About me
Dr. Patrick Zuniga is a lifelong resident of Washington State. He has worked as a secondary humanities teacher in two school districts for over two decades and has coached high school football at Prosser High School, Columbia (Burbank) High School, and Richland High School. He began researching emotional intelligence as a part of his work for a Washington State Professional Certificate and continued to study it through the doctoral program at Creighton University. Originally, Dr. Zuniga was impassioned by the achievement gap and wanted to contribute to studies related to mitigating it, particularly among Hispanics; but his appreciation of learning and love of football encouraged him to view education as a holistic experience rather than a path for a diploma. His research has included improving assessment in humanities through Gardner's Theory of MI, causes and effects of the achievement gap in secondary public education, perceptions of bias among secondary students in public education, culture and cultural transmission in society, the impact of positive psychology on teaching and learning, and in 2024, he was a researcher for Dr. Raul Garcia's U.S. Senate Campaign.
