Jenn Alise

Director of Operations

Staff, Vision Council

Jenn Alise comes to Gather Well Psychedelics with experience as a community organizer, operations manager and leader in expansion for yoga studios across the Hawaiian islands, and facilitator of numerous training programs within the realms of movement and mindfulness. A dancer at heart, Jenn Alise moves wholeheartedly with the rhythm of change, allowing her to thrive in ambiguity and maintain space for emergence when developing and executing operational strategies. Since childhood, she has felt the urge to be of service to the healing of humanity through the restoration of interconnectedness within community. Jenn Alise feels that her life's purpose aligns deeply with organizational mission and is thrilled to be part of such a values driven team and inspired effort.

Alan Bisarya

Strategic Financial Planning

Staff

Alan is a Strategic Planning professional with extensive experience in helping companies better define their strategy and also make sound resource allocation decisions in the implementation of that strategy. Specifically, Alan has led a comprehensive pro-forma valuation that rationalized the acquisition of a $4B oncology drug pipeline, as well as built the central forecasting model used by a large biotech company to value their entire drug portfolio. Alan also is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and has taught psychology courses as an Instructor at UC Berkeley Extension and as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University. Alan holds a BA in Economics from Stanford University, an MA in Education from Harvard University, and an MA in Integral Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Elaine Mak

Interim Executive Co-Director

(beginning in June)

Staff, Board of Directors

Elaine Mak is a proven executive leader that delivers scalable impact through bold ethics. Her proven methodology, The Mak Effect, unlocks the power of responsible leadership to accelerate the growth of companies and their people.

For 20+ years, Elaine has used her ethics-first approach to scale mission driven organizations into best-in-class operation. Her expertise includes global expansion, enabling sustainable company performance and profitable business growth.

Elaine, a Business Insider Top 25 Innovator, recognizes the unique power of psychedelics to open the hearts and minds of leaders who often unconsciously resist change.She believes that with intentional guidance, psychedelics can facilitate an enduring shift in leadership style from a product of social conditioning to a conscious choice in how to wield power with responsibility.

Outside of work, Elaine loves adventures with her family and actively volunteers her time developing emerging leaders in the social sector.

Florie St. Aime

Program Development, Lead Facilitator

Staff

Florie (she/hers) LCSW, is a Fat Black Queer Cis Woman born, raised, in Lenapehoking particularly the Canarsee peoples land, now known as Brooklyn NY one generation removed from Haiti, the land of the Taino’s and before that the landmass now known as Africa, people unknown. She describes herself as a liberation-based clinician. This label roots her work in naming and blaming social constructs instead of individuals; encouraging curiosity and sensing as resistance; and practicing human connection and care towards all beings as radical action. Florie invites others into liberation practices through organizing/activism, group facilitation/workshops, individual counseling, holding sacred space and clinical supervision.

Naama Grossbard

Program Vision and Development

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision council

Naama is a guide, teacher, mother and artist. She identifies as a white, cis-queer, woman. She is a first generation American of French and Israeli descent and also raised by the redwood forests of California’s central coast. She is committed to love and a future in which everyone has the opportunity to know their goodness and thrive. She has apprenticed in expanded states of consciousness work and psychedelic healing modalities most of her life with her parents, Francoise Bourzat and Aharon Grossbard. She has her Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in conceptual art and interactive art. Since 2018 she has turned her creativity towards building this organization in the service of healing, growth and systemic change. Until 2023 Naama was the founding Executive Director at Gather Well, where she currently co-creates programs and curriculums and serves on the Vision Council and Board of Directors. She has studied at the Hakomi Institute and holds a certificate in permaculture design with a special interest in social permaculture principles. She lives in the area known as Nevada City, the unceded land of the Nisenan, in the Sierra foothills of California with her partner, Bear, and their two young sons.

Dimple Pajwani

Advisor

Dimple Pajwani is the Managing Director of Client Services at Mind Share Partners. She leads its workplace mental health strategic advising, culture transformation and training services, helping organizations to create mentally healthy cultures where everyone thrives. 

Dimple is drawn to helping people and organizations flourish. She has over 15 years of experience leading strategy, operations, and innovation at nonprofit and for-profit organizations. In her roles as an executive, she has led organizational development, culture change, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work. Prior to Mind Share Partners, she served as the Deputy Director at SupplyBank.Org and as the Chief Operating Officer at SPUR. As a management consultant at PwC, she built two innovative practices — HR Analytics and Healthcare Modeling. At Blue Shield of California and Stanford Children’s Health, she built portfolios of innovation programs that advanced patient outcomes in novel ways.

Previously, Dimple served as an independent consultant for the John Burton Foundation, the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the United Nations, and the UK Department for International Development, where she advised on national and international policy matters. Dimple started her career as a software engineer and brings the engineering problem-solving mindset to her work. 

Dimple is a restorative practitioner and non-violent communication (NVC) coach. Since 2010, she has mediated community cases, led restorative processes, built restorative programs and systems for organizations, and trained and coached groups and individuals on restorative skills and NVC. She recently served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for SEEDS, a conflict transformation nonprofit, and as a strategic advisor for the Transformative Justice Institute, a restorative justice nonprofit.

Dimple holds an M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an M.P.P. from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School, an M.Sc. in Operations Research from Strathclyde University, and a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Houston.

Lori Ashcroft

Advisor

Lori Ashcraft, Ph.D. After a full career in California including Deputy Mental Health Director for Community Programs, Lori worked with Bill Anthony and colleagues at Boston University and her commitment to recovery and peer services became a passion. In 2015, Lori created Resilience, Inc. to provide consultation for innovative peer delivered services.

During her 40 year behavioral health career, Lori has had a strong interest in the therapeutic effects of self-determination, choice, and personal freedom. She did her dissertation on freedom, spending a month in Russia at the time the Soviet Union collapsed, and focused her inquiry in Soviet mental hospitals, where the lack of freedom and choice was pervasive.

After a full career in California that included the Deputy Director for Community Programs of state Department of Mental Health, she re-located to Arizona where she accepted the position as Director for Adult Services for the Regional Behavioral Health Authority and served as a professor for the University of Arizona teaching psycho-social rehabilitation and managing one of eight SAMHSA funded employment demonstration programs. It was during this time that Lori became involved in the recovery movement. Through training with Mary Ellen Copeland and help from colleagues at Boston University, her commitment to recovery principles became a passion. When META Services (now Recovery Innovations), opened the Recovery Education Center in the fall of 2000, Lori accepted the position as Executive Director of the Center. Currently Lori is the Executive Director for the Recovery Innovations Recovery Opportunity Center.

Lori’s vision for the future is to continue teaching recovery principles and practices, assuring people that they can recover. She has developed several curricula designed to help individuals with psychiatric experiences move beyond recovery by finding their purpose, making their own unique contribution, and using their experiences to help others grow and recover. Her own passion for recovery stems from personal experience having struggled with severe depression most of her life.  Most of her time is spent writing books, developing training material and delivering presentations and trainings to help spread the word that recovery is proven and possible.

Ron Shore, PhD

Executive Co-Director

Staff

Ron is a community organizer, harm reduction activist, and health scientist with a  deep background in community health, social justice and plant medicines. Ron is the founder of Kingston, Ontario’s Street Health Centre, a multi-service community health center for people facing multiple barriers to health. Beginning as a prison outreach and needle exchange worker, Ron went on to complete a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and a Master’s in Public Administration with a focus on health policy and has spent 23 years working in harm reduction and community health.

Ron taught Health 237, Introduction to the Study of Drug and Alcohol Problems, for 15 years at Queen’s University, and for two years taught the inaugural Psychedelics, Politics and Harm Reduction at the University of Ottawa. Ron is faculty in the Foundations of Psychedelic Psychotherapy Program at the University Health Network / Michener Institute in Toronto Ontario, teaching psilocybin-related content, and is currently completing the Contemplative End-of-Life Care (Death Doula) program at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto.

Ron’s PhD, defended in June 2022, is specific to the therapeutic application of psilocybin. Ron is a Research Scientist at Queen’s University in their psychedelics collaborative, helping to design and carry out psychedelics-related research and clinical trials, and is currently completing a Post-doctoral Fellowship in Public Health Sciences at Queen’s, researching models of public policy for psychedelics.

Ron practices Buddhism and enjoys Qi Gong. He lives in Kingston, Ontario Canada with his partner -- somatic therapist and ceremonialist Norah Greatrix – and their amazing three children.

Teresa Ceja

Accounting

Staff

Teresa Ceja provides accounting support to the Gather Well team. Teresa has over 15 years experience managing accounting activities for a diverse range of clientele. She has worked in the nonprofit community since early 2020. She enjoys working for the nonprofit sector – this experience has given her a deep appreciation for how nonprofits seek to improve the quality of life for our region.

In her personal time, Teresa enjoys participating and volunteering at her daughter’s dance studio. She hopes to travel more in the upcoming year.

Nikiya Schwarz

Communications

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision Council

Nikiya is part of the communications and visionary team. She has been on a lifelong journey of bringing interior states into external expression, with twin passions in creativity and healing. This has taken form in the realms of art, design, marketing, writing, movement and parenting. She has a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies weaving Eastern Religion, Sociology & Ecology. She has a training certificate as a Skills for Change coach, has studied Hakomi, the Rosen method, Relational Somatic Healing, meditation, community supported agriculture, and is an interior designer and a certified BTB (Black Sect) Feng Shui Practitioner. She enjoys exploring the relationships between people and the spaces they inhabit, with a special interest in creating sacred space. Her greatest joys are co-parenting her two daughters, her godson, having her hands in the soil, creativity in all its forms, and the watershed she calls home. She lives on Nisenan land in the foothills of Northern California.

Damon Horowitz

Advisor

Damon works with individuals and organizations to help them identify their fundamental vision and purpose, articulate their culture and values, and develop a strategy for manifesting their potential.  His distinctive approach combines elements from the  humanities, technology innovation design, and mindful somatic psychology.

As a professor, Damon teaches courses in philosophy and  related areas at Columbia, Stanford, U. Penn., NYU, and San Quentin State Prison (now Mt. Tamalpais College). He has a special interest in leading "Great Books" seminars to bring the history of Western thought to life for contemporary students.

As a technologist, Damon has co-founded three successful startup companies -- including the social search engine Aardvark, where he was CTO -- and led teams at each through acquisition. He was the first "In-house Philosopher" at Google, where he was also a Director of Engineering leading a breakthrough cross-company AI research initiative.  He now consults with mission-driven companies on strategy, with a particular specialty in AI and ethics.

Damon has extensive experience in public speaking at venues ranging from TED to academic conferences to large corporate events.  He has semi-professional experience in theatre (as a director) and music (as a classical pianist).  He earned a BA from Columbia, a MS in Artificial Intelligence from MIT, and a PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science from Stanford.  He has also completed comprehensive training in Hakomi Experiential Psychotherapy, which he integrates into his advising and coaching work.  Damon has served on the Board of Directors for several arts and humanities non-profits, ranging from the Del Sol String Quartet to California Humanities.

Yecenia Miranda

Vision Council

There’s a tender place in my heart for our human family. I feel a deep longing to be a force for goodwill and healing on our planet.  In my role on the Gather Well Vision Council, I intend to collaborate with the stewards of this organization to co create a healthy and thriving program, drawing from my perspectives as a mother, woman, and multiracial being. My personal mission is to heal legacies of trauma and to have a positive impact on the families and communities that I am part of. My prayer is for us all to remember our Goodness and to feel held in this interconnected web of Life.

Dianne Woods

Vision Council

I am retired but still love being of service. I convene Women’s Circles and Wisdom Circles in the Bay Area. I have a few mentees who find my pragmatic and heartfelt counsel useful. I am a 20-year student of the Ridhwan Spiritual School and champion Cultural Consciousness within the community. I continue to open to new ways of being a good friend, neighbor, and responsible human being.

Before retiring, I was on faculty at New Ventures West Coaching Academy, an

Adjunct Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies and at SFSU-Extended Learning in San Francisco. Prior to starting my own coaching practice, I served as Vice President of Global Strategies and Organization Development at Levi Strauss. Before arriving in California, I was Director of Human Resources at Public Service, Electric and Gas Company in New Jersey.

I have a BS in Psychology from Kalamazoo College and a Master’s Degree in Organization Development from American University. 

As a child, I developed leadership and public service skills in the Black Baptist Church. While in college, I co-led the Black Student Organization which garnered a tenured Black professor and a Black Studies Program. After moving to California, I participated in Race Conversations, DEI training programs in many corporations and nonprofits. I live in Oakland with my partner of over 30 years.

Bear Thomas

Vision Council

Bear Hart Thomas is a deep thinker who likes to identify patterns and challenge assumptions. He currently identifies as neuroqueer; specifically as a trans masculine ADHDer. He holds graduate degrees in Cultural Theory, Creative Writing, and Linguistics. Bear then pursued a law degree, but found himself feeling deeply disconnected and unfulfilled, so he abruptly reformed himself to a life of living off the land and learning about plants, healing, and himself more deeply. He now lives in Northern California with his family where he enjoys following his interests in art making, cooking, plant tending, building, imaginative play with his kids, and in depth dialogues about the nature of reality and the social constructs of our world.

Bennet Zelner

Advisor

Bennet researches, teaches, and advises on regenerative economics, psychedelics, and leadership. Current projects include ongoing work on the Pollination Approach – a regenerative economic approach to delivering mental health treatment ­– and research on the effects of psychedelic-assisted, consciousness-expanding experiences on decision-making by organizational leaders.

Bennet serves as Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also serves as a director or advisory board member for Usona Institute, Nautilus Psychedelic Medicine Institute, Brooklyn Psychedelic Society, and the Intercollegiate Psychedelic Network.

Bennet is a frequent keynote speaker, conference panelist, and podcast guest. Links to talks and writings can be found on his LinkedIn page.

Matt Elkin

General Outside Legal Counsel

Matthew Elkin focuses his practice on advising tax-exempt organizations and other businesses and high net worth families with their charitable and social goals. He regularly advises on the formation of investment funds by both nonprofit and for-profit sponsors, the acquisition and disposition of program-, mission- and impact-related and other investments, joint ventures, sponsored research, mergers and acquisitions, and financing and licensing arrangements. He also counsels boards of directors on fiduciary duties, conflicts of interest, risk oversight, board and committee structures, affiliated entities, internal investigations, board evaluation processes, executive compensation and compliance with other regulatory and governance best practices. His extensive experience with and practical approach to corporate transactions and governance matters are valuable assets to the clients he represents. In addition,  Matt shares his knowledge with students as an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School International Transactions Clinic.

Lead in Co-Evaluative Process Development

Staff

Our lead co-evaluative development director has spent the last 30+ years supporting and training budding therapists, developing programs, and helping to create thriving community as a Clinic Manager and Co-Director at a counseling center in California.

Since joining the Gather Well team, they have been supporting the mission of preparing and educating psychedelic guides by developing processes and systems to assess student progress, to serve as both a gatekeeper and in such a way that offers opportunities for students to grow as practitioners.  We are planning to expand these systems to look at all aspects of GatherWell, allowing not only our students, but programs, staff, and the organization as a whole to be accountable, continue to grow, and evolve.

Elaine Mak

Interim Executive Co-Director 

(beginning in June)

Staff, Board of Directors

Elaine Mak is a proven executive leader that delivers scalable impact through bold ethics. Her proven methodology, The Mak Effect, unlocks the power of responsible leadership to accelerate the growth of companies and their people. 

For 20+ years, Elaine has used her ethics-first approach to scale mission driven organizations into best-in-class operation. Her expertise includes global expansion, enabling sustainable company performance and profitable business growth. 

Elaine, a Business Insider Top 25 Innovator, recognizes the unique power of psychedelics to open the hearts and minds of leaders who often unconsciously resist change.She believes that with intentional guidance, psychedelics can facilitate an enduring shift in leadership style from a product of social conditioning to a conscious choice in how to wield power with responsibility. 

Outside of work, Elaine loves adventures with her family and actively volunteers her time developing emerging leaders in the social sector.

Naama Grossbard

Program Vision and Development

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision council

Naama is a guide, teacher, mother and artist. She identifies as a white, cis-queer, woman. She is a first generation American of French and Israeli descent and also raised by the redwood forests of California’s central coast. She is committed to love and a future in which everyone has the opportunity to know their goodness and thrive. She has apprenticed in expanded states of consciousness work and psychedelic healing modalities most of her life with her parents, Francoise Bourzat and Aharon Grossbard. She has her Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in conceptual art and interactive art. Since 2018 she has turned her creativity towards building this organization in the service of healing, growth and systemic change. Until 2023 Naama was the founding Executive Director at Gather Well, where she currently co-creates programs and curriculums and serves on the Vision Council and Board of Directors. She has studied at the Hakomi Institute and holds a certificate in permaculture design with a special interest in social permaculture principles. She lives in the area known as Nevada City, the unceded land of the Nisenan, in the Sierra foothills of California with her partner, Bear, and their two young sons.

Nikiya Schwarz

Communications

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision Council

Nikiya is part of the communications and visionary team. She has been on a lifelong journey of bringing interior states into external expression, with twin passions in creativity and healing. This has taken form in the realms of art, design, marketing, writing, movement and parenting. She has a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies weaving Eastern Religion, Sociology & Ecology. She has a training certificate as a Skills for Change coach, has studied Hakomi, the Rosen method, Relational Somatic Healing, meditation, community supported agriculture, and is an interior designer and a certified BTB (Black Sect) Feng Shui Practitioner. She enjoys exploring the relationships between people and the spaces they inhabit, with a special interest in creating sacred space. Her greatest joys are co-parenting her two daughters, her godson, having her hands in the soil, creativity in all its forms, and the watershed she calls home. She lives on Nisenan land in the foothills of Northern California.

Jenn Alise

Director of Operations

Staff, Vision Council

Jenn Alise comes to Gather Well Psychedelics with experience as a community organizer, operations manager and leader in expansion for yoga studios across the Hawaiian islands, and facilitator of numerous training programs within the realms of movement and mindfulness. A dancer at heart, Jenn Alise moves wholeheartedly with the rhythm of change, allowing her to thrive in ambiguity and maintain space for emergence when developing and executing operational strategies. Since childhood, she has felt the urge to be of service to the healing of humanity through the restoration of interconnectedness within community. Jenn Alise feels that her life's purpose aligns deeply with organizational mission and is thrilled to be part of such a values driven team and inspired effort.

Alan Bisarya

Strategic Financial Planning

Staff

Alan is a Strategic Planning professional with extensive experience in helping companies better define their strategy and also make sound resource allocation decisions in the implementation of that strategy. Specifically, Alan has led a comprehensive pro-forma valuation that rationalized the acquisition of a $4B oncology drug pipeline, as well as built the central forecasting model used by a large biotech company to value their entire drug portfolio. Alan also is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and has taught psychology courses as an Instructor at UC Berkeley Extension and as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University. Alan holds a BA in Economics from Stanford University, an MA in Education from Harvard University, and an MA in Integral Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Elaine Mak

Interim Executive Co-Director 

(beginning in June)

Staff, Board of Directors

Elaine Mak is a proven executive leader that delivers scalable impact through bold ethics. Her proven methodology, The Mak Effect, unlocks the power of responsible leadership to accelerate the growth of companies and their people. 

For 20+ years, Elaine has used her ethics-first approach to scale mission driven organizations into best-in-class operation. Her expertise includes global expansion, enabling sustainable company performance and profitable business growth. 

Elaine, a Business Insider Top 25 Innovator, recognizes the unique power of psychedelics to open the hearts and minds of leaders who often unconsciously resist change.She believes that with intentional guidance, psychedelics can facilitate an enduring shift in leadership style from a product of social conditioning to a conscious choice in how to wield power with responsibility. 

Outside of work, Elaine loves adventures with her family and actively volunteers her time developing emerging leaders in the social sector.

Florie St. Aime

Program Development, Lead Facilitator

Staff

Florie (she/hers) LCSW, is a Fat Black Queer Cis Woman born, raised, in Lenapehoking particularly the Canarsee peoples land, now known as Brooklyn NY one generation removed from Haiti, the land of the Taino’s and before that the landmass now known as Africa, people unknown. She describes herself as a liberation-based clinician. This label roots her work in naming and blaming social constructs instead of individuals; encouraging curiosity and sensing as resistance; and practicing human connection and care towards all beings as radical action. Florie invites others into liberation practices through organizing/activism, group facilitation/workshops, individual counseling, holding sacred space and clinical supervision.

Naama Grossbard

Program Vision and Development

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision council

Naama is a guide, teacher, mother and artist. She identifies as a white, cis-queer, woman. She is a first generation American of French and Israeli descent and also raised by the redwood forests of California’s central coast. She is committed to love and a future in which everyone has the opportunity to know their goodness and thrive. She has apprenticed in expanded states of consciousness work and psychedelic healing modalities most of her life with her parents, Francoise Bourzat and Aharon Grossbard. She has her Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in conceptual art and interactive art. Since 2018 she has turned her creativity towards building this organization in the service of healing, growth and systemic change. Until 2023 Naama was the founding Executive Director at Gather Well, where she currently co-creates programs and curriculums and serves on the Vision Council and Board of Directors. She has studied at the Hakomi Institute and holds a certificate in permaculture design with a special interest in social permaculture principles. She lives in the area known as Nevada City, the unceded land of the Nisenan, in the Sierra foothills of California with her partner, Bear, and their two young sons.

Ron Shore, PhD

Executive Co-Director

Staff

Ron is a community organizer, harm reduction activist, and health scientist with a  deep background in community health, social justice and plant medicines. Ron is the founder of Kingston, Ontario’s Street Health Centre, a multi-service community health center for people facing multiple barriers to health. Beginning as a prison outreach and needle exchange worker, Ron went on to complete a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and a Master’s in Public Administration with a focus on health policy and has spent 23 years working in harm reduction and community health.

Ron taught Health 237, Introduction to the Study of Drug and Alcohol Problems, for 15 years at Queen’s University, and for two years taught the inaugural Psychedelics, Politics and Harm Reduction at the University of Ottawa. Ron is faculty in the Foundations of Psychedelic Psychotherapy Program at the University Health Network / Michener Institute in Toronto Ontario, teaching psilocybin-related content, and is currently completing the Contemplative End-of-Life Care (Death Doula) program at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto.

Ron’s PhD, defended in June 2022, is specific to the therapeutic application of psilocybin. Ron is a Research Scientist at Queen’s University in their psychedelics collaborative, helping to design and carry out psychedelics-related research and clinical trials, and is currently completing a Post-doctoral Fellowship in Public Health Sciences at Queen’s, researching models of public policy for psychedelics.

Ron practices Buddhism and enjoys Qi Gong. He lives in Kingston, Ontario Canada with his partner -- somatic therapist and ceremonialist Norah Greatrix – and their amazing three children.

Teresa Ceja

Accounting

Staff

Teresa Ceja provides accounting support to the Gather Well team. Teresa has over 15 years experience managing accounting activities for a diverse range of clientele. She has worked in the nonprofit community since early 2020. She enjoys working for the nonprofit sector – this experience has given her a deep appreciation for how nonprofits seek to improve the quality of life for our region.

In her personal time, Teresa enjoys participating and volunteering at her daughter’s dance studio. She hopes to travel more in the upcoming year.

Nikiya Schwarz

Communications

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision Council

Nikiya is part of the communications and visionary team. She has been on a lifelong journey of bringing interior states into external expression, with twin passions in creativity and healing. This has taken form in the realms of art, design, marketing, writing, movement and parenting. She has a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies weaving Eastern Religion, Sociology & Ecology. She has a training certificate as a Skills for Change coach, has studied Hakomi, the Rosen method, Relational Somatic Healing, meditation, community supported agriculture, and is an interior designer and a certified BTB (Black Sect) Feng Shui Practitioner. She enjoys exploring the relationships between people and the spaces they inhabit, with a special interest in creating sacred space. Her greatest joys are co-parenting her two daughters, her godson, having her hands in the soil, creativity in all its forms, and the watershed she calls home. She lives on Nisenan land in the foothills of Northern California.

Matt Elkin

General Outside Legal Counsel

Matthew Elkin focuses his practice on advising tax-exempt organizations and other businesses and high net worth families with their charitable and social goals. He regularly advises on the formation of investment funds by both nonprofit and for-profit sponsors, the acquisition and disposition of program-, mission- and impact-related and other investments, joint ventures, sponsored research, mergers and acquisitions, and financing and licensing arrangements. He also counsels boards of directors on fiduciary duties, conflicts of interest, risk oversight, board and committee structures, affiliated entities, internal investigations, board evaluation processes, executive compensation and compliance with other regulatory and governance best practices. His extensive experience with and practical approach to corporate transactions and governance matters are valuable assets to the clients he represents. In addition,  Matt shares his knowledge with students as an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School International Transactions Clinic.

Lead in Co-Evaluative Process Development 

Staff

Our lead co-evaluative development director has spent the last 30+ years supporting and training budding therapists, developing programs, and helping to create thriving community as a Clinic Manager and Co-Director at a counseling center in California.

Since joining the Gather Well team, they have been supporting the mission of preparing and educating psychedelic guides by developing processes and systems to assess student progress, to serve as both a gatekeeper and in such a way that offers opportunities for students to grow as practitioners.  We are planning to expand these systems to look at all aspects of GatherWell, allowing not only our students, but programs, staff, and the organization as a whole to be accountable, continue to grow, and evolve.

Jenn Alise

Director of Operations

Staff, Vision Council

Jenn Alise comes to Gather Well Psychedelics with experience as a community organizer, operations manager and leader in expansion for yoga studios across the Hawaiian islands, and facilitator of numerous training programs within the realms of movement and mindfulness. A dancer at heart, Jenn Alise moves wholeheartedly with the rhythm of change, allowing her to thrive in ambiguity and maintain space for emergence when developing and executing operational strategies. Since childhood, she has felt the urge to be of service to the healing of humanity through the restoration of interconnectedness within community. Jenn Alise feels that her life's purpose aligns deeply with organizational mission and is thrilled to be part of such a values driven team and inspired effort.

Naama Grossbard

Program Vision and Development

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision council

Naama is a guide, teacher, mother and artist. She identifies as a white, cis-queer, woman. She is a first generation American of French and Israeli descent and also raised by the redwood forests of California’s central coast. She is committed to love and a future in which everyone has the opportunity to know their goodness and thrive. She has apprenticed in expanded states of consciousness work and psychedelic healing modalities most of her life with her parents, Francoise Bourzat and Aharon Grossbard. She has her Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in conceptual art and interactive art. Since 2018 she has turned her creativity towards building this organization in the service of healing, growth and systemic change. Until 2023 Naama was the founding Executive Director at Gather Well, where she currently co-creates programs and curriculums and serves on the Vision Council and Board of Directors. She has studied at the Hakomi Institute and holds a certificate in permaculture design with a special interest in social permaculture principles. She lives in the area known as Nevada City, the unceded land of the Nisenan, in the Sierra foothills of California with her partner, Bear, and their two young sons.

Nikiya Schwarz

Communications

Staff, Board of Directors, Vision Council

Nikiya is part of the communications and visionary team. She has been on a lifelong journey of bringing interior states into external expression, with twin passions in creativity and healing. This has taken form in the realms of art, design, marketing, writing, movement and parenting. She has a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies weaving Eastern Religion, Sociology & Ecology. She has a training certificate as a Skills for Change coach, has studied Hakomi, the Rosen method, Relational Somatic Healing, meditation, community supported agriculture, and is an interior designer and a certified BTB (Black Sect) Feng Shui Practitioner. She enjoys exploring the relationships between people and the spaces they inhabit, with a special interest in creating sacred space. Her greatest joys are co-parenting her two daughters, her godson, having her hands in the soil, creativity in all its forms, and the watershed she calls home. She lives on Nisenan land in the foothills of Northern California.

Yecenia Miranda

Vision Council

There’s a tender place in my heart for our human family. I feel a deep longing to be a force for goodwill and healing on our planet.  In my role on the Gather Well Vision Council, I intend to collaborate with the stewards of this organization to co create a healthy and thriving program, drawing from my perspectives as a mother, woman, and multiracial being. My personal mission is to heal legacies of trauma and to have a positive impact on the families and communities that I am part of. My prayer is for us all to remember our Goodness and to feel held in this interconnected web of Life.

Dianne Woods

Vision Council

I am retired but still love being of service. I convene Women’s Circles and Wisdom Circles in the Bay Area. I have a few mentees who find my pragmatic and heartfelt counsel useful. I am a 20-year student of the Ridhwan Spiritual School and champion Cultural Consciousness within the community. I continue to open to new ways of being a good friend, neighbor, and responsible human being.

Before retiring, I was on faculty at New Ventures West Coaching Academy, an

Adjunct Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies and at SFSU-Extended Learning in San Francisco. Prior to starting my own coaching practice, I served as Vice President of Global Strategies and Organization Development at Levi Strauss. Before arriving in California, I was Director of Human Resources at Public Service, Electric and Gas Company in New Jersey.

I have a BS in Psychology from Kalamazoo College and a Master’s Degree in Organization Development from American University. 

As a child, I developed leadership and public service skills in the Black Baptist Church. While in college, I co-led the Black Student Organization which garnered a tenured Black professor and a Black Studies Program. After moving to California, I participated in Race Conversations, DEI training programs in many corporations and nonprofits. I live in Oakland with my partner of over 30 years.

Bear Thomas

Vision Council

Bear Hart Thomas is a deep thinker who likes to identify patterns and challenge assumptions. He currently identifies as neuroqueer; specifically as a trans masculine ADHDer. He holds graduate degrees in Cultural Theory, Creative Writing, and Linguistics. Bear then pursued a law degree, but found himself feeling deeply disconnected and unfulfilled, so he abruptly reformed himself to a life of living off the land and learning about plants, healing, and himself more deeply. He now lives in Northern California with his family where he enjoys following his interests in art making, cooking, plant tending, building, imaginative play with his kids, and in depth dialogues about the nature of reality and the social constructs of our world.

Dimple Pajwani

Advisor

Dimple Pajwani is the Managing Director of Client Services at Mind Share Partners. She leads its workplace mental health strategic advising, culture transformation and training services, helping organizations to create mentally healthy cultures where everyone thrives. 

Dimple is drawn to helping people and organizations flourish. She has over 15 years of experience leading strategy, operations, and innovation at nonprofit and for-profit organizations. In her roles as an executive, she has led organizational development, culture change, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work. Prior to Mind Share Partners, she served as the Deputy Director at SupplyBank.Org and as the Chief Operating Officer at SPUR. As a management consultant at PwC, she built two innovative practices — HR Analytics and Healthcare Modeling. At Blue Shield of California and Stanford Children’s Health, she built portfolios of innovation programs that advanced patient outcomes in novel ways.

Previously, Dimple served as an independent consultant for the John Burton Foundation, the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the United Nations, and the UK Department for International Development, where she advised on national and international policy matters. Dimple started her career as a software engineer and brings the engineering problem-solving mindset to her work. 

Dimple is a restorative practitioner and non-violent communication (NVC) coach. Since 2010, she has mediated community cases, led restorative processes, built restorative programs and systems for organizations, and trained and coached groups and individuals on restorative skills and NVC. She recently served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for SEEDS, a conflict transformation nonprofit, and as a strategic advisor for the Transformative Justice Institute, a restorative justice nonprofit.

Dimple holds an M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an M.P.P. from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School, an M.Sc. in Operations Research from Strathclyde University, and a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Houston.

Lori Ashcroft

Advisor

Lori Ashcraft, Ph.D. After a full career in California including Deputy Mental Health Director for Community Programs, Lori worked with Bill Anthony and colleagues at Boston University and her commitment to recovery and peer services became a passion. In 2015, Lori created Resilience, Inc. to provide consultation for innovative peer delivered services.

During her 40 year behavioral health career, Lori has had a strong interest in the therapeutic effects of self-determination, choice, and personal freedom. She did her dissertation on freedom, spending a month in Russia at the time the Soviet Union collapsed, and focused her inquiry in Soviet mental hospitals, where the lack of freedom and choice was pervasive.

After a full career in California that included the Deputy Director for Community Programs of state Department of Mental Health, she re-located to Arizona where she accepted the position as Director for Adult Services for the Regional Behavioral Health Authority and served as a professor for the University of Arizona teaching psycho-social rehabilitation and managing one of eight SAMHSA funded employment demonstration programs. It was during this time that Lori became involved in the recovery movement. Through training with Mary Ellen Copeland and help from colleagues at Boston University, her commitment to recovery principles became a passion. When META Services (now Recovery Innovations), opened the Recovery Education Center in the fall of 2000, Lori accepted the position as Executive Director of the Center. Currently Lori is the Executive Director for the Recovery Innovations Recovery Opportunity Center.

Lori’s vision for the future is to continue teaching recovery principles and practices, assuring people that they can recover. She has developed several curricula designed to help individuals with psychiatric experiences move beyond recovery by finding their purpose, making their own unique contribution, and using their experiences to help others grow and recover. Her own passion for recovery stems from personal experience having struggled with severe depression most of her life.  Most of her time is spent writing books, developing training material and delivering presentations and trainings to help spread the word that recovery is proven and possible.

Damon Horowitz

Advisor

Damon works with individuals and organizations to help them identify their fundamental vision and purpose, articulate their culture and values, and develop a strategy for manifesting their potential.  His distinctive approach combines elements from the  humanities, technology innovation design, and mindful somatic psychology.

As a professor, Damon teaches courses in philosophy and  related areas at Columbia, Stanford, U. Penn., NYU, and San Quentin State Prison (now Mt. Tamalpais College). He has a special interest in leading "Great Books" seminars to bring the history of Western thought to life for contemporary students.

As a technologist, Damon has co-founded three successful startup companies -- including the social search engine Aardvark, where he was CTO -- and led teams at each through acquisition. He was the first "In-house Philosopher" at Google, where he was also a Director of Engineering leading a breakthrough cross-company AI research initiative.  He now consults with mission-driven companies on strategy, with a particular specialty in AI and ethics.

Damon has extensive experience in public speaking at venues ranging from TED to academic conferences to large corporate events.  He has semi-professional experience in theatre (as a director) and music (as a classical pianist).  He earned a BA from Columbia, a MS in Artificial Intelligence from MIT, and a PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science from Stanford.  He has also completed comprehensive training in Hakomi Experiential Psychotherapy, which he integrates into his advising and coaching work.  Damon has served on the Board of Directors for several arts and humanities non-profits, ranging from the Del Sol String Quartet to California Humanities.

Bennet Zelner

Advisor

Bennet researches, teaches, and advises on regenerative economics, psychedelics, and leadership. Current projects include ongoing work on the Pollination Approach – a regenerative economic approach to delivering mental health treatment ­– and research on the effects of psychedelic-assisted, consciousness-expanding experiences on decision-making by organizational leaders.

Bennet serves as Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also serves as a director or advisory board member for Usona Institute, Nautilus Psychedelic Medicine Institute, Brooklyn Psychedelic Society, and the Intercollegiate Psychedelic Network.

Bennet is a frequent keynote speaker, conference panelist, and podcast guest. Links to talks and writings can be found on his LinkedIn page.