Dena Simmons

Dena Simmons is the Assistant Director at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. She is a university scholar-practitioner, TED speaker, and educator on social-emotional learning, equity, and culturally responsive practices. She sat down with LEE staff to discuss in-depth the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) & equity in school systems.

A few years ago, I had the great fortune to meet Bronx native Dena Simmons on a fellowship trip and hear about her life’s work and experience. She’s an educator, a TED speaker, and currently, the assistant director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence—not to mention a keynote speaker at the EdSurge Fusion conference later this year.

Dena Simmons, Ed.D., is the founder of LiberatED, a collective at the intersection of racial justice, social emotional learning (SEL) and healing in education rooted in radical love. Simmons has expertise in anti-racist education, emotional intelligence, social justice, teacher education and curriculum development.

When Dena Simmons was growing up in the Bronx, she loved going to school. But she didn’t always see her own experiences or reality reflected in what she was learning—the emphasis, she felt, was on white experiences. Since those days, Simmons has gone on to become an educator herself, as well as an activist for culturally responsive, inclusive teaching methods and emotionally intelligent, safe classrooms for all students.