ABOUT THE FOUNDER

As the founder and director of House of Thriving, Maria’s purpose is to nurture a sense of thriving in leaders across education, the arts, and organizations so they can cultivate thriving communities.

Maria Tan is an educator and consultant who works closely with leaders to help nurture their vision, bring their ideas to life and co-create conditions for individual and collective thriving. She consults for organizations, schools and individuals who are committed to serving communities through healing-centered work and education.

During her tenure as a Bronx high school science teacher beginning in 2015, she led a school-wide shift towards equitable practices. In this role, she introduced restorative circles as an adult and student practice, facilitated racial affinity groups amongst staff, and taught trauma-informed mindfulness daily to hundreds of students and adults.

Maria's direct experience of healing from teacher burnout through self-excavation inspired her to launch Thriving Teacher Project in 2020 to create healing and restorative spaces for educators during the height of the pandemic. Through this work, she focused on mindfulness, social-emotional learning, and collective healing as tools to empower educators to show up authentically for themselves and their students.

She holds a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Rutgers University and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education, where she recently received the Dr. Patrick Comstock alumni award for her work and impact both in and out of the classroom. In 2017, she was accepted into the Hollyhock Fellowship program at Stanford University's Center to Support Excellence in Teaching. She has been a practitioner of mindfulness and Tibetan Buddhism since 2013 and has been a student of Venerable Thupten Phuntsok since 2017. As a passion project, she collaborates with her two older brothers to create workshops and guided meditations focused on intergenerational healing.

Currently, Maria is working with healing-centered thought leaders and organizations to help nurture their vision and launch their ideas. Her experience includes designing and facilitating courses and summits, producing podcasts, creative and strategic visioning, and curriculum and program research, analysis and evaluation.