Patricia Benitez Hemans

Patricia Benitez Hemans is a current Ph.D. candidate in Education Studies at UC San Diego. With a passion for critical and emancipatory pedagogies, she spent 10 years teaching high school English, Social Studies, Physical Education, and Yoga in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Beijing, and her hometown, San Diego prior to entering the PhD program. She was most impacted by teaching in alternative settings, which largely served foster, adjudicated, homeless, and refugee populations. This, along with being specially trained to teach yoga and mindfulness to populations who have experienced trauma, cultivated her passion for health and well-being, as well as healing from and dismantling the social structures that cause trauma. Patricia is completing a graduate specialization in Critical Gender Studies and served as a student representative on the CGS Executive Committee. She is also the co-founder of The Transformative Collective (which provides training and education on transformative justice in schools and workplaces), a Fulbright Distinguished Teacher (2015-2016, New Zealand) and is a 2020-2022 CTERIN Educating Teacher Educators (ETE) Fellow.

Curriculum Vitae

M.Ed. from UCLA, 2007
B.A. in English with a minor in Education Studies from UCLA, 2004

Current research interests include the uses of yoga and mindfulness in schools; critical, contemplative, and feminist pedagogies; decolonization; teacher education and development; and participatory, action, and community-based research.

PUBLICATIONS
Peña, D., Hemans, P. B., & Susholtz, L. (2022). Teaching through a pandemic: Possibilities for student engagement created by university-school-community partnership. PDS Partners: Bridging Research to Practice, 17(2), 85-94.

Hemans, P. B., Lewis, P., & Osoria, R. (2020). The dual invisibility of mother scholars of color. About Campus, 25(2), 24-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086482220913702

Hemans, P. B., Gluckman, M., Ferry, L., & Hargis, J. (2019). Reflective teaching: What instructional assistant reflection can inform us about transformation in higher education. Journal of Transformative Learning, 6(1), 22-38.

REPORTS AND WORKING PAPERS
Bintliff, A., Hemans, P. B., & Levine, R. (In prep). Partnering with families in poverty: A non-deficit approach to promoting Youth Development through parent engagement and student leadership at an Akanksha School in Mumbai.

Bintliff, A., Demesa, C., Salas, E., Levine, R., Gluckman, M., & Hemans, P.B. (In review). The Well-being Club: A Curriculum for Positive Well-being.
Bintliff, A., Holtzman, C., Hemans, P. B., & Salas, E. (2020). Faculty and staff responses to youth development at two Akanksha schools. UCSD Department of Education Studies. Unpublished report.

PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP
Hemans, P. B. (2022, January 21). Preparing and supporting the teacher activist. CTERIN Voices. https://cterinvoices.blogspot.com/2022/01/preparing-and-supporting-teacher.html.

Hemans, P. B. (2019, June 26). Trauma-informed practices: Lessons from New Zealand. Education Week. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2019/06/trauma informed_practices_ lessons_from_new_zealand.html