Moderated by IPPA Education Division President, Grace Zhao

Paulina Ortiz, recipient of the 2025 IPPA Education Division Practitioner Award, brings a timely perspective to our global conversation. She leads the only university-based postgraduate program in Positive Psychology in South America and has been at the forefront of advancing positive education across the region.

Her talk will explore both the advances and the challenges shaping positive education in Latin America, with particular attention to Chile and the broader regional landscape. She will highlight training initiatives, implementation efforts, and emerging directions that reflect local culture, institutional realities, and community strengths.

As the field continues to expand internationally, it is essential that we learn from regions where innovation is unfolding within distinct social, cultural, and educational contexts. Paulina combines scholarly leadership with grounded practice, inviting us to consider how education for flourishing can be cultivated in ways that are both rigorous and contextually responsive.

This session is part of our Education Briefs format, a focused 18 to 20 minute conversation designed to share high-impact ideas in an accessible and globally inclusive way.

We warmly invite you to participate by submitting questions for Paulina in advance. Please send your questions by March 9. Selected questions may be incorporated into the moderated dialogue and shared reflections following the event. Please send your questions to edudiv@ippanetwork.org

We would love for you to be part of this first gathering of 2026 as we widen our lens and deepen our shared commitment to educating for flourishing.

I am delighted to invite you to the IPPA Education Division 2026 Invited Speaker Series, organized around this year’s theme, Educating for Flourishing.

This year’s series brings together international scholars and practitioners who are advancing thoughtful, evidence-informed approaches to positive education across diverse contexts. Our goal is to create a space where research, educational and institutional practice can inform one another in meaningful ways.

The 2026 series feature two complementary formats:

IPPA Education Briefs
Concise 18 to 20 minute micro-conversations designed for clarity and global accessibility. Each session includes a short featured talk followed by a brief moderated dialogue. This format allows us to highlight high-impact ideas while respecting the time constraints of educators and senior leaders.

Education for Flourishing: In-Depth Conversations
Extended 60-minute sessions that allow for deeper exploration of focused topics, expanded discussion, and layered perspectives.

Our 2026 speakers include Paulina Ortiz, Rosalinda Ballesteros, Edward Brooks, and Jen Hanson-Peterson, along with an international panel on Flourish Schools in Australia.

Together, these conversations will explore implementation, character education, leadership well-being, and sustainable institutional models.

We warmly invite you to join us throughout the year as we continue building a global community committed to educational systems that cultivate both excellence and human flourishing.