Mindfulness changed her life. Now she’s changing classrooms
From personal healing to purpose, Lee Sowles launched Kind Mind to bring mindfulness and wellbeing practices to children, teachers and families.
Lee Sowles’ childhood was chaotic and deprived of emotional support and nurturing. The dysfunction led to anxiety, depression and lack of self-confidence, she says.
However, as she started learning about and practicing mindfulness, her self-image, mental health and sleep improved significantly.
“My whole life would have felt different if I had known and learned these [practices] when I was a child,” says Sowles, a Northeastern University graduate.
Now, Sowles is on a journey of transforming education with her Kind Mind program for teachers and child caregivers that builds character, improves the well-being of children and empowers educators and families.
Recently, Northeastern’s Women Who Empower named her one of the inaugural Innovator Fellows of the 2025 Innovator Awards.
The Innovator Awards recognize Northeastern students, graduates and affiliated entrepreneurs seeking to make an impact in fields such as health, technology, sustainability and social innovation. The nine-month fellowship provides mentorship, global connections and venture support, culminating in a showcase at the 2026 Northeastern Global Leadership Summit in London.
Mindfulness tools, Sowles says, are simple.
“You just need a teacher,” she says.
Becoming a mother solidified this belief, as she watched her children respond to the behaviors she modeled in stressful moments. Since parents don’t always know these tools, Sowles saw schools as a natural pathway to reach as many children as possible, as well as teachers and parents.
She launched Kind Mind in 2021.
“I really feel like this is my purpose,” Sowles says. “This is what I am meant to be doing.”
EdTech startup
Kind Mind is a professional development tech platform that trains child care providers and school teachers on techniques that improve challenging behavior in children, like bullying, as well as addresses teachers’ burnout.
Through a 10-week program, teachers learn using tools such as mindfulness and compassion cultivation practices, partner and group activities, breathing and movement exercises, which help children co-regulate, be kind and feel ready to learn.
“We’re preventing some of the reactive behaviors because we’re regulating and helping them with social dynamics and things like that throughout the day,” Sowles says.
Teachers, who work with children from infancy to elementary school, learn to deploy these tools three to five times a day for two, five or 10 minutes.
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The method delivered through the platform is fully evidence-based, Sowles says.
“We have really strong outcomes in terms of bullying, anxiety, conduct problems, teacher confidence, managing classrooms,” she says. “We have a lot of really strong data to back this method.”
Kind Mind currently works with 11 clients in Maine and Vermont and is expanding to Massachusetts, California and New Mexico. The program has already impacted more than 4,000 children and 165 teachers across elementary schools, teaching colleges and child care facilities.
Sowles’ thoughtful journey to entrepreneurship
In the beginning of her professional journey, Sowles worked with vulnerable children and families. In 2013, she received a master’s degree in public health from Northeastern University and later went on to study applied compassion at Stanford University.
Sowles says that what she learned about research at Northeastern has been the foundation of everything that she has built.
“I know exactly how to design a research study, and I’ve worked with the local university, and we’ve been able to really capture the impact of the program,” she says. “That’s been very validating for me as the creator, and now also very helpful in terms of validating it for the people who are buying it.”
Her public health studies also motivated her to focus on prevention work.
But before Sowles sat down to write the Kind Mind curriculum, she volunteered in public schools to see how her approach resonated with children and teachers.
Back to Northeastern
In 2024-2025, Sowles was part of Northeastern’s Roux Founder Residency on the Portland, Maine, campus.
The one-year program helps early-stage tech startups, working on solving the world’s most pressing challenges, develop plans and raise investment funds to grow the companies.
Prior to the residency program, she says, her business was growing, but she felt stifled and like she was at a standstill.
“There was so much I didn’t know about running a business or growing a business, and I knew something had to change,” Sowles says.
But she was hesitant to take on a demanding residency, while running a business and having a family.
“It was definitely a decision,” she says.
It took multiple conversations with Santiago Zindel Mundet Cruz, director of the residency, and her husband to make that big decision. Of course, now Sowles has no regrets.
“It’s been amazing. It’s totally catapulted me on a different [level],” she says. “I have a clearer direction now and an understanding of how to continue to grow, whereas before, I was just like, ‘I just don’t know how to get past this point.’”
So far, Sowles hasn’t done any fundraising, but the company finished last year with a profit. Now she is ready to fundraise as well as find a leadership team that can scale the company, while she can focus on thoughtfully and intentionally developing her business.
Sowles plans to utilize the Innovator fellowship to develop a fundraising plan and expand her leadership skills as her team grows. She says she is also excited to be part of a network of other female entrepreneurs.
