Dr. Micere Keels

Micere Keels is the Policy and Practice Leader for the NC Early Childhood Foundation, an associate professor at the University of Chicago, and the founding director of the Trauma Responsive Educational Practices Project (TREP Project). For more than two decades, Dr. Keels has worked to integrate mental health promotion interventions into educational systems and structures, from early childhood centers to high schools.

She is the author of four books: Trauma Responsive Educational Practices: Helping Students Cope and Learn; Campus Counterspaces: Search for Community at Historically White Institutions; Trauma Responsive De-Escalation; and Your Guide to Educator Self-Care. Through the TREP Project, Dr. Keels has supported the professional development of more than 200,000 educators through school district partnerships in Delaware, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island, and through work with many individual schools across the U.S.

Dr. Keels holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychological Sciences from University of Alberta, a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Purdue University, and doctorate in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University.