Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D. is the co-founder and president of the National School Climate Center (NSCC). He is an Adjunct Professor in Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University; co-founder and emeritus chair, The National School Climate Council; co-editor of the International Journal of School Climate and Violence Prevention; and a practicing clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst.
Jonathan has worked in and with K-12 schools for over thirty-five years as a teacher, program developer, school psychologist, consultant, psycho-educational diagnostician and mental health provider. After working as a middle school teacher at the Marianne Frostig Center for Educational Therapy in Los Angeles, he received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the City University of New York, New York, New York and completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychology (1979-1980) at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center as well as at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Department of Pediatrics, New York, N.Y. He is a Diplomat in Clinical Psychology, American Board of Professional Psychology (June, 1988).
Jonathan founded and directed the Teachers College Press Social Emotional Learning series, which was published in partnership with the Collaborative for Academic, Social Emotional Learning. He has authored over 85 articles, chapters and books including Educating Minds and Hearts: Social Emotional Learning and the Passage into Adolescence (Teachers College Press and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1999); (with B. Cohler) (1999) The Psychoanalytic Study of Lives over Time: Clinical and Research Perspectives on Children Who Return to Treatment as Adults (co-edited with Bert Cohler; Academic Press; 1999) and, Caring Classrooms/Intelligent Schools: Social Emotional Education of young Children (Teachers College Press; 2001). Both of his Teachers College Press books were awarded the "Best Academic Book" by the American Library Associations Choice in 1999 and 2001 respectively. He is a co-author (with John Devine) of the recently published volume Making your School Safe: Strategies to Protect Children and Promote Learning (Teachers College Press, 2007). And, the co-editor (with Kristie Fink and Sean Slade) of Integrating Prosocial Learning with Education Standards: School Climate Reform Initiatives (Routledge, 2017)
Dr. Cohen has consulted to scores of schools, districts and State Departments of Education interested in furthering social, emotional, ethical and academic education and positive school climate in America, France, Israel, Japan, Peru, and Switzerland. He often lectures to groups of educators, parents and/or mental health professionals here and abroad. He speaks to educational and parent groups about a range of topics and has presented keynotes at scores of national conferences, State and Federal educational meetings, schools and district professional development forums.
He is the father of two children and has been married for 36 years.
