OUR PEOPLE

Nate Smalley has spent his career at the intersection of rigorous teaching, mindful leadership, and genuine human development. He founded The Conscious Schools Project in 2017 with a simple but demanding belief: that skillful, self-aware educators change everything for kids.

Before launching Conscious Schools, Nate served as Chief of Leadership Development at KIPP, where he designed and led instructional leadership efforts and consultancy supports for more than 1,000 school and district leaders across 200+ schools nationally. He also founded KIPP New Jersey's first high school in Newark — a school whose graduates go to college at five times the national average for students from low-income communities. As a classroom teacher, he taught English Language Arts from elementary through high school, and in 2005 was named the New Jersey Charter School Teacher of the Year.

Nate holds a PhD in School Improvement from Texas State University. His research sits at the convergence of instructional leadership, systems theory, and contemplative practice — a thread that runs through both his academic work and his life. He is an authorized Zen teacher, and that practice quietly shapes how he thinks about attention, presence, and what it actually means to lead.

He can usually be found wandering Austin with his wife Jessica, their son Parker, and whichever of their three dogs successfully guilted them into a walk.

Specialties: Instructional leadership, pedagogy, and school improvement.

Research Interests: Instructional leadership, systems theory, contemplative practice.