Dedicated people, building resilience
We are a diverse team of more than 100 people, with a small core office in Bolinas, California, and staff working in many parts of the world. Our visionary program directors lead from the heart and dedicate themselves to the challenges that face their own communities.
Commonweal Founder
Board Chair Emeritus
Michael Lerner
Co-founder of Commonweal, Michael has worked extensively in environmental health and justice, integrative cancer care, and the polycrisis awareness movement. His current work is centered on personal and planetary resilience. He is a MacArthur Fellow and author of Choices in Healing.
Board Director
Gift of Compassion Director
Angela Oh
Angela is an attorney, ordained Zen Buddhist priest, and nationally recognized voice on race relations and conflict resolution who has spent a lifetime utilizing a range of internal and external tools to help bridge across race, religion, and other cultural divides.
Board Director
Catherine Dodd
Catherine has worked in health policy and politics for over 25 years, including as San Francisco Mayor Newsom’s deputy chief of staff for Health and Human Services, district chief of staff to Nancy Pelosi, and a presidential appointee under Health and Human Services Secretary Shalala.
Board Chair
Katherine Fulton
Katherine has a 40+ year career in journalism, teaching, and consulting. She has worked closely with many of this generation’s leading philanthropists, major foundations and rising social entrepreneurs, helping them make their aspirations braver and their actions wiser.
Board Director
Lisa Simms Booth
Lisa is a gifted vocalist, cancer patient advocate and executive director of the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. She has 25+ years experience in media, politics and advocacy, including leadership at Children’s Defense Fund, the Democratic National Committee, and the Biden Cancer Initiative.
Board Director
Octavia Fund Director
Milicent Johnson
Milicent has found her calling creating sacred space for Black women to remember, reclaim and embody their truest selves in service of collective liberation. She has spent nearly two decades working towards systemic change through direct service, policy, advocacy, urban planning, and philanthropy.
Board Director
Omar Brownson
Omar is building a gratitude ecosystem and regenerative economy. He was the founding executive director of RiverLA and now works entrepreneurially at the intersection of nature, culture and finance. He is an advisor, poet, co-hosts the podcast Gratitude Blooming and delights in making good visible.
Board Vice Chair
Robert Mulhall
Robert is deeply engaged with sustainable transformation for more peace, justice, and freedom in our world. President and CEO of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, he leans into 20+ years of diverse experience, including public health, leadership, and d. He is the father to a beautiful son.
Board Director
Serena Bian
Serena serves as a special advisor for Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, bringing a spiritual inquiry to the public health crisis of loneliness. A chaplain-in-training, she is also pursuing how we chaplain the end of extractive systems that isolate communities from themselves and one another.
Board Treasurer
Chief Operating Officer
Cancer Help Program Director
Arlene Allsman
Arlene has decades of experience in both nonprofit leadership and finance. She has supported nonprofits with community organizing and arts research and, prior to that, she worked with independent investment advisory firms that focused on empowering women.
Advancement Director
Mary O'Brien
Mary's background in nonprofit fundraising crisscrosses sectors of human potential, higher education, community philanthropy, conservation, and the performing arts. She and her Golden Retriever have found kindred spirits within the "flexible instrument of human service" that is Commonweal.
Executive Director
Healing Circles Global Co-Director
Steward
The Resilience Project & Omega Director
Stanley Wu
Stan’s parents immigrated from China and Chile. He has lived in intentional off-grid communities and has developed green energy systems (including solar and geothermal) and managed the utilities of a small town. He is a tango dancer, father, and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.
Head of Strategy and Innovation
Chief Financial Officer
Vanessa Marcotte
Vanessa began working in finance in 1996, since graduating from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and receiving her CPA license at Arthur Andersen. She lives in Bolinas with her husband and two children and loves walking, biking, and family camping.
Center for Healing and Liberation Director
Victoria Santos
Victoria’s work is rooted in a bold, inclusive vision that builds on her decades of deep commitment to racial justice and our collective liberation. Victoria guides initiatives that center compassion, inquiry in community, and exploration of ways to foster well-being, healing and freedom.
Power of Hope Director
Amber Faur
Amber is an ops maven, extreme gardener, and community activist. She has worked in social services and environmental organizations and is trained in international ag and rural sociology. She is fueled by a bubbly type A personality, love of spreadsheets, and passion for working alongside youth.
Office Coordinator
Commonweal Co-Founder
Environmental Health Advisor
Burr Heneman
Burr directed our Oceans Program and was ED of Point Reyes Bird Observatory and Conservation Science. A Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation since 1999, his focus remains on the intersection of science, policy, and natural resource stewardship at the regional, state, national, and international levels.
Events and Database Coordinator
Doron Hovav
Doron's journey spans from youth leadership to modern ballet, tech, and storytelling for Israeli TV for two decades. Then, in the US, delved into documentary production and spearheaded Sonoma County's Jewish and Israeli Film Festivals, Now, happy to serve on Commonweal Staff.
Donor and Grants Manager
Erin O'Reilly
Erin studied architecture at UC Berkeley and worked in the design profession in San Francisco for more than 20 years. Feeling a call to more heart-centric work, she traded the 25th floor of a sky tower for life at Commonweal, where she began in the permaculture garden.
Advancement Associate
Halley Sanders
Halley was raised in Bolinas, and studied film production at Humboldt State University. She has enjoyed working in the medical and natural medicine realms, as well as time as a stay-at-home mom. Coming to work at Commonweal is fulfilling her desire to do good in the world.
Site Manager
Jacob Scheidler
Jacob grew up in the countryside of Indiana where he developed a love of the wild. He has a degree in Biology and has worked at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, supported the California condor conservation effort, and taught in the Catalina Environmental Leadership Program. He loves music.
Cancer Help Program Advisor
Jenepher Stowell
Jenepher also has a lifelong interest in the intersection of spirituality, the natural world, human health, and the health of the planet. She has lived and worked at Commonweal since 1987 and still finds her work to be as meaningful and rewarding today as it was when she started, if not more so.
Retreat Center Coordinator
Cancer Help Program Advisor
Ladybird Morgan
Ladybird witnesses and teaches how to be present for life’s challenges and transitions by remembering, embodying and responding from our deepest truth. She is a registered nurse and social worker with 20+ years experience in palliative care and end-of-life and on the frontlines of sexual violence.
Human Resources Manager
Lisa Holsworth
Lisa served as a teacher and school program director for 20 years before transitioning into human resources. Her passion lies in helping others and fostering supportive workplace environments where employees can thrive. She enjoys learning new skills and exploring new ideas and perspectives.
Bolinas Community Liason
Environmental Health Advisor
New School Host
Steve Heilig
Steve Heilig is an editor, epidemiologist, ethicist, environmentalist, educator, and ethnomusicologist with Commonweal since the last century. He first found it while sneaking in for waves but reviewed Michael Lerner’s cancer book and then wound up co-founding programs and hosting New School talks.
Cancer Help Program Senior Advisor
Waz Thomas
Waz has a forty year history with Commonweal. He served as our General Manager for 26 years, and he co-founded and staffs the Cancer Help Program. He explores his artistic interests daily, in the late night and early morning hours. He says he came to Commonweal to do what needed to be done.
Omega Resilience Awards Co-Director
Andrea Frey
Andrea brings decades of experience in strategy, fundraising and communication for clients including Wildlife Justice Commission, Elephant Protection initiative, NEMO and Global Fishing Watch. She has worked at Oak Foundation, Amnesty International, the Swiss Development Agency, and the UN.
Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine Director
Anna O'Malley
Anna is a healer, a mother of two delightful girls, a lover of life and love itself, a climber of trees, a weaver of connections, and a champion of collective evolution for the good of all beings. Anna is also an MD and practices Integrative Family and Community Medicine
California Nurses for Environmental Health & Justice Director
Barbara Sattler
Barbara is an international leader in environmental health and nursing and works to integrate environmental health and justice into nursing education, practice, research and advocacy. She has mentored many nurses around the world. She is a Registered Nurse with a doctorate in Public Health.
Racial Healing Initiative Director
Brenda Salgado
Brenda is a spiritual and mindfulness author, speaker, wisdom keeper, healer, ceremonialist, and organizational consultant. She has 25 years of experience in transformative leadership development and traditional healing and ceremony. She is author of Real World Mindfulness for Beginners.
Center for Ethical Land Transition Director
Cassandra Lynn Ferrara
Cassandra’s work is rooted in liberation and repair through centering our relationship with Land. The Center provides strategic real estate support, education and programming in solidarity with cultural land reunion of communities displaced by colonization and capitalism.
CancerChoices Director
Christine Minehart
Christine is dedicated to bridging science and health communication with expertise spanning laboratory research, public health epidemiology, and community program evaluation. She translates complex health evidence to empower people with cancer interested in an integrative approach.
Healing Circles Houston Director
Healing Circles Global Co-Director
Diana Lindsay
After recovering from stage 4 lung cancer, Diana used her 20+ years of experience as CEO of Lindsay Communications to co-found Healing Circles Langley and Healing Circles Global. She is the author of Something More Than Hope: Surviving Despite the Odds, Thriving Because of Them.
Regenerative Design Institute Director
James Stark
James has committed his life to exploring how we—ourselves, our communities, and our species—might move into harmony with who we are and the natural world. He believes that creating a loving, peaceful inner world provides the soil for the seeds of our visions to grow in the world.
Collaborative for Health and Environment Director
Kristin Schafer
Kristin has worked for over three decades in the field of environmental health and justice. From her time as a communications specialist at EPA, to her work with Pesticide Action Network and now at CHE, she’s always a firm believer in the power of collaborative, science-based advocacy for change.
The New School Co-Director
Communications Manager
Healing Circles Global Deputy Director
Lindsay Espejel
Lindsay is dedicated to transforming healthcare organizations in stress to places that generate well-being from the inside out. She knows firsthand the transformative healing power of circles, and she holds a Doctorate of Nursing Practice.in Integrative Health and Healing.
West Marin Review Director
Madeleine Corson
Madeleine co-founded the Review after responding to an ad in 2006 about starting a literary publication. She has been on board ever since. She enjoys helping poets and authors self-publish and also works with organizations such as Stanford University, National Geographic, and Yosemite National Park.
Omega Resilience Awards Co-Director
Mark Valentine
Mark specializes in strategic program design and organizational development and has 25+ years experience helping nonprofits and philanthropic institutions. At the Packard Foundation he helped establish the nation’s largest conservation grantmaking program with initiatives around the world.
Kids & Caregivers Director
Nancy Netherland
Nancy is a mother of, and advocate for, two former foster children living with rare, chronic medical complexities. She founded Kids and Caregivers in response to the need for families, caregivers, and providers of chronically ill children to have increased support, resources, and information.
Cancer Help Program Medical Director
Rachel Naomi Remen
Rachel is Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF School of Medicine and a pioneer of Relationship Centered Care and Integrative Medicine. She is widely recognized for her ground-breaking program The Healer’s Art and her best-selling book Kitchen Table Wisdom.
Commonweal Biomonitoring Research Center Director
Sharyle Patton
Sharyle is a pioneer of community-driven biomonitoring projects and work to test firefighters and their gear for PFAS chemicals. She co-founded the International Pollution Elimination Network which worked to formulate the Stockholm Convention and continues to engage in UN treaties development.
GoCompassion Co-Director
SafetyNEST Director
Fellow
Center for Dying and Living Director
Fellow
Foundation of Embodied Medicine Director
Fellow
Deborah Cohan
Deb is a loving mother, joyous dancer, compassionate physician, and subtly mischievous rabble-rouser spreading the messages of joy, interconnectedness, and love. She is also a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UCSF and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and runs HIVE
project SOUL Director
Fellow
Jenyng Wu
Jenyng plays at the intersection of the Divine & Life. She creates containers for sacred and practical conversations, designs frameworks where intention integrates with the emergent, and facilitates the movement of imagination into action. She works in service of the 22nd Century flourishing.
Healing Yoga Foundation Director
Fellow
Kate Holcombe
Kate is dedicated to supporting and empowering individuals in their own health, healing, and personal development through Yoga. Kate has been a student of T.K.V. Desikachar since 1991 and has 20+ years of experience working with individuals facing a broad range of health concerns and illnesses.
Integrative Law Institute Director
Fellow
Pauline Tesler
Pauline believes in reclaiming law as a healing profession. A longtime California “Superlawyer,” she has published two books and many articles aimed at transforming how lawyers understand the human meaning of their work. Her work has catalyzed the international movement called “Collaborative Law.”
