HHE Faculty
Fernando Agudelo-Silva, PhD, Adjunct Professor, teaches HHE practica. He participates in the application of science and technology to sustainable community and personal development, works with institutions to develop and implement plans for efficient resource use, and teaches biology and ecology from an interdisciplinary point of view. He has held positions in academia, industry and international development institutions in the U. S and Latin America. His undergraduate education combined engineering and agriculture and he earned a Ph.D. degree (focus on microbial and insect interactions) at the University of California, Berkeley.
Linda Bark, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, teaches courses in Whole Health Coaching and Starting an Integrative Center. She is a health coach, teacher, healing center consultant and author with two nursing degrees, a masters in life transition counseling and a Ph.D. in Integral Health Studies, Philosophy and Religion. In 1970, she was one of the first nurses in private practice. In recent years she has been practicing and teaching Whole Health Coaching, which helps people make healthy changes. She also works for Aegis, a leader in the Assisted Living Industry, where she is a Director of Alzheimer's Units, creating and piloting a new integral health model for elders. Over the last 10 years she has consulted for many healing centers, such as the Wege Center for Mind, Body and Spirit (Grand Rapids), the Midwest Center for Health and Healing (Chicagoland) and the Olive Leaf Wholeness Center (Manhattan).
Ed Bauman, PhD, Adjunct Professor, teaches nutrition practica. He has been a leader in holistic health and nutrition since 1976 when he co-founded the Berkeley Holistic Health Center and edited the best selling Holistic Health Handbook. Ed is currently the executive director of the Institute for Educational Therapy's (IET) Nutrition Consultant and Natural Chef Training Programs, with 4 Bay area campuses and an innovative distance learning course. Ed practices clinical nutrition at Partners in Health in Cotati, CA and is the facilitator of the Vitality Rejuvenation retreats in California and in Mexico.
Michele Chase, PhD, Professor, teaches Foundations of Holistic Health, Energy Models of Healing, Integrative Final Project, Reiki, and other courses. A professor, administrator and program developer for nearly 30 years, Michele is Chair of the MA Program in Holistic Health Education at John F. Kennedy University. From this vantage point, Michele observes that the health field needs a larger vision - one that takes into account individuals and collectives in all their complexity. Michele's leadership to create the integrally-informed master's program at JFKU has provided students with solid yet innovative theoretical and practice foundations for health promotion and education.
She practices and teaches qigong and a (Taoist) healing modality called Chi Nei Tsang (Internal Organs Energy Massage). She also edits books on health, therapy, qigong, martial arts, and spirituality and writes poetry and creative nonfiction. Also a writer, Michele's Ph.D. is in English, and her published scholarly work has focused on study of how written texts reflect and shape specific knowledge-based communities. She recently won special acknowledgment for "Writing to Effect: Textual Form As Realization in an Integral Community," which she presented at the 2008 Integral Theory Conference. As Michele reflects, "I am a poet who went searching for wholeness and found health."
Linda Clark, M.A., C.N.C. Adjunct Professor, Holistic Health Education. BM, San Francisco State University, 1970; MA, John F. Kennedy, University, 2003. Clark's major interests include using whole foods nutrition and holistic health education, herbs, homeopathy and nutraceuticals to address both common and uncommon health issues as well as restore balance and vitality to the body. Her business, Universal Wellness Associates provides nutritional consultation and is thriving. She teaches Foundations of Holistic Nutrition, Healing Foods A, B, and C, as well as assorted practica.
Sheri Clinchard, Adjunct Professor, MA, Holistic Health Education, JFK University, 2002 teaches Health Education for 21st Century and Health Program Administration. She also teaches Mind-Body Healing at DVC Community college and has a private health consulting practice. Sheri works as a Senior Health Educator at Kaiser Permanente, focusing on women's health and fitness. She also teaches yoga in the Pleasanton community.
Vicki Dello Joio, BA, Adjunct Professor, teaches Embodying Spirit and qigong practica. For the last 12 years she has been teaching her own integrative approach to Qigong that she calls The Way of Joy. This system draws upon several different disciplines: martial arts, theater and other expressive arts (writing, painting, and communication skills) to facilitate students in developing understanding of Qi (life force) and how to use it in their every day lives. In 1993 she founded the Way of Joy School in Oakland, where she teaches workshops, leads classes, and works one-on- one with individuals. Her book, The Way of Joy, has recently been published.
Heidi Dulay, EdD, NC, Adjunct Lecturer, teaches Comparative Dietary Approaches and Tibetan Qigong. She is a certified nutritionist and clinical hypno-therapist with a doctorate from Harvard University in human development. Her nutrition practice includes private consultations and group seminars focusing on holistic weight management and conditions related to overweight. She has led juice fasting retreats and is also responsible for product development and training for a whole food supplement company. She has studied and taught qigong for 17 years and is one of the few students of Master Zi Sheng Wang who is authorized to teach ancient Tibetan Qigong practices Master Wang brought to the West.
Fall Ferguson, JD, MA, Adjunct Professor, teaches The Collective Body. Formerly an attorney specializing in sexual harassment and disability law, she has an M.A. from John F. Kennedy University in Holistic Health Education with a Specialization in Somatic Education. Her private practice includes providing coaching & health education services in two chief areas. First, her Embodied Learning Method includes cultivating body awareness as a way to access the individual's healing and transformative edge. Second, she focuses on the Health at Every Size (HAES) model, which is oriented toward health and quality of life rather than weight loss and restrictive dieting. Her HAES practice includes working with individuals and groups on body image and disordered eating issues.
Marilyn Fowler, MA, ABD, Assistant Professor and Program Director for the MA in Consciousness Studies & Transformative Studies Program and Program Director for the Dream Studies Certificate Program. As a former business consultant for 18 years, her areas of academic emphasis focus on communication, facilitation, professional development and business development. Her passions include dream work, leading Vision Quests and bringing authenticity to the workplace. Among the other courses she teaches are Spirit in the Workplace, Starting Your Own Business, and Dream Groups Facilitation and Ethics. She also teaches course in teaching taken by HHE students.
Jerris Hogue, Adjunct Professor, MA in Holistic Health Education, teaches From Farm to Table, a key course in our holistic nutrition specialization. A master gardener, he also plays a key role in our Sustainability, Health, and Education garden. Jerris is an integrative health educator, and his areas of specialization include health and spirituality through the use of labyrinths, nutrition and wellness coaching, promoting gardening and food growing as a therapeutic, sustainable and celebratory activity, and men's health.
Sarah Josef, M.A., R.D, is a nutritionist currently working in the field of research and teaching at two universities. She has recently started her own private consulting practice which uses a holistic, non-diet approach in helping individuals with food-related issues. Her experience includes running a community nutrition program on Maui, and conducting cooking classes for breast cancer survivors. She has a passion for the environment and eating as a spiritual practice.
Joel Kreisberg, DC, CCH, Adjunct Professor, teaches Health, Environment, Sustainability, Mind-Body Approaches to Self-Care, and Integral Research, as well as assorted practica. He has taught, researched, and published extensively, and participates in professional organizations that promote CAM. He's developed the Teleosis Foundation to promote the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Medicine, which integrates chiropractic, homeopathy, orthobionomy, craniosacral therapy, herbal medicine, nutrition, and exercise.
Tam Lundy, PhD, Adjunct Professor, is a consultant, educator and mentor in the field of human and social development, with extensive professional experience in government, community and educational settings. She introduces integral thinking and practice approaches to policy makers and practitioners in diverse disciplines and sectors: health promotion, planning, governance, organizational development, and community development, engagement and capacity building. Tam also develops innovative practice tools such as the Integral Capacity Building Framework, adopted by BC Healthy Communities as a foundation of the healthy communities approach, and Integral-U - a theoretical and practical fusing of Ken Wilber's integral framework and Otto Scharmer's U-Process. Tam lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Jamie McHugh, RMT, Adjunct Professor, teaches movement classes and is a registered somatic movement educator, writer and performance artist. He has been teaching at John F Kennedy University since 1991. Jamie is the director of Somatic Expressive Movement Arts trainings in Europe and the United States. He is also an on-going consultant for the Swiss AIDS Federation and the author of the forthcoming "Movement as Medicine: Restoring Our Original Grace."
Hayley Oggel, MA (Arts & Consciousness), Adjunct Professor, teaches practica, most recently, one on practical applications that combine art and healing.
Wendy Palmer, Adjunct Professor, is a fifth degree black belt in Aikido. She is co-founder and chief instructor with George Leonard at Tamalpais Aikido in Mill Valley, California, She developed Conscious Embodiment training which uses Aikido principles as a way of studying intuition, boundaries, relationships and the process of leadership. She directed the Prison Integrated Health Program, a program committed to demonstrating the efficacy of a humanitarian approach to prison work, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin Ca. for seven years. She is the author of two books, The Practice of Freedom, and The Intuitive Body (with a video of the same name).
Adrienne Peggs, MA, Adjunct Professor, teaches a practicum on Corporate Wellness. She is a Stress Management and Relaxation Consultant, Wellness Coach and Worksite Health Promotion professional. She has developed and taught health education curricula for Kaiser Oakland and trained educators and students (pre-K through high school) in relaxation, stress-management and mind-body skills as an instructor with the Mind/Body Medical Institute, Education Initiative. Since receiving her MA in Holistic Health Education from JFKU in 1999, she has focused on worksite wellness and is currently the Employee Health Services Administrator and Wellness Manager for the County of Alameda. In this capacity, she seeks to integrate conventional and holistic approaches to worksite health promotion.
Michelle Peticolas, PhD, Adjunct Professor, is both a sociologist, a documentarian and a long-time student of personal and spiritual transformation. For five years, she produced and hosted the local access TV series, On the Edge, a talk show exploring the interconnection of mind, body, and spirit (aired in NYC, San Francisco, Berkeley, Concord and Mann). Since the deaths of her parents, she has been working on the documentary, Secrets of Life and Death, focusing on death as an impetus for personal and spiritual awakening. Segments of this documentary are screened in her classes. She is a hospice volunteer at Sutter VNA and Hospice and also teaches Sufi-style classes in moving and dance meditation.
Laura Shekerjian, MA, MFT Adjunct Professor. B.A. Oakland University, 1971; M.A. Buddhist Studies, University of Michigan, 1979. M.A. Integral Psychology, CIIS, 1990. Interests include exploring the relationship between Buddhist and Western paths of transformation and deepening the symbolic dimension of psycho-spiritual development through the creative arts. She teaches Effective Communication and Tibetan Buddhism.
Theresa Silow, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, teaches Moving and Sensing in the HHE program. She also provides somatic education in academic, wellness and personal growth settings and is an instructor at the Sonoma State University. Theresa has been exploring the integration of body, mind and spirit for over 20 years and studied extensively with Emilie Conrad (Continuum), Anna Halprin (the Halprin Life/Art Process), and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (Body-Mind Centering). She received her Ph.D. in Somatic Studies from The Ohio State University. Her dissertation was an inquiry into function and meaning of the kinesthetic sense — our ability for sensation. Her own spiritual path is guided by her awareness of her body and its ongoing movement and unfolding.
Vanessa Smith, MA, Adjunct Professor, teaches HHE practica, most recently on the topic of using social networking in health promotion. She is a wellness coach and very active in promoting holistic health through education, especially in her business, Integrative Wellness Works. Besides her HHE degree, she is certified life coach, certified as a diet counselor, through Bauman College, and also a massage therapist.
Vernice Solimar, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Integral Studies Department, teaches Paradigms of Consciousness and World Religions, as well as other courses taken by students the program. Her main interests include the evolution and psychology of consciousness, integral perspectives of personal and social transformation, women's spirituality, indigenous studies and psycho-spiritual human development.
Atava Garcia Swiecicki, MA, RH (AHG). Ms Swiecicki received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and graduate degree from Naropa University Oakland in Indigenous Mind. She has been studying and practicing acupressure since 1992 and is a certified practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu®. Atava began formally studying herbal medicine in 1995 and has studied with both western herbalists and traditional indigenous healers. She is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and sees clients in her private practice in Oakland. She is also faculty member at Ohlone Herbal Center in Berkeley.
Paula Szloboda, R.N., N.I., M.A, M.B.A., assistant professor, teaches Integrative Health, Physiology and Psychology of Stress, Applied Nutritional Biochemistry, and Nutritional Consultation, among other courses. Paula comes to JFK with over a decade of teaching and coaching experience in nutrition, health, cooking, weight management, and environmental healing with diverse clients including child welfare agencies, corporations, Universities, and social service organizations. She is also a Bauman trained therapeutic chef with a flourishing practice and occasional spots as a celebrity chef.
Dara Thompson, ND, teaches practica on naturopathy and on approaches to various health challenges. She is a naturopathic doctor practicing in San Francisco, CA and Hilo, HI, and specializes in therapeutic nutrition, women's health, environmental medicine and optimal wellness.
Helayne Waldman, Ed.D., N.E., has been appointed as an Adjunct Professor. She received her doctorate in education in 1995, and her nutrition training from Bauman College of Nutrition and Culinary Arts. In addition to teaching and counseling clients, Helayne writes a nutrition column for the Contra Costa Times Newspaper Group in the East Bay, and the Daily News Group on the San Francisco. With background in media and communications, Helayne is also the producer of the educational DVD "Time for an Oil Change."
Tamara Wolfson, MS, LAC., Adjunct Professor, teaches Asian Approaches to Healing. She maintains a private acupuncture practice in the Bay area and teaches courses and seminars regularly on healing with whole foods and Chinese medical studies.
Linda Bark, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, teaches courses in Whole Health Coaching and Starting an Integrative Center. She is a health coach, teacher, healing center consultant and author with two nursing degrees, a masters in life transition counseling and a Ph.D. in Integral Health Studies, Philosophy and Religion. In 1970, she was one of the first nurses in private practice. In recent years she has been practicing and teaching Whole Health Coaching, which helps people make healthy changes. She also works for Aegis, a leader in the Assisted Living Industry, where she is a Director of Alzheimer's Units, creating and piloting a new integral health model for elders. Over the last 10 years she has consulted for many healing centers, such as the Wege Center for Mind, Body and Spirit (Grand Rapids), the Midwest Center for Health and Healing (Chicagoland) and the Olive Leaf Wholeness Center (Manhattan).
Ed Bauman, PhD, Adjunct Professor, teaches nutrition practica. He has been a leader in holistic health and nutrition since 1976 when he co-founded the Berkeley Holistic Health Center and edited the best selling Holistic Health Handbook. Ed is currently the executive director of the Institute for Educational Therapy's (IET) Nutrition Consultant and Natural Chef Training Programs, with 4 Bay area campuses and an innovative distance learning course. Ed practices clinical nutrition at Partners in Health in Cotati, CA and is the facilitator of the Vitality Rejuvenation retreats in California and in Mexico.
Michele Chase, PhD, Professor, teaches Foundations of Holistic Health, Energy Models of Healing, Integrative Final Project, Reiki, and other courses. A professor, administrator and program developer for nearly 30 years, Michele is Chair of the MA Program in Holistic Health Education at John F. Kennedy University. From this vantage point, Michele observes that the health field needs a larger vision - one that takes into account individuals and collectives in all their complexity. Michele's leadership to create the integrally-informed master's program at JFKU has provided students with solid yet innovative theoretical and practice foundations for health promotion and education.
She practices and teaches qigong and a (Taoist) healing modality called Chi Nei Tsang (Internal Organs Energy Massage). She also edits books on health, therapy, qigong, martial arts, and spirituality and writes poetry and creative nonfiction. Also a writer, Michele's Ph.D. is in English, and her published scholarly work has focused on study of how written texts reflect and shape specific knowledge-based communities. She recently won special acknowledgment for "Writing to Effect: Textual Form As Realization in an Integral Community," which she presented at the 2008 Integral Theory Conference. As Michele reflects, "I am a poet who went searching for wholeness and found health."
Linda Clark, M.A., C.N.C. Adjunct Professor, Holistic Health Education. BM, San Francisco State University, 1970; MA, John F. Kennedy, University, 2003. Clark's major interests include using whole foods nutrition and holistic health education, herbs, homeopathy and nutraceuticals to address both common and uncommon health issues as well as restore balance and vitality to the body. Her business, Universal Wellness Associates provides nutritional consultation and is thriving. She teaches Foundations of Holistic Nutrition, Healing Foods A, B, and C, as well as assorted practica.
Sheri Clinchard, Adjunct Professor, MA, Holistic Health Education, JFK University, 2002 teaches Health Education for 21st Century and Health Program Administration. She also teaches Mind-Body Healing at DVC Community college and has a private health consulting practice. Sheri works as a Senior Health Educator at Kaiser Permanente, focusing on women's health and fitness. She also teaches yoga in the Pleasanton community.
Vicki Dello Joio, BA, Adjunct Professor, teaches Embodying Spirit and qigong practica. For the last 12 years she has been teaching her own integrative approach to Qigong that she calls The Way of Joy. This system draws upon several different disciplines: martial arts, theater and other expressive arts (writing, painting, and communication skills) to facilitate students in developing understanding of Qi (life force) and how to use it in their every day lives. In 1993 she founded the Way of Joy School in Oakland, where she teaches workshops, leads classes, and works one-on- one with individuals. Her book, The Way of Joy, has recently been published.
Heidi Dulay, EdD, NC, Adjunct Lecturer, teaches Comparative Dietary Approaches and Tibetan Qigong. She is a certified nutritionist and clinical hypno-therapist with a doctorate from Harvard University in human development. Her nutrition practice includes private consultations and group seminars focusing on holistic weight management and conditions related to overweight. She has led juice fasting retreats and is also responsible for product development and training for a whole food supplement company. She has studied and taught qigong for 17 years and is one of the few students of Master Zi Sheng Wang who is authorized to teach ancient Tibetan Qigong practices Master Wang brought to the West.
Fall Ferguson, JD, MA, Adjunct Professor, teaches The Collective Body. Formerly an attorney specializing in sexual harassment and disability law, she has an M.A. from John F. Kennedy University in Holistic Health Education with a Specialization in Somatic Education. Her private practice includes providing coaching & health education services in two chief areas. First, her Embodied Learning Method includes cultivating body awareness as a way to access the individual's healing and transformative edge. Second, she focuses on the Health at Every Size (HAES) model, which is oriented toward health and quality of life rather than weight loss and restrictive dieting. Her HAES practice includes working with individuals and groups on body image and disordered eating issues.
Marilyn Fowler, MA, ABD, Assistant Professor and Program Director for the MA in Consciousness Studies & Transformative Studies Program and Program Director for the Dream Studies Certificate Program. As a former business consultant for 18 years, her areas of academic emphasis focus on communication, facilitation, professional development and business development. Her passions include dream work, leading Vision Quests and bringing authenticity to the workplace. Among the other courses she teaches are Spirit in the Workplace, Starting Your Own Business, and Dream Groups Facilitation and Ethics. She also teaches course in teaching taken by HHE students.
Jerris Hogue, Adjunct Professor, MA in Holistic Health Education, teaches From Farm to Table, a key course in our holistic nutrition specialization. A master gardener, he also plays a key role in our Sustainability, Health, and Education garden. Jerris is an integrative health educator, and his areas of specialization include health and spirituality through the use of labyrinths, nutrition and wellness coaching, promoting gardening and food growing as a therapeutic, sustainable and celebratory activity, and men's health.
Sarah Josef, M.A., R.D, is a nutritionist currently working in the field of research and teaching at two universities. She has recently started her own private consulting practice which uses a holistic, non-diet approach in helping individuals with food-related issues. Her experience includes running a community nutrition program on Maui, and conducting cooking classes for breast cancer survivors. She has a passion for the environment and eating as a spiritual practice.
Joel Kreisberg, DC, CCH, Adjunct Professor, teaches Health, Environment, Sustainability, Mind-Body Approaches to Self-Care, and Integral Research, as well as assorted practica. He has taught, researched, and published extensively, and participates in professional organizations that promote CAM. He's developed the Teleosis Foundation to promote the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Medicine, which integrates chiropractic, homeopathy, orthobionomy, craniosacral therapy, herbal medicine, nutrition, and exercise.
Tam Lundy, PhD, Adjunct Professor, is a consultant, educator and mentor in the field of human and social development, with extensive professional experience in government, community and educational settings. She introduces integral thinking and practice approaches to policy makers and practitioners in diverse disciplines and sectors: health promotion, planning, governance, organizational development, and community development, engagement and capacity building. Tam also develops innovative practice tools such as the Integral Capacity Building Framework, adopted by BC Healthy Communities as a foundation of the healthy communities approach, and Integral-U - a theoretical and practical fusing of Ken Wilber's integral framework and Otto Scharmer's U-Process. Tam lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Jamie McHugh, RMT, Adjunct Professor, teaches movement classes and is a registered somatic movement educator, writer and performance artist. He has been teaching at John F Kennedy University since 1991. Jamie is the director of Somatic Expressive Movement Arts trainings in Europe and the United States. He is also an on-going consultant for the Swiss AIDS Federation and the author of the forthcoming "Movement as Medicine: Restoring Our Original Grace."
Hayley Oggel, MA (Arts & Consciousness), Adjunct Professor, teaches practica, most recently, one on practical applications that combine art and healing.
Wendy Palmer, Adjunct Professor, is a fifth degree black belt in Aikido. She is co-founder and chief instructor with George Leonard at Tamalpais Aikido in Mill Valley, California, She developed Conscious Embodiment training which uses Aikido principles as a way of studying intuition, boundaries, relationships and the process of leadership. She directed the Prison Integrated Health Program, a program committed to demonstrating the efficacy of a humanitarian approach to prison work, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin Ca. for seven years. She is the author of two books, The Practice of Freedom, and The Intuitive Body (with a video of the same name).
Adrienne Peggs, MA, Adjunct Professor, teaches a practicum on Corporate Wellness. She is a Stress Management and Relaxation Consultant, Wellness Coach and Worksite Health Promotion professional. She has developed and taught health education curricula for Kaiser Oakland and trained educators and students (pre-K through high school) in relaxation, stress-management and mind-body skills as an instructor with the Mind/Body Medical Institute, Education Initiative. Since receiving her MA in Holistic Health Education from JFKU in 1999, she has focused on worksite wellness and is currently the Employee Health Services Administrator and Wellness Manager for the County of Alameda. In this capacity, she seeks to integrate conventional and holistic approaches to worksite health promotion.
Michelle Peticolas, PhD, Adjunct Professor, is both a sociologist, a documentarian and a long-time student of personal and spiritual transformation. For five years, she produced and hosted the local access TV series, On the Edge, a talk show exploring the interconnection of mind, body, and spirit (aired in NYC, San Francisco, Berkeley, Concord and Mann). Since the deaths of her parents, she has been working on the documentary, Secrets of Life and Death, focusing on death as an impetus for personal and spiritual awakening. Segments of this documentary are screened in her classes. She is a hospice volunteer at Sutter VNA and Hospice and also teaches Sufi-style classes in moving and dance meditation.
Laura Shekerjian, MA, MFT Adjunct Professor. B.A. Oakland University, 1971; M.A. Buddhist Studies, University of Michigan, 1979. M.A. Integral Psychology, CIIS, 1990. Interests include exploring the relationship between Buddhist and Western paths of transformation and deepening the symbolic dimension of psycho-spiritual development through the creative arts. She teaches Effective Communication and Tibetan Buddhism.
Theresa Silow, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, teaches Moving and Sensing in the HHE program. She also provides somatic education in academic, wellness and personal growth settings and is an instructor at the Sonoma State University. Theresa has been exploring the integration of body, mind and spirit for over 20 years and studied extensively with Emilie Conrad (Continuum), Anna Halprin (the Halprin Life/Art Process), and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (Body-Mind Centering). She received her Ph.D. in Somatic Studies from The Ohio State University. Her dissertation was an inquiry into function and meaning of the kinesthetic sense — our ability for sensation. Her own spiritual path is guided by her awareness of her body and its ongoing movement and unfolding.
Vanessa Smith, MA, Adjunct Professor, teaches HHE practica, most recently on the topic of using social networking in health promotion. She is a wellness coach and very active in promoting holistic health through education, especially in her business, Integrative Wellness Works. Besides her HHE degree, she is certified life coach, certified as a diet counselor, through Bauman College, and also a massage therapist.
Vernice Solimar, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Integral Studies Department, teaches Paradigms of Consciousness and World Religions, as well as other courses taken by students the program. Her main interests include the evolution and psychology of consciousness, integral perspectives of personal and social transformation, women's spirituality, indigenous studies and psycho-spiritual human development.
Atava Garcia Swiecicki, MA, RH (AHG). Ms Swiecicki received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and graduate degree from Naropa University Oakland in Indigenous Mind. She has been studying and practicing acupressure since 1992 and is a certified practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu®. Atava began formally studying herbal medicine in 1995 and has studied with both western herbalists and traditional indigenous healers. She is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and sees clients in her private practice in Oakland. She is also faculty member at Ohlone Herbal Center in Berkeley.
Paula Szloboda, R.N., N.I., M.A, M.B.A., assistant professor, teaches Integrative Health, Physiology and Psychology of Stress, Applied Nutritional Biochemistry, and Nutritional Consultation, among other courses. Paula comes to JFK with over a decade of teaching and coaching experience in nutrition, health, cooking, weight management, and environmental healing with diverse clients including child welfare agencies, corporations, Universities, and social service organizations. She is also a Bauman trained therapeutic chef with a flourishing practice and occasional spots as a celebrity chef.
Dara Thompson, ND, teaches practica on naturopathy and on approaches to various health challenges. She is a naturopathic doctor practicing in San Francisco, CA and Hilo, HI, and specializes in therapeutic nutrition, women's health, environmental medicine and optimal wellness.
Helayne Waldman, Ed.D., N.E., has been appointed as an Adjunct Professor. She received her doctorate in education in 1995, and her nutrition training from Bauman College of Nutrition and Culinary Arts. In addition to teaching and counseling clients, Helayne writes a nutrition column for the Contra Costa Times Newspaper Group in the East Bay, and the Daily News Group on the San Francisco. With background in media and communications, Helayne is also the producer of the educational DVD "Time for an Oil Change."
Tamara Wolfson, MS, LAC., Adjunct Professor, teaches Asian Approaches to Healing. She maintains a private acupuncture practice in the Bay area and teaches courses and seminars regularly on healing with whole foods and Chinese medical studies.