Saul Petersen, Ph.D. embarks on his first season as the Bloodhounds’ Tennis Operations Coach & Performance Psychologist. Dr. Petersen brings more than 30 years of experience in tennis, coaching, education, non-profit leadership, and student development to John Jay.
Dr. Petersen brings more than 30 years of experience in tennis, coaching, education, nonprofit leadership, and student development to John Jay. Throughout his career, he has worked with students and athletes from a wide range of backgrounds across multiple continents, focusing on helping individuals maximize their potential in athletics, academics, and life.
In his role with the Bloodhounds, Petersen will oversee the operations and development of John Jay's tennis programs while serving as the department's first dedicated performance psychology professional.
Petersen's professional background aligns closely with that mission. He has extensive experience developing high-performance mindsets through expert habits, agency, and self-regulation.
He has served as President of Petersen Future Solutions, LLC since 1996, providing coaching and consulting services to nonprofits, schools, and athletes, including coaching athletes to develop a high-performance mindset.
His international tennis experience includes serving as a high-performance tennis coach at Riverview Tennis Club in Dublin, Ireland, and Melbourne International Tennis Academy in Australia. Petersen developed periodization programs for 16 top Irish junior players to optimize performance around tournament competition while emphasizing a positive, tough competitive mindset and expert self-monitoring rituals.
Petersen served as head tennis coach at Gonzaga College in Dublin from 1999-2001, where his teams won two national and two provincial titles. Several of his players went on to opportunities at Notre Dame, Stanford, and Ohio State.
Beyond athletics, Petersen brings extensive experience in higher education and nonprofit leadership. Most recently, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Engage NJ from 2013 through January 2026, where he led statewide partnerships, programs, and funding initiatives involving higher education institutions and industry leaders, and secured a $1.5 million Senate appropriation to establish a massive paid student service program.
His previous experience in higher education includes serving as an adjunct professor at CUNY Hunter College's Graduate School of Education, a graduate teaching fellow at Lehman College, a persistence advisor with the CUNY Middle Grades Initiative, and a PEAR Institute Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
He earned his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center, where his dissertation investigated teaching expert deliberate practice to novice tennis players during different phases of play through longitudinal causal research in self-regulation theory.
He earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from Bard College.
