• For over 25 years, Jim Ansaldo, PhD, has supported educators and other helping professionals to create joy, community, and success. Speaking, training, and coaching solutions offer proven strategies that are based in research and the experiences of professionals working on the ground. Dr. Jim uses improv-based and experiential methods to keep participants engaged in the hard work of creating sustainable change. His work often brings helping professionals and stakeholders together to play, learn, and work side-by-side, increasing connection and trust, strengthening outcomes, and building a community focused on solutions.

  • Dr. Jim is a founder and co-director of Camp Yes And, a professional learning intensive for educators and other helping professionals that is combined with an improv theater summer camp for neurodivergent high school students. For this work, he was honored with a 2017 Certificate of Commendation Award by the Indiana Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

    Dr. Jim trained at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and has led improv-based workshops that support researchers and medical professionals to communicate about their work in clear, vivid, and engaging ways. He has worked with faculty at the Riley Hospital for Children to integrate improv with cognitive behavioral therapy skills to support youth with anxiety disorders. He has collaborated with the Alzheimer's and Dementia Resource Service of IU Health Bloomington Community Health to offer improv workshops for individuals living with dementia, their families, and professional caregivers.

  • Dr. Jim earned his PhD from Indiana University in 2012. He designed a doctoral program that focused on equity in education, majoring in Curriculum Studies and minoring in Cultural Studies. From 2000 to 2025, Dr. Jim worked as a professional learning designer, implementation lead, and project manager at the Center on Education and Lifelong Learning at the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, Indiana University Bloomington.

  • Dr. Jim has been a lead presenter, invited presenter, and workshop facilitator for hundreds of local, state, national, and international organizations, including Access to Education, American Speech & Hearing Association, Applied Improvisation Network, AWS Foundation, Council for Exceptional Children, Detroit Creativity Project, Eastern Illinois University, Herron School of Art + Design, Indiana Association of Professionals Supporting Employment First, Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education, Indiana Speech & Hearing Association, Indiana University OVPR, IU Health Bloomington Community Health, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Long Island University, PATINS, Rehab Seminars, SxSWEdu, William M. Plater Institute on the Future of Learning, and dozens of Indiana K-12 school districts.

Black and white portrait of Dr. Jim Ansaldo -- a middle-aged white man with glasses and a beard, wearing a checkered shirt, looking at the camera with a slight smile.