Mary E. Walsh, Ph.D., is a nationally regarded expert in applying developmental psychology to support students’ thriving, and is Executive Director of the Boston College Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children. Mary is the founder and Executive Director of City Connects, housed within the Center, which is a systemic approach to providing each child in a school with a personalized set of opportunities and supports demonstrating significant, positive, long-term impacts on student achievement and school persistence. Mary is the Daniel Kearns Professor of Urban Education and Innovative Leadership at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. Mary has published and presented widely in the area of school-community supports for schoolchildren and their families. Two of her books are Children, Health and Learning and Meeting at the Hyphen: Schools-Universities-Communities-Professions in Collaboration for Student Achievement and Well-Being (co-authored with M. Brabeck).

Cynthia A. Scheller, Ed. D, serves as the Director of Student Support Programs and Practice at the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children. Previously, Cindy spent 23 years in public K-12 education, including nearly 10 years as a public elementary school principal in Providence and North Kingstown, Rhode Island. During her time as a principal, Cindy led school reform efforts at the building level, using data to inform decision-making, resulting in significant gains in student achievement. Her work focused on the importance of building teacher leadership capacity through a distributive leadership model as well as creating enriching learning opportunities for all students.  Prior to her time as a principal, Cindy worked at both the district and state levels in Rhode Island. As Supervisor of Secondary Reform Initiatives, and later Director of Professional Learning in the Providence Public Schools, Cindy led professional development, focusing on increasing teacher effectiveness and improving academic achievement via high-quality curriculum and differentiated instruction. She also established collaborative relationships with other key stakeholders, such as labor unions, neighboring district leaders and the RI Department of Education to support teacher induction and professional development. In these and other experiences, she applied learnings from her doctoral work at Johnson & Wales University, where she earned an Ed.D. in educational leadership. Cindy’s career began in the classroom. She followed her passion for music and taught junior high school music education for eight years. 

Joan Wasser Gish, J.D., M.A., serves as the Director of Systemic Impact at the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children. Joan works to embed what we are learning about effective and cost-efficient approaches to integrating comprehensive supports for children, youth, and families, into policy and practice at scale. Joan works with policymakers at the federal and state levels, and with numerous national and state-level coalitions and advisory boards, to translate lessons from research and implementation into a roadmap for action. Joan also catalyzes and supports strategic partnerships for the Center. Twice appointed by the Governor to the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care, during her eleven year tenure, Joan helped to build systems that improved implementation quality and benefited children. Joan has worked on education, social services, and equity issues as an attorney, in a Presidential campaign, in the United States Senate, and in a community-based non profit. Joan has been published by the Washington Post, Brookings Institute, Education Week, Boston Herald, and Commonwealth Magazine, and frequently lectures at Harvard University and Boston College.