Virginia, a lifelong learner and educator, taught for 25 years in Atlantic City Public Schools, working with special needs students in diverse, low-income communities. She created and taught her after school Girl Power Club, teaching well-being and resilience skills to low-income junior high girls, and collecting data to show growth in well-being correlates strongly with academic achievement. Along with her work in public education, Virginia is a MAPP graduate (2008), Student Services Liaison, and has acted as an Assistant Instructor in the MAPP program for the past ten years, in Introduction to Positive Interventions, Positive Organizations, and Positive Education. She also teaches two courses in Penn’s undergraduate certificate program in Applied Positive Psychology and coaches high-performing teachers toward energized resilience and long-term retention. Virginia and her husband Bill reside at the southern New Jersey shore where they have raised two lovely young adults, now have a beautiful grandson, and are life-long partakers in all the shore has to offer, including biking, rowing, sailing, and lots of good seafood!