Donna San Antonio

As a Carsey Fellow, Donna Marie San Antonio, EdD, is currently an associate professor of counseling and psychology at Lesley University’s Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences. She has worked as a community organizer, middle school teacher, school counselor, outdoor educator, and non-profit administrator. After receiving her doctorate in administration, planning, and social policy at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, she was appointed to the faculty and taught for seven years in the Risk and Prevention Program. For twenty-five years, she directed the Appalachian Mountain Teen Project, an activity-based counseling program that she founded in 1984 to serve low-income and struggling youth in central and northern New Hampshire. Donna has a BA in sociology and a MEd in Education (school counseling) from UNH.

Donna’s current research and writing focuses on developmental transitions for adolescents and emerging adults; social class and life course planning; social-emotional learning in schools; psychoanalysis and adventure therapy; cross-role and cross-institutional mental health collaboration. Her scholarship is aimed at re-conceptualizing the role of school counselors to improve mental health supports for multiply stressed young people. She is skilled in qualitative, ethnographic, and participatory action research. As a Carsey Fellow, Donna works collaboratively to explore economic, social, educational, environmental, and community risk and protective factors that impact outcomes for children and adolescents.

Donna is a frequent consultant to school and community programs addressing barriers to success for children and youth. Her work in the northernmost part of New Hampshire continues as the Inventing the Future Project–a project that strengthens the capacity of schools and communities to guide multiply stressed young people toward well-being, higher education, and good careers. She is happiest outdoors and especially enjoys hiking, biking, canoeing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and gardening.