Holly McCormack serves as Kripalu’s Chief Learning Officer, leading the development of faculty and curriculum across Kripalu Schools and guest programs. She also helps ensure that the principles of yoga philosophy remain woven into staff culture and hospitality services. Holly returned to Kripalu in April 2022, after previously holding several roles there from 2004 to 2010, including Director of Kripalu Schools and Director of the Institute for Integrated Leadership.
Her background in education includes senior leadership positions at several colleges. At Kenyon College, she served as Dean for Career Development, where she designed the institution’s strategic approach to career education. At Bennington College, she was Dean of Field Work Term and Career Development, overseeing the integration of a signature experiential work term into the liberal arts curriculum. She also worked as executive director of The Goldie Hawn Foundation, helping bring its mindfulness and SEL program to some of the largest school districts in the United States.
Before returning to Kripalu, Holly was Chief Strategy Officer for the national nonprofit BrainFutures, where she led advocacy and awareness campaigns focused on expanding access to proven innovations in brain fitness and mental health treatment. She coauthored BrainFutures’ influential issue brief, Brain Fitness and Executive Function: Evidence-Based Interventions to Improve Student Outcomes, and served as editor-in-chief for Neurofeedback: An Efficacious Treatment for Behavioral Health and Psychedelic Medicine: A Review of Clinical Research for a Class of Rapidly-Emerging Behavioral Health Interventions. She also helped raise more than $2 million for policy initiatives supporting psychedelic-assisted therapy research and healthcare adoption, and coauthored the Kennedy Forum’s 2015 brief Promoting Brain Health and Brain Fitness: A National Call for Action.
Holly continues to write and consult on brain fitness, holistic education, experiential learning, and purposeful work, bringing the intersection of these fields to her role at Kripalu.