Faculty of the Integrative Health Studies Program

The Integrative Health Studies faculty comprises practicing integrative medicine doctors; complementary health clinicians; scientists researching complementary, alternative, integrative, and subtle energy medicine; community health policy makers; and international health experts.

Core Faculty

Meg Jordan, PhD, RN,CWP is the Integrative Health Studies department chair as well as a professor. She is a clinical medical anthropologist, international health journalist, and registered nurse specializing in behavioral health and integrative medicine applications in clinical settings. Her research explores the methods of negotiating and resolving conflict among practitioners of varying licensure, philosophies, and healing modalities. Meg has written five books on health, wellness, fitness, and nutrition, along with numerous articles. She is the founder and editor of American Fitness magazine, is a health commentator for radio and TV, serves on the board of trustees for the National Wellness Institute, and is a research consultant for numerous foundations and health care organizations. As a hospital trustee, she has helped to establish wellness centers for two major hospital systems in California, and as a registered nurse, she has worked in psychiatry, intensive care, and cardiac care, and supervised cardiac rehabilitation programs.

Silvia Nakkach, M.A., M.M.T. is an award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, voice-culturist and author. She has graduated and holds degrees from the National Conservatory of Buenos Aires, Argentina in piano and voice performance. She obtained Masters Degrees in Psychology and Music Therapy from the National University of Buenos Aires, and in Music Composition from Mills College, Oakland, California. In Argentina, she also has earned credentials in Psychoanalytic Psychodrama and Gestalt Therapy. Since 1982 she has studied raga singing and North Indian classical music with Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, in San Rafael, California. She is a certified instructor of Tai Chi-QiGong.

Yosuke Chikamoto, PhD, core faculty of IHL, received his PhD in Health Education from the Pennsylvania State University. He has worked for over 20 years in the fields of health education/promotion and employee wellness management. His previous appointments include Research and Development Manager at Stanford University School of Medicine Center for Research in Disease Prevention, Assistant Professor at American University, California State University-Fullerton, and Dokkyo Medical College, Director of Research at Health Fitness Corporation, and Director of Health Management at Keenan & Associates, a California employee benefits consulting firm.

Adjunct Faculty 

Fernando Agudelo-Silva, PhD, works in a wide range of applications of biological and ecological principles. Within the framework of sustainability, his projects include international work in agriculture, sustainable resource management, and landscaping.

Michael Arloski, PhD, PCC is a licensed psychologist, consultant and wellness coach with over 25 years in the wellness field. He has presented seminars, keynotes and consultations on four continents, pursuing his mission of taking the concept of wellness worldwide. Dr. Arloski is fascinated with how behavior, the environment and the human heart interact. In his book, Wellness Coaching For Lasting Lifestyle Change, he shows coaches and wellness professionals how to work with their clients to achieve lasting behavioral lifestyle change. Dr. Arloski is founder and CEO of Real Balance Global Wellness Services LLC, a company focused on educating and supporting quality wellness coaches.

John Beaulieu, N.D., PhD, is one of the foremost philosophers and major innovators in the area of sound healing therapies. A world-renowned speaker, composer, pianist, and naturopathic doctor, Dr. Beaulieu has pioneered a technique called BioSonic RepatterningTM, a natural method of healing and consciousness development using tuning forks and other sound modalities based on the sonic ratios inherent in nature. As the founder of BioSonic Enterprises, he has developed and distributed over 50 different sound healing-related products including tuning forks, instructional videos, audio programs, CDs and books. Dr. Beaulieu is the groundbreaking author of Music and Sound in the Healing Arts and the composer/producer of Calendula: A Suite for Pythagorean Tuning Forks, a CD designed to physically align your body and create a deep relaxed state of awareness. He lectures and performs worldwide and conducts training seminars for practitioners in the healing arts.

Mike Denney, MD, PhD, was board certified in surgery with an emphasis in trauma surgery in 1966. He was given the Frederick Coller Award for outstanding research by the American College of Surgeons in 1965. He practiced medicine and surgery for more than 35 years, serving as assistant professor of surgery in charge of emergency and trauma at Wayne State University, Detroit, and later at the University of California, Davis, and as clinical faculty at the University of California, San Diego. He has also practiced in other countries, including Italy, Turkey, and Nepal. He has served as chief of staff and chairman of quality assurance at a number of hospitals, and from 1990 to 2001 was CEO of his small company that consulted and served rural hospitals in Northern California. He also is a founding member of the IHL program.

Niyati Desai, MA, is associate director at Teleosis Institute, where she manages the Green Health Care Program, Green Pharmacy Program, and Symbiosis: The Journal of Ecologically Sustainable Medicine. In addition, Niyati is the internship coordinator for the Integrative Health Studies Department at CIIS, where she is also an adjunct faculty member. Niyati also is developing a vocational training program for female offenders, teaching whole-foodbased nutrition and cooking classes with emphasis on job placement in the sustainable food industry.

Farzad Khayam-Bashi, MD is a biotechnology professional and physician, with a diverse medical background encompassing research, clinical knowledge, health-related technology, and organizational leadership. Dr. Khayam-Bashi enjoys using his creativity and problem-solving skills to improve health-care management, and to promote health and wellness through effective outreach, patient education, and novel program development. He currently enjoys his work as Special Projects Coordinator at San Mateo Medical Center, in which he serves as the leader for community-wide special projects, including highly innovative new programs focused on expanding health-care access to under-served populations, reducing health-care costs, and streamlining operations so that greater benefits will reach more patients in the County of San Mateo. It is his hope to continue to positively impact community health and wellness through creative, effective, and meaningful ways.

Sally LaMont, ND, PhD is a naturopathic doctor, acupuncturist, educator and writer who has devoted the last twenty-seven years to teaching the principles of healthy living. She blends the science of naturopathic medicine with the ancient wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine, bringing them both to life in her work as a doctor and educator. Dr. LaMont's practice focuses on helping people identify the root causes of their condition, removing the obstacles to cure, and developing personalized natural treatment protocols to resolve symptoms and promote health. She assesses her patients through a variety of state-of-the-art laboratory tests and integrates nutritional medicine and dietary detoxification with herbal medicine and acupuncture.

Liz Lipski, PhD, CCN, CHN, is board certified in Clinical Nutrition and Holistic Nutrition. She holds a doctorate in Clinical Nutrition with a specialization in Functional Medicine from the Union Institute & University. She has been working in the field of nutrition, holistic health, herbology, lifestyle management, and relaxation and visualization techniques, and for over 30 years.  Author of Digestive Wellness and Digestive Wellness for Children, she is the Director of Doctoral Studies, and Educational Director at Hawthorn University and also teaches for Saybrook, the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), and the Autism Research Institute. She is a member of the Nutrition Advisory Board for the Institute for IFM, advisory board member of Food as Medicine, and special advisor to the board of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals (NANP). Liz offers mentoring groups for health professionals on Clinical & Functional Nutrition

Beverly Rubik, PhD, is an internationally recognized pioneer in integrative medicine and subtle energy research, and the founder and director of the Institute for Frontier Science. She holds several faculty positions, is the editor of The Interrelationship Between Mind and Matter, and a consultant to National Institutes of Health's founding Office of Alternative Medicine. Her research laboratory in Emeryville, CA, has explored the effects of wellness lifestyles on Reiki practitioners, the healing signature of water, and bioelectromagnetic therapeutics of various subtle energy devices. Dr. Rubik is a recipient of an NIH grant on subtle energy, shared with Dr. Gary Schwartz. She is a faculty member at Union Institute & University, and at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center.

John W. Travis, MD, MPH, is recognized as one of the founders of the wellness movement. Dr. Travis opened the first holistic wellness center in the U.S. in Mill Valley, CA in 1975, creating the first edition of the Wellness Inventory assessment that same year. He is the coauthor of the classic Wellness Workbook (3rd Edition, Celestial Arts, 2004), the support and companion book to the online Wellness Inventory Program. Dr. Travis teaches Health Assessment and Evaluation. He also teaches at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Allyson Washburn, PhD, received her PhD in Experimental Psychology from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Washburn's current research interests include early identification of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, social cognition in normal aging and dementia, personhood in dementia, non-pharmacological treatment for chronic pain, identification and treatment of depression in frail elders, and the epidemiology and treatment of diabetic complications. She has been conducting applied psychological research, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, for more than 20 years. She has been principal investigator on grants from the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer's Association. Much of Dr. Washburn's research on aging has been conducted at the Jewish Home in San Francisco, where she directs evaluations of innovative programs to enhance the quality of life for residents and staff. Dr. Washburn's earlier research examined novice mental models of computers (dissertation research using qualitative methods), acupuncture heroin detoxification, acupuncture treatment of cocaine dependence, and retention in substance abuse treatment.

"While ordinary biomedical science relies upon circumscribed, quantitative, and objective data, the new sciences additionally include wholeness, qualitative, and subjective elements of healing. In this way,‘evidence-based medicine' can become truly holistic." --Mike Denney, MD, PhD