Our Team
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Chief Executive Officer
Kathleen O’Brien has had a lifelong fascination with the brain and human behavior and maintains that brain development and emotional well-being must be front and center of social and behavioral health issues. Her graduate study focused on the relationship trauma has to substance abuse. This work propelled her to create clinical work that addressed multiple brain-related conditions. As CEO of Walden Sierra Behavioral Health, she transformed the organization from a multi-service behavioral health nonprofit to a nationally-recognized behavioral health organization with a comprehensive integrated continuum of care for individuals suffering from the effects of substance use, trauma, and other brain-based conditions.
Kathleen has recognized that parents put tremendous emphasis on academic achievement, athleticism and popularity, resulting in many children not being seen or valued as significant if they don’t fit that profile. The frenzied, rigid, adult-centered schedules many children experience leave little time for “boredom” that is fertile ground for creativity and encourages imaginative play enabling children to blossom. She believes that many parents today want to create a “Superhighway to success” while children actually need to meander through the fields to discover who they are meant to be.
As the cofounder of Walden Wise, she passionately believes children deserve to be our top priority because they are our best “natural resource” and it is our duty to nourish and nurture their development so they can flourish.
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Principal Strategy & Operations Consultant
Tracey is consistently recognized as a compassionate force with the leadership courage to rethink and reinvent social enterprise. She is incredibly proud to be working with the leadership of Walden Wise to bring the vision of an unwavering culture of emotional health to life. Tracey is putting her skills as a big-picture thinker, meaning-maker and strategist to work on behalf of children.
As the mother of four grown children, she understands the pressure parents face when outside forces are pulling at your family values and commitment to a nurturing childhood for your kids. Tracey believes that far too much attention is placed on achievement and external validation, rather than attending to the internal wellbeing of our children.
As the cofounder of Walden Wise, she believes using the most cutting-edge knowledge we have and working directly with a community of Champions, Tracey is committed to creating meaningful change that will serve children throughout the precious years of childhood and over their lifetime.
Our Board of Directors
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Retired Public Servant
Board Member
With over 3 decades of experience in public service as the District Director for Maryland’s Fifth District, Mrs. Bossart brings a keen understanding of the federal legislative process and a valued perspective regarding the challenges involved with advancing public policy.
She is eager to explore how the opportunity to expand on the research aspect of brain wellness can provide a greater understanding of root causes and appropriate treatment methods. Ultimately, she hopes to help forward the Walden Wise mission of bringing together valuable resources and scientific principles as guiding tools on the developmental journey. This will help shape lives and build a stronger and more resilient community for a better future.
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Associate Director of Local Government & Community Affairs, John Hopkins University & Medicine
Board Member
Nondie has a wide range of experience in a number of fields including the Aerospace industry and Government and Community Relations. She is a member of the Maryland State Bar and carries a special disdain for the stigma, lack of compassion, and rampant misinformation that surrounds challenging issues regarding the underserved. Nondie admires Walden Wise’s fearless commitment to tackle the tremendous challenges in this complex realm and believes wholeheartedly that a small group of dedicated people can change the world. Nondie is excited that Walden Wise is partnering with Childhood Champions to make great progress toward helping others live a life that is not only sustaining, but also full of a sense of security, stability and purpose.
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Retired County Engineer
Board Chairman
As the County Civil Engineer in Southern Maryland, Mr. Ichniowski has always had the interests of his community at the forefront of his thinking. He has been involved in many community projects and served on several nonprofit boards. He has a passion for finding ways to help achieve emotional health in children. He is sensitive to the struggles of young people suffering from depression and substance abuse. His commitment to young people spans decades and he hopes his experience will help lead Walden Wise to their desired goals and help make an impact for children around the nation.
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Community Affairs Liaison,
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Kelsey has a 360 view of children’s emotional health as a parent, advocate and champion. His career has spanned the legal professions, government, public education, and community affairs. In all of his roles, he has found a way to support children and young people by connecting them with resources and communities that will serve them best. Kelsey believes that our greatest challenges around emotional health come from not teaching children to navigate their emotions, “If we teach children to identify and name their emotions - the positive and the negative - we can build the skills needed to address them.” He believes Walden Wise’s strength lies in the way it empowers all caring adults by giving them the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ they need to grow as caregivers, teachers, and guardians of young people.
Our Scientific Advisory Board
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Assistant Professor, Program Coordinator, Educational Equity, Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences
North Carolina State University
Working for nearly a decade in the fields of psychology and education, Dr. Byrd has seen paradigms of child development place the responsibility for health on children in the name of “resilience” or “grit.” These paradigms can lead parents and educators to feel that children are the problem for not achieving enough or being healthy enough. Dr. Byrd believes that, with the help of Walden Wise’s community, we can bring about a greater acknowledgment of the role of systematic oppression in creating negative environments for children and teach adults how they can work with children to remake the world into one that is supportive for them.
“I’ve been told I’m exceptional because I’m a Black woman from a working-class family who has a Ph.D. and works at a research-intensive university. I am not exceptional. I am an example of the potential that was recognized and supported by my communities. All children have amazing potential if we are willing to recognize and support it.”
Dr. Byrd talks about her research focus
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Senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute and Honorary Fellow,
Center for Health Minds, University of Wisconsin- Madison
With over 15 years of professional experience in the field of psychology, Dr. Flook has seen the benefits of attending to, and conversely the detriments of under-attending to, children’s emotions. While on the whole, we live in a society that is technologically advanced, relatively speaking we are underdeveloped when it comes to emotional literacy. Part of healthy development involves children learning how to relate to the full spectrum of their emotions and managing difficult emotions. She believes that elevating the role of prosocial emotions like empathy and compassion could be a game-changer.
She advocates for putting children’s well-being front and center and looks forward to connecting with like-minded, kindred spirits who want to be informed about relevant research.
Dr. Flook talks about her research focus
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Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Yale University
With over a decade of research and clinical experience, Dr. Gee sees that our current mental health paradigm is failing to help many children and that missed opportunities to set children on healthy trajectories have long-term physical and mental health consequences well into adulthood. For Dr. Gee, the challenges of fostering healthy development in the current paradigm and the consequences for children are incredibly frustrating. At the same time, the capacity to positively influence children’s lives through supportive environments and effective interventions motivate much of her work.
She appreciates that Walden Wise is using science to inform its mission and guiding practices and admires its emphasis on community. Dr. Gee believes that this approach can have a profound impact on children’s emotional health and development, and that applying knowledge from the science of the developing brain can enhance efforts to improve children’s well-being. Walden Wise is bringing together people from many areas of child development who play different roles in children’s lives. She believes that the strong partnerships promoted by Walden Wise will bring a much greater impact.
Dr. Gee talks about her research focus
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow- Infant and Child Laboratory, Department of Psychology
Emory University Research Partnerships Manager at Character Lab
Executive Council Member at Dillard University Center for Racial Justice
Emory University
As a Cognitive and Developmental Psychologist, Dr. Jones has made it her goal to better the lives of disenfranchised children everywhere. Her research aims to reduce the negative mental health consequences of children experiencing the stressors of discrimination based on their intersectional identities. She is a firm believer that the positive development of the various social groups children can identify as (e.g., race, gender, nationality) is critical for children’s overall sense of self and is vital for emotional and physical well-being.
Dr. Jones is partnering with Walden Wise because she admires how they cultivate children’s sense of self and agency through teaching evidence-based strategies as opposed to coming from a deficit model where children’s abilities are deemed insufficient. Moreover, she believes Walden Wise’s holistic approach to children’s emotional well-being is an excellent guiding principle whereas others have treated it as a supplementary concern. According to Dr. Jones, melding the recommendations of leading scholars with the needs expressed by parents and teachers in the community truly sets Walden Wise apart.
Dr. Jones talks about her research focus
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Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Princeton University
There’s no “manual” for how to parent our children. Erik Nook is inspired by parents who are doing their best to support their children and prepare them for a positive future, even without a concrete guide or a clear recipe for parenting success. Nonetheless, sometimes current cultural paradigms can result in families and children feeling overwhelmed by stressors in their lives and getting stuck in unhealthy cycles. Families can feel like they lack skills in how to manage their emotions, leading to feelings of overwhelm or the impossible pressure to live up to an unattainable notion of perfection.
Dr. Nook feels empathy for young people who feel stuck, overwhelmed, or lost. As a psychological researcher and clinician who is interested in discovering how emotions “work”, he wants to help children feel empowered, confident, and skilled in approaching life. He is excited that Waldon Wise emphasizes a scientifically-informed approach to parenting and childhood. By translating evidence-based insights into healthy emotional development, Prof. Nook is dedicated to supporting Childhood Champions of Waldon Wise, and he hopes to guide parents in how to build habits that help them support our next generation.
Dr. Nook talks about his research focus
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Assistant Professor of Human and Organizational Development, Department of Human and Organizational Development
Vanderbilt University, Peabody College
As one who is heavily invested in the fields of education and psychology, Andy believes that when researchers and practitioners overwhelmingly focus on illuminating the reasons for why youth from marginalized backgrounds are low-achieving, defiant, or report poor emotional outcomes, without properly contextualizing their experiences with structural oppression, it prevents us from presenting solutions to their problems. According to Andy, this trend paints a certain population of children as deficient or as coming from deficient cultures.
These challenges and consequences sadden him because they limit the possibilities of children experiencing severe material deprivation in society. Andy is optimistic about the future because of the Walden Wise commitment to improving the emotional well-being of all children by intentionally creating a community of champions who will use science-informed practices to achieve their goals. The commitment to thinking carefully about how best to meet the needs of all children without presenting a one-size-fits-all approach is one that Andy believes will pave the way to a positive future for all children.
Andy talks about his research focus
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John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Dr. Prinstein is a strong proponent of Walden Wise’s focus on emotional health and the developmental approach towards thinking about childhood because he laments that we do not live in a society where it is safe to discuss mental health. Even worse, when we do, people do not know when to be concerned, where to get help, how to identify a qualified professional, and what signs would suggest treatment is working.
This is a frustrating problem for Dr. Prinstein because he’s witnessed a remarkably high number of children experience mental health difficulties for years without treatment, bending trajectories and changing lifelong outcomes. It is because of this fact that he is supporting Walden Wise to help other Childhood Champions get the latest, science-based information on how to improve children’s emotional development.
Dr. Prinstein talks about his research focus
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Associate Professor of Medical Social Sciences, Pediatrics, and Psychology, Feinberg School of Medicine,
Northwestern University
Bringing more than a decade of experience in clinical psychology and research interests in youth and family mental health, Dr. Schleider has seen that despite decades of progress in the development of effective interventions for youth mental health problems, existing treatments remain inaccessible to a majority of those in need. She believes that novel approaches to building and delivering more scalable, effective supports will be critical to reducing the need-to-treatment-access gap. Going without mental health care when it’s needed can exacerbate (and, unfortunately, create) myriad challenges across the lifespan. This makes her feel equal parts frustrated and extraordinarily motivated to build better, more accessible solutions for youths and families.
Walden Wise’s theory of change gathers exactly the type of ‘big thinking’ she admires. In her view, this is necessary to spur real, sustainable change. She believes by investing in Walden Wise you are investing in a better future for our children. This future depends on the commitment and creativity of the community hoping to build it—all of those who care are needed to ensure our solutions work for and are built for all of us.
Dr. Schleider talks about her research focus