Brittany R. Collins, M.Ed., is an author and educator whose work explores the impacts of grief, trauma, and disability on adolescent and adult wellbeing.
She is the author of two books: Learning from Loss (Heinemann/Houghton-Mifflin, ’21), and Leveraging AI for Human-Centered Learning (Routledge, ’25, w/ Dr. Marlee Bunch), both of which focus on the creation of learning spaces that support students’ and teachers’ holistic development, particularly in the face of loss, adversity, and/or change.
She has written 70+ articles in such outlets as The Washington Post; The Boston Globe; The Hechinger Report; Inside Higher Ed; Greater Good Magazine; Education Week; Edutopia; English Journal and Literacy & NCTE of the National Council of Teachers of English; NCTE’s Special Issues Volume, Trauma-Informed Teaching: Toward Responsive, Humanizing Classrooms; Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Usable Knowledge; Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals; Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global; and We Need Diverse Books, among others.
As a former Contributing Editor at Edutopia, Brittany covered the school leader beat and managed 170+ articles written by educators and school administrators. She’s also served as a Reviewer at Columbia University’s Teachers College Press; Harvard Review; New England Review; English Teaching: Practice and Critique, and is a Women’s Media Center “SheSource Expert” in education and arts and culture.
With a passion for connecting theory and practice in an effort to foster collaborative relationships with students, teachers, and writers, Brittany has enjoyed designing and delivering curricula, educational programming, and professional development sessions through Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education; Columbia University; New York University; Smith College; Boston University; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; PBS Learning Media; Heinemann Professional Development Services; Race Project Kansas City; Write the World; the How Kids Learn Foundation; the Public Education and Business Coalition; Clark County Children’s Mental Health Consortium; Zionsville Community Schools; School Crisis Recovery and Renewal/National Child Traumatic Stress Network; the National Association of Social Workers (New York chapter); and the National Council for the Social Studies.
Currently, she is working on three books:
How We Bear It: Women with Invisible Illnesses on Learning to Live Within Limitation, exploring how women adapt to three underrepresented yet prevalent disabilities—dysautonomia, long COVID, and ME/CFS. For this project, she is represented by Janklow & Nesbit Associates.
Teaching Students with Serious Illnesses: A Guide for Middle and High School Educators, a professional text for teachers and support staff on how best to serve 6-12 students with serious and/or terminal health conditions (under review w/ Oxford University Press).
“That’s Not My Job”: How Teachers Navigate Increasing Demands in Their Work with Students, an edited anthology addressing psychosocial, developmental, and facilitative problems of practice 6-12 teachers encounter in classrooms, but do not often receive training for during pre-service programming.
Brittany studied English and Education at Smith College and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Creative Nonfiction at the Yale Writer’s Workshop; and holds a Certificate in Traumatic Stress Studies from the Trauma Research Foundation. She earned her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction, Social-Emotional Learning, from the University of Virginia.
