How Our Brains Learn, Feel, Behave, and Socialize When There is Adversity and Trauma

In this session we will explore brain development through an educator’s lens. We will learn how adversity and trauma affect the way we learn, behave, and perceive the world, addressing specific brain aligned strategies that regulate our nervous systems and help us to connect with one another.

Dr. Lori Desautels, has been an Assistant Professor at Butler University since 2016 where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Education. Lori was also an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis for 8 years where she founded the Educational Neuroscience Symposium. Currently, the Symposium is in its 8th year, and now sponsored by Butler University College of Education. Through these conferences and symposiums, educators, parents and the community learn to implement the tools to help our students be successful, feel a sense of purpose and connection as they walk into their classrooms. Because of her work, Lori has been able to attract the foremost experts in the field of educational neuroscience, trauma and adversity which significantly grow the conference each year. Dr. Desautels has created a nine-hour graduate certification at Butler University in Applied Educational Neuroscience / Brain and Trauma. This certification has grown from six graduates in its pilot year in 2016, to 70 graduate students in its third cohort. The certification is open to students around the world as it has transformed into a distance learning / hybrid format. The Applied Educational Neuroscience Certificate, created by Lori in 2016, is specifically designed to meet the needs of educators, counselors, and administrators who work beside children and adolescents who have, and are, experiencing adversity and trauma.

Dr. Desautels’ passion is engaging her students through the application of neuroscience as it applies to attachment, regulation, educator brain state, and teaching students and staff about their neuro-anatomy thus integrating Mind Brain Teaching, learning principles and strategies into her coursework at Butler. Lori has conducted brain institutes and workshops throughout the United States, Canada, Costa Rica and Dubai on Mind Brain Teaching and Learning. She has created webinars for educators, clinicians, and administrators illustrating how educators and students alike must understand their neuroanatomy to regulate behavior and calm the brain.

Lori was a co-author of the Social and emotional competencies for the state of Indiana published in January 2018. She has also authored a series of articles for “Inside the School,” an online publication providing strategies to administrators and educators alike. Lori’s articles are published in Edutopia, Brain Bulletin, and Mind Body Spirit international magazine. She also was published in the Brain Research Journal for her work in the fifth-grade classrooms during a course release partnering with the Washington Township Schools in Indiana. Lori continues her work in the Pre-K classrooms and is currently co-teaching in fifth grade and working with St. Mary’s Early Childhood Center in Indianapolis for the second consecutive year. Lori has met with hundreds of school districts across the country, equating to more than 60,000 educators with much more work to be done!

Dr. Desautels taught emotionally troubled students in the upper elementary grades, worked as a school counselor in Indianapolis, was a private practice counselor and was co-owner of the Indianapolis Counseling Center. Lori was also a behavioral consultant for Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis on the adolescent psychiatric unit where she learned that emotional and mental illness can be so challenging for youth, but the brain can repair and heal and resilience rests at the core of human nature and our well-being.

You can find Lori’s work, presentation videos, and latest research on her website  www.revelationsineducation.com. Her first book, “How May I Serve You, Revelations in Education” was published in March of 2012. Her second book, co-authored with educator Mr. Michael McKnight, entitled “Unwritten, The Story of a Living System” had been shared and used as a foundation to create curriculum across the country. Lori’s third book, “Eyes Are Never Quiet” was published in January of 2018 and a new book, “Rewiring Our Perception of Discipline” will be coming in January 2021.

Lori graduated with a BS in Special Education from Butler University, an MS in counseling education from Indiana University and earned her Ph.D. in philosophy with an emphasis in early adolescence/ thought formation from Indiana University and American Institute of Holistic Theology.

Lori resides in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband, Michael. She has three grown children, Andrew, Sarah and Regan and four rescue fur babies.