Mays Imad

Dr. Mays Imad is a neuroscientist and educator who studies how bodies learn, remember, and heal –– individually and collectively. Her work is rooted in the belief that education is not just about information transfer, but about transformation: a space where people come to re-member themselves and reconnect to their capacity to feel, to hope, and to act.

Drawing inspiration from South African scholar Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, her work explores the concept of reparative humanism: the idea that we can transform pain into wisdom through presence, remembrance, and responsibility to one another. She investigates how trauma, especially when inherited or unspoken, shapes the experience of teaching and learning. She asks what it means to heal through education, to democratize knowledge, and to create spaces where everyone’s story, including the story written into the body, is honored.

For Mays, the nervous system is not just a biological structure but a portal: a way to understand how safety, regulation, and belonging shape our capacity to learn and to be in relationships. She explores how the body archives both the wound and the healing, and how moral injury and imagination intersect in our efforts to build more just and compassionate institutions. She is particularly curious about the heart –– not just as a metaphor, but as a site of intelligence we’ve only begun to take seriously in education.

She believes that education, especially when rooted in empathy, embodiment, and responsibility, can be a powerful force for healing, for liberation, and for transformation.

To learn more about Mays's research visit her personal homepage or watch a summary of her current research projects.