Faculty Members in the BA Completion Program

School of Undergraduate Studies Director

Michelle Eng, MA Michelle Eng is Director of the School of Undergraduate Studies at CIIS. She has more than 14 years of experience in higher education—as an administrator and as faculty. She earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature from the University of Hawaii, Manoa.

Prior to joining CIIS, Michelle served as Assistant Dean of Students at Chaminade University of Honolulu where she developed the curriculum for the First Year Experience course which focuses on topics of transitioning to college, cultural sensitivity awareness, career planning and community service.

She has also taught writing and literature at TransPacific Hawaii College, Chaminade University, and the University of Hawaii.

Core Faculty

Alec MacLeod, MFA, has more than 25 years of experience in higher education. He received his undergraduate education at Hampshire College where he studied philosophy and fine arts. Alec also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Stanford University and has studied information science at the University of California at Berkeley.

He is a practicing visual artist whose work has been exhibited nationally. His current areas of interest also include explorations of culture through the use of language, visual explorations of theories of perception, and pedagogies for multicultural education. He was a member of the design team for CIIS's undergraduate degree completion program and the program's inaugural director.

Sandra Pacheco, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Undergraduate Studies. She received her doctorate from University of California Santa Cruz in psychology.

In her more than 12 years of experience in higher education, she has had the opportunity to develop new academic and student programs focusing on issues of diversity and educational equity.

Her teaching and research is informed by the fields of psychology, sociology, feminist studies, gender studies, and ethnic studies. Her teaching interests cover various social justice topics and use praxis pedagogy to engage students.

Her research interests focus on theorizing Chicana spirituality in higher education and (re)negotiating gendered relationships.

She is currently working on elaborating upon Gloria Anzaldua’s work on spirituality drawing from Chicana feminist theory and Anzaldua’s connection to James Hillman.

Sonya Shah, MFA, holds a BA in Visual Arts from Brown University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a Jacob Javits fellow.

She teaches by layering innovative pedagogies such as critical, transformative, collaborative and integral learning. Her interests lie in restorative justice, conflict transformation, the study of violence and nonviolent social movements and critical pedagogy.

Sonya Shah is also a senior facilitator at the National Association of Media Arts and Culture and runs a group at San Quentin with the Insight Prison Project. Her most recent essays have been published in The Alembic and Sou'wester. She has produced programming for KQED Public Radio and Television in San Francisco. Her documentary, Khmer Barbee (formerly Something between Her Hands) is distributed by the National Film Network and has screened in over seventy film festivals, conferences and colleges.

Hear Sonya talk about integral education.

Adjunct Faculty

Axil Cricchio, MA, earned an interdisciplinary Master of Arts degree in communication and social science and a Bachelor of Arts degree in social and behavioral sciences from California State University, Monterey Bay, where he has also been teaching since 2001. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Transformative Studies at CIIS. Axil's teaching/research interests include identity, ethnicity, queer politics, trans politics, and their interconnectivity to race, class, gender, and sexuality. Particularly, he is interested in how the language of social systems and cultural constructs shapes the way we learn, embody, and perform gender presentation and gender roles as dominant aspects of our identity. He is a community and social activist/advocate and actively participates in the pursuit of equality for the LGBTQI community. He is currently writing a book documenting his own gender transition called, In the Middle of Me.

Lael Fon, MA, completed her Masters in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness at CIIS. Postgraduation, Lael's interest in Chaos Theory and Complexity Theory led her to continue her studies in math. She combines the languages of philosophy and mathematics in her teaching in order to help students deepen their understanding of the natural world.

Isabel Garcia-Gonzales, MFA, has been teaching and working with students of all ages, from kindergarten to graduate students, for over 14 years. She has taught English composition and literature at Berkeley City College and worked at the Writing Center at Mills College. She currently teaches writing courses and workshops for the School of Undergraduate Studies at CIIS. A fiction writer and professional freelance writer, Isabel earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Mills College, and a BA degree in Sociology and Women's Studies with a concentration in Ethnic Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook and a finalist for the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award. Her stories have appeared in Our Own Voice: Filipinos in the Diaspora and in The Womanist: A Woman of Color Journal. She is currently working on a novel.

Kirstin Henninger, MA, has been an environmental educator for 17 years, working in the U.S., Kenya, and India. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Human Biology from Stanford University, and earned her Master's degree in International Relations (with a focus in Environmental Policy) from Tufts University. Kirstin's teaching career began in wilderness education and she has instructed and developed curriculum for a variety of experiential programs, such as the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Her teaching and research interests include environmental justice, energy conservation, green business practices and gender equity. She is the founding director of Green Café Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to greening the coffee shop industry and using café culture for sustainability education.

Monique LeSarre, MA, has been engaged in counseling, education, community research and social activism for the past eleven years. Specific Areas of teaching and research focus have been: Cross-Cultural/Multicultural Psychology; Critical Psychology; Liberation Psychology; Social Justice; Trauma Treatment, including decolonizing trauma diagnoses and expanding traditional concepts of trauma to include the psychological and social impacts of racism and intergenerational trauma through understanding family systems and historical context; Parenting and Early Childhood Mental Health; Drug and Alcohol Addiction Issues; Adoption/Trans-racial Adoption; Multiracial Identity Development; Indigenous Psychology and Healing Practices; African Spirituality, African/Africana Studies and Psychology, Black/African American Psychology; Transpersonal Psychology; Empowerment of Women; Self-Care and Burn-Out Prevention. Ms. LeSarre is a member of the CIIS community, beginning her undergraduate education at The New School for Social Research and subsequently transferring to and graduating from the SUS program, holding a B.A. in Integral Studies, a M.A. in Counseling Psychology and is currently serving as the MHSA Program Manager at CIIS and is also completing her Doctorate in the Clinical Psychology Program. Ms. LeSarre is currently teaching in the School of Undergraduate Studies, the general Master's in Counseling Program, the Integral Counseling Psychology Master's Program and the Transformative Leadership Department.

Kathy Littles, PhD, is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Undergraduate Studies; she is also the Director of the Transformative Inquiry Department at CIIS. In 2006 she earned her doctorate in Cultural Studies with a designated emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research from the University of California, Davis. She earned a BA in Anthropology and Art from St. Mary's College of California in 1994, and her MA in Anthropology from San Francisco State in 1998. Dr. Littles has taught courses at the College of Marin, Berkeley City College and UC Davis. Previous administrative positions include work with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Cultural Arts and Marketing Division for the City of Oakland, the Cultural Council for Monterey County in Carmel, CA and University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Littles teaches all three of the core courses in the Bachelor of Arts Completion Program as well as electives. Her research interests include critical race theory, feminist theory, African Art, and the semiotics of museums and ethnic art.

Kai Lundgren-Williams, PhD, studied political economy and fiction writing at the New School for Social Research, finished his BA in Social Sciences and Political Theory at Oberlin College, and received his PhD in Philosophy in 2001 from the Philosophy Interpretation and Culture program, State University of New York in Binghamton. He has taught at SUNY Binghamton, De Anza College, Laney College, the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, San Francisco State, and at New College of California where he helped develop the Activism and Social Change emphasis BA Completion and MA programs. He has published and given talks on alternatives to the modern capitalist devotion to scarcity as a way of being.

Targol Mesbah, PhD received her BA in film studies from the University of California Irvine and her PhD in history of consciousness at University of California Santa Cruz. She is presently working on her book manuscript entitled Why Does the Other Suffer? War, Trauma, and the Everyday. She has taught courses in critical theory, postcolonial critique, media studies, and Iranian cinema. Her research interests include critiques of the normalizing effects of biopower; poststructuralist philosophy; psychoanalytic time; and the politics of difference.

Amanda Leigh Morrison, MA, a graduate of the Somatic Psychology program at CIIS is an educator, counselor, activist, and writer. As a practitioner of ecopsychology and somatics, her work is focused on the role that nature and the body play in our personal and collective healing and in our capacity to reconnect to one another and our planet. In addition to her regularly teaching at CIIS, Amanda also counsels individuals at the Holos Institute in San Francisco; facilitates group work in San Quentin and at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Marin; and runs seasonal experiential urban ecotherapy workshops. Her article, "Embodying Sentience" was published in the book, Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind.

Charlotte Sáenz, Ed.M., MFA, divides her time between her homes in Mexico and San Francisco, where she teaches Interdisciplinary Studies at CIIS. As a learning artivista working for social and political change, she is part of the transnational Learning Societies Network, worked with Universidad de la Tierra, Chiapas, and UniTierra Oaxaca on a traveling program called "Beyond Globalization," as well as with Arab Youth and Palestinian refugees throughout Lebanon, immigrants in Chicago, Nahuatl teachers in Tlaxcala, and Mayan women playwright performers in San Cristóbal. Her work draws on multiple learning strategies and creative tools to facilitate a consciousness-raising process for both personal and community self-empowerment. She leads a winter study-trip to Chiapas focusing on Zapatismo and is currently researching the contemporary emergence of feminismos comunitarios in Latin America. She was Co-Director of Street-Level Youth Media and on Board of Women in the Director's Chair in Chicago. She was also Deputy Director of Academic Planning at the National Center of the Arts in Mexico City, where she was born and raised. She holds a BA from Yale, an International Education Ed.M. from Harvard, and a MFA in Film/Video/New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Brynn Saito, MA, MFA, is the author of Bright Power, Dark Peace, a collection of poetry forthcoming from Red Hen Press. She received her BA in philosophy from UC Berkeley, her MA in religious studies from New York University and her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. As an educator, Brynn is interested in writing and art-making as political and spiritual practices that integrate one's being and give voice to unspoken desires-both individual and collective. She is the recipient of a Kundiman Asian American Poetry Fellowship (2008), the Poets 11 award from the San Francisco Public Library (2010), and the Key West Literary Seminar's Scotti Merrill Memorial Award (2011). Brynn also teaches in CIIS' Master of Fine Arts programs. For more information, visit www.brynnsaito.com

Rylan Testa, PhD, recently completed his doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Temple University, in Philadelphia. His work focuses on understanding and preventing self-destructive behaviors, ranging from not wearing bike helmets to suicide. He is particularly committed to addressing these issues in under-served and at-risk populations. In particular, Dr. Testa has worked in clinical settings with African-American, LGBT, veteran and HIV+ populations. As a transman, Dr. Testa's current research focuses on preventing suicide in transgender individuals. Remembering fondly his undergraduate emphasis in African music, he also hopes to become more engaged in creative arts, both visual and musical, in the near future.

Colleen Wimmer, MA, MFT, earned a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology in Drama Therapy at CIIS, as well as a Master's degree in English Literature from the University of Utah, with an emphasis in critical theory, including feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, and postmodern theory. Her emphasis in her undergraduate work was creative writing. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has worked extensively with youth in-risk and women in prison, utilizing creative arts modalities for healing. Her research interests lie at the crossroads between eco-, critical, and imaginal psychology. She is currently exploring how the imagination can be harnessed as an expansive, visionary resource for guiding individuals to well-being, as well as assisting them in responding to the needs of their community. Social justice, ecological resiliency, and practices of sustainability on a personal and collective level, form the larger context of her work.

Nick Walker, MA, earned his B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies and his M.A. in Somatic Psychology at CIIS. He holds a 6th degree black belt in aikido, and is the founder and senior instructor of Aikido Shusekai, an independent aikido dojo in Berkeley. Nick is a speaker, author, educator, and consultant on a wide array of topics, including neurodiversity, autism, somatics, embodiment, creativity, transformative learning, diversity work, shadow work, and integral practice. He is a longtime social justice activist, particularly in the areas of neurodiversity, cognitive liberty, autistic rights, and disability rights. Since 1996, he has been a core member of the experimental physical theatre group Paratheatrical Research. More details on Nick's work can be found at walkersensei.com.

Zara Zimbardo, MA, received her Master's degree in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation from CIIS, and has a B.A. in Religious Studies from UC Berkeley. For the last fourteen years she has been a body-based therapist both in private practice and community health centers. She was the producer of an award-winning alternative current events television series, and leads workshops in critical media literacy at schools throughout the Bay Area. As a member of the National Council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the nation's oldest interfaith peace organization, she has worked in solidarity with nonviolent activists resisting militarism in the US, Israel/Palestine and Colombia. Currently she participates with local anti-racism programs as a facilitator using dialogue, creative process and Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed. Ongoing research interests include the politics of representation; Islamophobia; collective memory; and nonviolent social movements.