Dr. Shelley Hymel Appointed Head of ECPS

February 21, 2017

Dr. Shelley Hymel has been appointed Head of the Department of Educational & Counselling Psychology & Special Education for a three-year term beginning July 1, 2017.

Since she joined the Faculty of Education at UBC in 1993, Dr. Shelley Hymel has served in a number of administrative roles, including Associate Dean (OGPR, 2000-2002), ECPS Department Head (2006-2008), Area Coordinator for both the HDLC (2004-2006) and SCPS (2010) program areas, and Co-Director of the Psychoeducational Research and Training Centre (1996-2000, 2003-2005).

Currently, she holds the Edith Lando Professorship in Social-Emotional Learning (SEL, 2012-2017) through which she has co-established and currently oversees a Masters concentration in SEL and two Teacher Education cohorts in SEL and has created a unique online resource for educators, the SEL Resource Finder. She currently serves in multiple leadership roles within the professional community; she is part of the executive team of PREVNet, Canada’s national organization for “Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence,” and is on the Board of Directors for the BC Crisis Centre. She also serves on several research advisory boards, including UBCs Human Early Learning Partnership, Alberta’s Life Synergy for Youth program, Seattle’s Committee for Children, and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.

She is co-founder of the international Bullying Research Network, linking 180 researchers from 17 countries. She publishes extensively on social development, peer relations, and school bullying, with over 100 refereed articles and chapters to date, and has co-edited special issues for both Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (1999, 2015) and American Psychologist (2015). She has worked directly with students experiencing social difficulties and collaborates with school districts that want to address the social side of education. She has long emphasized the importance of knowledge mobilization efforts, giving over 200 invited school/community presentations, and 14 keynote presentations for educators across Canada, and has co-edited three special issues on school bullying for the online magazine for parents and teachers, education.com.