Counseling

Chris Soto is the School Guidance Counselor for the Lower House at CHAD. He counseled troubled teenagers for seven years at a therapeutic boarding school in Western Massachusetts called The Academy at Swift River. His experiences led to a general belief that students should be educated about their social and emotional lives with the same emphasis as math, science, and English. His passion for adolescent well-being led him to Harvard University, where he received a Masters in Human Development and Psychology. Currently, he is a fourth year doctoral student at the Graduate School of Education at The University of Pennsylvania. His primary research interest is the role of emotion in learning and teaching.

Along with his role at CHAD, Chris works as a research assistant at The Center for the Study of Boys and Girls Lives and as an Instructor of Child and Adolescent Development for the Teach for America Masters program at Penn. He is also on the editorial board of the Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education Journal. He runs, plays basketball, watches lots of ESPN and CNN, is a novice guitar player, and has a Chocolate Lab named Claire Fisher who often licks his face. He is engaged to be married in June of 2008.