system to share SEL content between classroom teachers and families.

Together with a practical understanding about how schools work and what it takes to integrate the skills of emotional intelligence into the culture and climate of a school community, Kathryn brings a special emphasis on child development, well-being, and interpersonal communication skills. She has also been trained as a Star-Factor coach to support school principals in leading with emotional intelligence.

Kathryn is a longtime advocate of “real-world education,” relevant to a rapidly changing world. She has taught preschool–middle school, served as a senior administrator of an independent school in the Bay Area of California, curated a TEDx event on Compassion and Education, co-designed nationally recognized service-learning and environmental stewardship programs, and was selected by Ashoka as a change leader for catalyzing empathy into action in schools. Kathryn holds a B.A. in human development from Raymond College at the University of the Pacific, and an M.A. in early childhood development and education from Mills College. She is also the mother of a great son.