People » Founding Board of Directors

Timothy P. Shriver
Chairman of the CASEL Board of Directors

Ann S. Nerad
CASEL Board Vice Chair

Stephen D. Arnold

Mark T. Greenberg

Linda Lantieri

Robert D. Newman

Roger P. Weissberg

Jennifer Woodard

Timothy P. Shriver
Chairman of the CASEL Board of Directors

Timothy P. Shriver is the Chairman of Special Olympics, Inc. In that capacity, he serves nearly 2 million Special Olympics athletes and their families in more than 160 countries. He has helped transform Special Olympics into a movement that focuses on acceptance, inclusion, and respect for individuals with intellectual disabilities in all corners of the globe. He has also worked with world leaders and dignitaries such as Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Bertie Ahern, Rafiq Hariri, Thabo Mbeki, Julius Nyerere, Hosny Mubarak, Shimon Peres, Adrian Nastase, Adnan Terzi, and Alejandro Toledo to bring issues related to intellectual disabilities to the forefront.

Before joining Special Olympics, Shriver served in various roles including educator, counselor, author, and speaker in order to bring issues to the forefront such as substance abuse, violence, dropout rates and teen pregnancy. He worked with the New Haven Public Schools’ Social Development Project, now considered the leading school-based prevention effort in the U.S. He has also applied his educational interests to TV and film, co-producing DreamWorks Studios’ 1997 release, “Amistad,” and Disney Studios’ 2000 release, “The Loretta Claiborne Story.” He is Executive Producer of “The Ringer” a Farrely brothers’ film. Shriver also has produced or co-produced shows for ABC, TNT, and NBC networks. Tim is a founding member of CASEL.

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Ann S. Nerad
Vice-Chairman of the CASEL Board of Directors

For the past three decades, Ann Nerad's community work has focused on mental health advocacy with an emphasis on children and prevention education. While serving on the board of the National Mental Health Association from 1982-1990, Mrs. Nerad became involved in prevention activities as they related to schools. She testified before the NMHA Prevention Commission about the importance of mental health education in the schools. Since 1986, she has served in collaborative initiatives to implement research-based social and emotional learning programs in the Chicago Public Schools and schools in DuPage County, including her own school district.

Mrs. Nerad has served on the boards and as President of the Mental Health Association in Illinois, Prevention First, Inc., in Illinois, the DuPage Federation on Human Services and the Elementary District 181 Foundation. She also served on the Advisory Board of Futures for Kids, an initiative of the former First Lady of Illinois.

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Stephen D. Arnold
Member, CASEL Board of Directors

Stephen D. Arnold is co-founder and venture partner at Polaris Venture Partners, based in the firm's Seattle office. Steve focuses on investments in information technology and digital media. Prior to starting Polaris, Steve served more than 10 years in executive positions in software companies and the digital media industry. He is also co-founder and vice chairman of the board of directors of the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF), an operating foundation that promotes innovation and advocates for exemplary programs in K-12 education.

Steve also serves on the boards of several early stage technology companies, and on a number of non-profit boards, including Islandwood, an outdoor learning center serving Seattle area 4th-6th grade students and the West Sound Academy, an independent middle and high school in Poulsbo, Washington.

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Mark T. Greenberg
Co-Chairman, CASEL Advisory Council, and Member, CASEL Board of Directors

Mark Greenberg is the Edna Bennett Chair of Prevention Research at Penn State University, where he is also director of the Prevention Research Center. Mark is a founding member of CASEL, and works on a variety of CASEL projects and has spearheaded CASEL's recent initiatives in the area of implementation research. In 1981, he began a curriculum project for the development of social and emotional competence with deaf and hearing-impaired children. This evolved into the PATHS Curriculum (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies), a classroom-based prevention program designed to improve the social competence of elementary-aged children by teaching self-control, emotional understanding, and social problem-solving skills.

Since 1990, Mark has been one of the site directors of the FAST (Families and Schools Together) Track Project . FAST Track is a national project working with families and children who are at serious risk for developing conduct disorders and delinquency. The project combines universal prevention and targeted strategies to promote healthy development for all children in low resource schools.

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Linda Lantieri
Member, CASEL Board of Directors

Linda Lantieri is a founding member of CASEL, Fulbright Scholar, keynote speaker, and nationally known expert in social and emotional learning, conflict resolution, intergroup relations, and trauma recovery. Currently she serves as the Director of the Inner Resilience Program (formerly called Project Renewal), a project of the Tides Center. This program equips school staff and parents with the tools and skills to strengthen their inner resiliency, and model these skills for the young people in their care. She is also the cofounder of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) of Educators for Social Responsibility, which supports the program in 400 schools at 15 school districts in the United States. Started in 1985, RCCP is now one of the largest and longest running research-based school (k-8) programs in social and emotional learning in the country.

Linda has over 38 years of experience in education as a former teacher, assistant principal, director of an alternative middle school in East Harlem, and faculty member of the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Hunter College in New York City. She is the coauthor of Waging Peace in Our Schools (Beacon Press, 1996), editor of Schools with Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers (Beacon Press, 2001) and contributor to Forever After: NYC Teachers on 9/11 (Teachers College Press, 2006)

She is also a Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress from the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and a senior scholar at the Fetzer Institute, a nonprofit organization that supports research and education in the relationship between body, mind, and spirit. Linda is a fellow of the George Lucas Educational Foundation and serves as the senior educational advisor for the Don't Laugh At Me Project of Operation Respect, which was founded by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary.

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Robert D. Newman
Member, CASEL Board of Directors

Robert D. Newman, CFA, CPA, a member of William Blair & Company's executive committee, has served as the Director of Equity Research and Manager of the Equity Research Group since 2001. Newman, who previously was Director of Research in Investment Management from 1999 to 2001, joined the firm in 1989 as a securities analyst in that group, and became a principal in the firm in 1993. He has chaired the firm's annual United Way Campaign since 2004. Newman earned a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois in 1983 and an M.B.A. from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 1987. Newman is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the CFA Society of Chicago and the Economic Club of Chicago. He has started up and/or served on the boards of several educational foundations and is currently on the board of CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

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Roger P. Weissberg
President, and Member, CASEL Board of Directors

Roger P. Weissberg is a Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). For the past 25 years, Professor Weissberg has trained scholars and practitioners about innovative ways to design, implement, and evaluate family, school, and community interventions.

Professor Weissberg has authored about 200 publications focusing on preventive interventions with children and adolescents and has written curricula on school-based programs to promote social competence and prevent problem behaviors including drug use, high-risk sexual behaviors, and aggression.

Professor Weissberg has been the President of the American Psychological Association's Society for Community Research and Action. He co-chaired an American Psychological Association Task Force on "Prevention: Promoting Strength, Resilience, and Health in Young People." He is a recipient of the William T. Grant Foundation's five-year Faculty Scholars Award in Children's Mental Health, the Connecticut Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Psychological Contribution in the Public Interest, and the National Mental Health Association's Lela Rowland Prevention Award. He was named a 1997-2000 University Scholar at the University of Illinois and also was a 2004-2005 UIC Great Cities Institute Scholar. Professor Weissberg received the 2000 American Psychological Association's Distinguished Contribution Award for Applications of Psychology to Education and Training, and the Society for Community Action and Research 2004 Distinguished Contribution to Theory and Research Award.

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Jennifer Woodard
Member, CASEL Board of Directors

Jennifer Woodard is Associate Vice Chancellor for Civic and Corporate Relations in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for External Affairs at UIC. During her nine years at UIC, Jennifer has lead numerous initiatives focused on bringing support to the academic, research, and service missions of the campus. Prior to joining UIC, Jennifer practiced law, specializing in corporate and international corporate matters. Jennifer has served on several non-profit arts and service organization boards, including Chicago Opera Theater, El Valor, and the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.

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