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Christian Frenopoulo
Christian Frenopoulo is interested in issues of religion and health care. He has researched health care for an indigenous people, an ayahuasca church, and other topics. His regional focus has been the south-western Brazilian Amazon. He is an anthropologist trained in medical anthropology and public health.
Courtney Nelson
Courtney Nelson holds a Bachelor’s degree from Bennington College in Anthropology and Religion. She is interested in magical/religious phenomena and how they may intersect with medicine. In particular, she studies spirit possession while using phenomenological, hauntological and healing frameworks. More recently, she has also become interested in understanding schizophrenia and psychosis across cultures.
Sean Bruna
Sean Bruna, PhD. is an Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Western Washington University. His research uses collaborative mixed-methods to examine the intersections of identity and community health. Current research includes testing interventions for Latinx or American Indians living with chronic disease, examination of disciplinary trends in anthropology, and documentation of risky fieldwork practices and mitigation strategies among URM students and scholars.
Dr. Bruna received a MA and PhD. in Ethnology/Linguistics from the University of New Mexico, and an MA in Social Science with a focus on Federal Indian Law from the University of Chicago, where he also earned a Bachelor’s Degree in both Anthropology & Latin American Studies. His research has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. Learn more about Dr. Bruna at his website.
Christina Callicott
Christina Callicott holds a doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Florida. Research interests include traditional knowledge, Indigenous resource and land management, Indigenous land rights, ethnobotany, and ethnomusicology.
She has taught at the University of Florida and at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado; classes include Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Indigenous Environmental Movements, and Ethnobotany of the Southwest. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Callicott pursued dual careers in journalism and outdoor education. She continues to publish in the popular press.
Ayana Jamieson
Ayana Jamieson is a Depth Psychologist and is the founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, a global community committed to highlighting Octavia Butler’s life and work while creating new works inspired by Butler’s legacy. The Legacy Network grew out of Ayana’s research for her doctoral work about Butler’s life. Her dissertation is entitled, ‘Certainty of the Flesh’: A Biomythographical Reading of Octavia E. Butler’s Fictions. She is an organizer, educator, and teaches ethnic studies courses at California State University Polytechnic, Pomona.
Katherine Lawson
Dr. Katherine Lawson support leaders, organizations, and innovators, guiding them to new levels of creativity, self-knowledge, fulfillment, and productivity. She combines Mind-Body Medicine research with a deep understanding of psychology, spirituality, and neuroscience to bring a more meaningful approach to life, work, and relationships. She gives audiences tools to utilize for their personal and professional growth and expansion.
Dr. Lawson has spoken at top innovative companies and universities such as UCSF and Google. Topics include healing, innovation, and well-being.
Dr. Lawson has a PhD in Mind-Body Medicine with a focus on Integrative Mental Health. She focuses on the interactions between the brain, mind, body, and personality, and the powerful ways in which mental, social, spiritual, and behavioral factors affect health and happiness. She obtained her MA in Counseling Psychotherapy with a focus in Depth Psychotherapy at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she published a thesis looking at the healing properties of dream work. She shares her personal journey with cancer as well as working with cancer patients and teaching the process of working with Embodied Imagination to cultivate creativity, growth and healing.
Dr. Lawson is a certified Embodied Imagination® practitioner, a consultant, and a speaker—both in the U.S. and internationally, as well as a devoted mother and wife.
Barbara Mainguy
Barbara Mainguy, LICSW studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Toronto and received her master’s degree in Creative Arts Psychotherapy at Concordia University in Montreal. She has co-written Remapping Your Mind: the Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story with Lewis Mehl-Madrona. Currently she is completing her MFA in documentary filmmaking at York University, Toronto, and working with Lewis in Orono, Maine. She is the Director of Education for the Coyote Institute in Orono.
Samuel Malkemus
Samuel Malkemus is an interdisciplinary thinker and holistic counselor with a passionate interest in healing personal and collective trauma through a psychospiritual and integrative lens. His doctoral dissertation, “Exploring the Flesh and Blood of Human Nature” examined the role of sexuality and instinct from a transpersonal perspective, bringing together somatic, humanistic, and transpersonal psychologies. Having published numerous articles in these fields, and taught dozens of graduate courses in psychology and consciousness studies, Samuel brings a wealth of experience and knowledge into his work.
Together with Marina T. Romero he is the founder and director of the Institute of Holistic Transformation in Berkeley, CA. A fifth generation Californian who divides his time between California and Spain, Samuel leads courses and seminars in holistic sexuality and transformative education both internationally and in the San Francisco bay area. With a private practice in holistic counseling he is committed to helping his clients find vibrant health by working with body, heart, mind, and spirit.
You can find out more about Samuel at www.instituteofholistictransformation.com
Lewis Mehl-Madrona
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD is the author of “Coyote Medicine”, “Coyote Healing”, and “Coyote Wisdom”, focusing on what Native culture has to offer the modern world. He has also written “Narrative Medicine”; “Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry”; and his most recent book, with Barbara Mainguy, “Remapping Your Mind: The Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story”. He graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed his residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has been on the faculties of several medical schools, most recently as associate professor of family medicine at the University of New England.
W. Gabriel Selassie I
Gabriel Selassie I is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the California State University, Northridge. Before joining the CSU Northridge campus, he was a Ralph Bunche Distinguished Professor of History, African American Studies, and Religion at Los Angeles City College. Gabriel’s academic specialization is 19th and 20th century African American intellectual and cultural history, modern and traditional African cultures, Caribbean history, and cultural patrimony/heritage.
Gabriel earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in History from the Claremont Graduate University. Gabriel also earned an M.A.s in African American studies from UCLA, in theology from the University of Notre Dame and public history and historic preservation from California State University at Dominguez Hills and a Bachelor of Architecture degree with a minor in Civil Engineering from Prairie View A & M University of Texas.
Gabriel is the Western region Associate Editor of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., Sphinx Magazine. He is a member of Phi Alpha Theta national history honor society.
Nicole Torres
MA: University of Chicago
MA/PhD: University of Washington
MSW: University of Washington
T32: Postdoctoral Fellowship – Harborview Medical Center
Nicole is a cultural anthropologist, ecotherapist, and licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW). She is an Assistant Professor at Western Washington University in the Department of Health and Community Studies. Dr. Torres is also the owner of Inner Tapestries Counseling, where she provides culturally responsive training, counseling, and clinical supervision grounded in psychoanalytical perspectives and expressive arts. Her current academic research focuses on gathering perspectives on the “Psychedelic Renaissance,” especially among ethnoracial minorities in the United States.
Julie Raymond Yakoubian
Julie Raymond-Yakoubian is the Social Science Program Director for Kawerak, Inc. Kawerak is located in Nome, AK and is the Alaska Native non-profit Tribal consortium for the 20 federally recognized Tribes of the Bering Strait region of Alaska.
Julie has been living and working in Alaska for over 20 years, and working in the Bering Strait region for over 10 years.
Her work is currently focused on collaborations with Tribes on topics such as the connections between subsistence and identity, the cultural importance and meaning of non-ordinary experiences and knowledge, a variety of Traditional Knowledge documentation and Knowledge application projects, and work on Tribal research sovereignty – including protocols, guidelines, and toolkits related to research. Julie has a PhD and M.A. in Anthropology as well as an M.A. in Northern Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
