Paula Petry, PhD  

Dr. Petry has her doctorate degree in Teaching and Learning from the University of Miami. Her  early career included the formation of the non-for-profit organization, Parent to Parent of Miami,  to help other families who have a child with a disability. Parent to Parent continues to be one of  the strongest grassroots parent advocacy and support organizations in the country. In 1992 she  accepted a position, tailored for her, at the the Mailman Center for Child Development, one of  the country’s long established University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities.  There she brought her passion, perspective, and training knowledge to pediatric residents and  other disciplines. She became the Center’s Training Director and remained for 12 years.  

With the death of her twelve-year-old daughter, Alexandra, Dr. Petry sought other healing  modalities; she studied Jungian psychology, energy medicine, sound healing, and the expressive  arts, which she now blends together in in retreats, workshops, and individual shamanic healing  sessions. Her passion is to help others awaken to their inner truth and power, which she writes  about in her book, A Mother’s Courage to Awaken: Hope and Inspiration from My Daughter’s  Journey in the Afterlife. Paula resides in Cooperstown and is a co-founder of Lightwork  Education & Wellness Center, a K-8 private school with a holistic approach to education. There,  she teaches her Medicine Wheel & Me® and MindShop curriculum to children and teens.