People

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.

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.

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.

Jaune Evans

Poet, photographer and Soto Zen priest Jaune Evans is active in cancer healing circles, global philanthropy, human and ecological rights movements, Indigenous Peoples' lands, cultural lifeways, and knowledge systems.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Steven Bookoff

Steven Bookoff has 35+ years of financial and management experience. He is the chairman of the ORGANIC INDIA USA board and thrives on serving mission-driven organizations. He is deeply connected with Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville, where he lived for many years.

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.

Oren Slozberg

Oren’s work at Commonweal is currently focused on fostering the expansion of Commonweal’s capacity and diversity, meeting the emerging needs for new kinds of work and programs in today’s changing world and the polycrisis.

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.

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.

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.

Alexa Pal

Alexa is a baking, knitting, animal lover who works with the program numbers. After work, you can find her going for walks and attempting the NYT crossword puzzle.

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.

Beau Vincent

Beau began working at local restaurants and hotels around Bolinas and Stinson Beach at age 13. She moved on to real estate and property management with Oceanic Realty. She raised three amazing children and loves puzzles, hiking, and rollerskating.

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.

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.

Elon Slozberg

Elon is a bread-baking jazz sax player who loves cats (and humans) and anything involving numbers. He has worked as a relocation specialist, software developer, music teacher and wine curator.

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.

Francis Weller

Frances has been a therapist for over 40 years and has developed a style he calls Soul-Centered Psychotherapy. He is the author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow.

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.

Heidi Paul

When Heidi isn't working alongside the amazing community at Commonweal, she is working in her art studio or surfing.

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.

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.

Kimmy Haines

Kimmy is an ocean lover who finds great joy in watching folks transform after finding retreat in Bolinas. An avid drawer and painter with a devoted home studio practice, she additionally loves surfing, roller skating, and finding the best taquerias.

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.

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.

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.

Melinda Stone

Mt. Tamalpais told ​Melinda several years ago that ​she is a transceiver. ​She embrace​s this message from the mountain and ​is so thankful that ​she can practice ​her gifts with Commonweal and the community of Bolinas.

Sharon Tonski

Sharon embraces radical hospitality and is passionate about bringing people together. Before she found her home at Commonweal, she worked as a chemistry teacher and product engineer.

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.

Susan Grelock-Yusem

Susan is a depth-based community psychologist who has built teams and led communications for over 20 years in the regenerative food space. Her work is centered in the imaginal and narrative repair. She is a reader, writer, and runner.

Tu2, YingMing Tu

Ming is a Taiwan-born visual artist. His art is a practice of meditation made manifest. His work expresses awakening, affinity, and compassion and illustrates the infinite ways in which humanity is connected through space and time.

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.

Alex Dorsey

Alex Dorsey is a passionate facilitator with more than 25 years building and serving communities in the fields of community redevelopment, nonprofit and for-profit business management.

Alexandra Destler

Alexandra has worked for more than two decades to spark swift change in our public health system. Her aim? To promote global sustainability—not in theory but in practice. She holds degrees from Harvard, Cornell, and the Sorbonne.

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.

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

Armando Zumaya

Armando has been in fundraising for over 35 years. He is a noted expert on Latino Major Giving and all aspects of fundraising with the Latinx community.

BJ Miller

BJ is a hospice and palliative care specialist, public speaker, and connector. By facilitating open conversations about loss and perspective, he hopes to inspire people to effectively participate in their own care.

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.

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.

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.

David Spaw

Inspired from his personal experience of healing, David set out to bring Healing Circles to Texas. He has lost two wives and a sister to cancer and was drawn to this amazing approach as a path to discovery and healing, accessible to all.

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

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.

Elin Stebbins-Waldal

Elin is passionate about hosting and community building. She is the author of Tornado Warning, A Memoir Of Teen Dating Violence And Its Effect On A Woman’s Life.

Irwin Keller

Reb Irwin is a spiritual leader, performer, activist, lawyer and former drag queen. He has been spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom in Cotati, California, since 2008

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.

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.

Jim Quay

Dr. James Quay served as executive director of the California Council for the Humanities from 1983 to 2008. Since his retirement, he has been a facilitator for the Center for Courage and Renewal and facilitated retreats on Journeying through the Autumn of Life and Searching for the Heart of Resilie

Jordan Luftig

Jordan is dedicated to cultivating regenerative, equitable futures for all and is an Integral Master Coach. He is a founding member of the Guild of Future Architects.

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.

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.

Kyra Epstein

For more than 25 years, Kyra has helped organizations tell their stories. She is also a practitioner of herbal medicine and has studied with plant alchemist Suzanne Fischer-Rizzi and herbalist Stephen Buhner.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Valerie Chafograck

Valerie is an embodiment and conscious dance facilitator. Blending Soul Motion™ practice, somatic and social justice perspectives, she offers classes and workshops internationally to advance personal and collective transformation, healing, and liberation.