About Belle
Belle Liang, PhD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. She is Principal Investigator at Purpose Labs and her research focuses on mentoring and cultivating purpose in school, work, and life. She leverages technology and social media in this work.
Her research-practice collaborations in and out of the U.S. have identified mentoring practices that fan the flames of purpose in people from diverse backgrounds, and she has published ~100 scientific journal articles and book chapters from this work. Liang has received honors such as an Distinguished Alumni Award, various awards for innovative teaching and community engagement, and recognition as an American Psychological Association Fellow for her outstanding contributions to the field of clinical and counseling psychology.
About Tim
Tim Klein, LCSW is an award-winning urban educator, clinical therapist, former teaching fellow at Harvard University and lecturer at Boston College. Throughout his career, he's worked intensively with marginalized students to empower them to pursue meaningful and fulfilling lives. Prior to his work at Boston College, he helped launch Stanford University’s Project Wayfinder, where he trained educators from over 30 states and 12 different countries.
As the Director of School and Community Engagement at Medford High School he implemented strategies that increased college matriculation by 30%. Prior to that, he spent five years as the Outreach Director for Summer Search, a national youth development non-profit serving historically underrepresented student populations. His work has been featured in EdSurge, Greater Good Magazine, The Los Angeles Times and KCRW.
Our story
Belle and Tim met while Belle was co-leading a team of researchers from Harvard University and Boston College on a longitudinal study of high school students. When researchers asked students "who's your mentor in school?", the name, “Mr. Klein,” kept popping up. Belle recognized she needed to meet this “Mr. Klein.” Belle and Tim have since joined forces to bring together research and practice to help people discover fresh motivation and direction in schools and workplaces.
Belle & Tim co-founded the MPOWER program for low-income and first-generation students, and research demonstrated that the project significantly improved students' GPA, their sense of purpose, and likelihood of graduating high school and going to college. As a result, they won the Lawrence O’Toole Award for student-centered learning. They built upon this project to launch the True North program at Boston College.
Our work
Informed by a combined 40+ years of research and practice in the field, our aspiration is to cultivate a shared language of purposeful belonging that students, professionals, and their mentor figures can use to gain self-knowledge and to connect more authentically with each other in and out of the classroom, within their broader school communities, and within the world of work.
How to Navigate Life
We've compiled all of our knowledge on how to cultivate a shared language of purposeful belonging with your children or students in our first book, How To Navigate Life.
Buy the Book