Faculty in the Transformative Studies Program

Alfonso Montuori, PhD is a graduate of the University of London. He has been Distinguished Professor in the School of Fine Arts at Miami University of Ohio, and from 1985-86 he taught at the Central South University in China.

Alfonso's books include "Evolutionary Competence" (Gieben, 1989); "From Power to Partnership," coauthored with Isabella Conti (Harper San Francisco, 1993); "Creators on Creating," coedited with Barron & Barron (Putnam, 1997); and "Social Creativity, Vols. 1-2," coedited with Ronald E. Purser (Hampton Press, 1999).

Alfonso has written articles in publications such as Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, Journal of Management Education, Journal of Transformative Education, Pluriverso, and Journal of Humanistic Psychology.

As principal of Evolutionary Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in executive development and the development of creativity and innovation, Alfonso has consulted on executive and management development, and creativity and innovation, with numerous international corporations, including Procter & Gamble, Network Appliance, Training Vision (Singapore), Pacific Bell, Stentor Group (Canada), Kaiser Permanente, Interstate Insurance, Omnitel-Olivetti (Italy), ENEL (Italy).

Allan Combs, PhD, holds a doctoral degree from the University of Georgia. He is a consciousness researcher, neuropsychologist, and systems theorist with expertise in integral psychology and philosophy, evolution of consciousness, consciousness and spirituality, transformations of consciousness, dreaming, mind and brain,
chaos and complexity.

He is also professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and past director of the Integral Studies program leading to an MA in Conscious Evolution at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut.

Allan has authored more than 50 articles, chapters, and books, including "The Radiance of Being: Understanding the Grand Integral Vision" (Second Edition); "Living the Integral Life," winner of the best-book award of the Scientific and Medical Network of the U.K., with a foreword by Ken Wilber; "Changing Visions: Human Cognitive Maps: Past, Present, and Future," with Ervin Laszlo, Vilmos Csanyi, and Robert Artigiani; "Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences," edited with Robin Robertson; "Nonlinear Dynamics in Human Behavior," edited with William Sulis; "Synchronicity: Through the Eyes of Science, Myth, and the Trickster," with Mark Holland; and "Mind in Time: The Dynamics of Thought, Reality, and Consciousness," with Mark Germine and Ben Geortzel.

Allan is a cofounder of the Integral Foundation and the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences; and a member of the General Evolution Research Group, the Integral Institute, the Forge Guild, and the 100-member Club of Budapest.

He is coeditor of the Journal of Conscious Evolution, is associate editor of Dynamical Psychology, serves on the editorial board of Science & Consciousness Review, and was the winner of the 2002-2003 National Teaching Award of the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs; in the same year he held the UNCA Honorary Ruth and Leon Feldman Professorship.

Daniel Deslauriers, PhD, received his doctorate (1989) in Psychology from the University of Montreal, Quebec, and conducted research at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the Chronopsychology Laboratory, Carleton University, Ontario. He has lived in Indonesia, studied the religion and sacred arts of Bali, and trained in Gamelan music and Balinese dance. Daniel was cofounder of the Montreal Center for the Study of Dreams. Daniel coauthored Le rêve: sa nature, sa fonction et une methode d'analyse (PUQ, 1987), has published articles on epistemology and narrative research, and is completing a coauthored book (with Fariba Bogzaran), Integral Dreaming (SUNY Press, forthcoming).

His professional interests in consciousness studies include traditional and contemporary approaches to dreams and imagination, altered states of consciousness, spiritual intelligence, and integral psychology. He is also a practitioner and teacher of Unity in Motion, a body/mind integrative practice. Daniel was selected as winner of the Templeton 2000 Science and Religion Course Award Competition for a course he developed, titled Consciousness, Science, and Religion.

Urusa Fahim, PhD, received her doctorate in transformative learning and change at CIIS. She received a master's degree in applied psychology from the Punjab University in Lahore, Pakistan, and her clinical training from the Center for Clinical Psychology in Lahore.

At the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, Urusa is a group facilitator for the Interpersonal Dynamics course. Her areas of interest include inquiry and research methodologies, group process, collaborative creativity, intercultural communication, and women's leadership.

She practiced as a clinical psychologist for several years in Lahore and Islamabad, Pakistan. Urusa also worked in the field of development management for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Academy for Educational Development (AED).

Urusa came to the United States in 1995 for graduate education. Her personal experiences with intercultural issues and dilemmas enhanced her interest in the field of intercultural communication and influenced her doctoral work.

Her dissertation research was on the development of cultural sensitivity in individuals. Urusa is participating in a three-year collaborative exploration on women's leadership with the Women's Leadership Collaborative West.

Joanne Gozawa received her PhD in integral studies with a focus on learning and change in human systems from CIIS in 2000. She has taught at CIIS (organic inquiry), at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, and at Presidio World College.

Her experiences in transformative learning and sensitivity to cultural differences have focused her practice on evoking a field that is inclusive and nonjudgmental, a field of mutuality that gives groups of diverse participants the safety in which to question their deep assumptions.

She has applied her approach to classes in transformative learning and to organizations interested in transforming conflict into collaboration. She hopes to broaden the theoretical ground of transformative learning with her work.

Constance A. Jones, PhD, holds a doctoral degree in sociology from Emory University and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for the Study of New Religious Movements of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

Beginning with her doctoral dissertation on the caste system in India, she has pursued a lifelong interest in the cultures and religions of the East, including the adoption of Eastern beliefs and practices into Western systems of thought.

Connie has served on the faculties of a number of graduate programs of religion. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Institutes of Health, the Ford Foundation, and the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars.

As a Fulbright scholar in India, she taught at Banaras Hindu University and Vasanta College, and conducted research at the Krishnamurti Study Center, Varanasi. For the past 13 years, Connie has been a member of a multidisciplinary team of scholars that investigates new religious movements around the world.

The team has done research on a wide range of new religions, including the Kashi Community in Roseland, Fla.; the Church Universal and Triumphant in Bozeman, Mont.; Ramtha's School of Enlightenment in Yelm, Wash.; the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness in Los Angeles; and the True Buddha School in Seattle. This research analyzes the dissemination of Eastern thought in the West through religious movements with Hindu and Buddhist roots.

Jennifer Wells, PhD, is a scholar of transdisciplinary complexity theories, sustainability, environmental ethics, climate change, and the esoteric. She has made one documentary film and is working on ideas for other films and multimedia projects.

Jennifer has written several articles and is working on a book regarding transdisciplinary complexity theories, a substantial resource for addressing global social and environmental change.

After completing an MA in environmental management at Yale University, she completed a dual PhD at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Philosophy Department of the Sorbonne, Paris IV, in France.

Jennifer is a mystic scholar, writer, environmentalist, and activist. Jennifer has studied shamanism and sweat lodge ceremonies with the Lakota Indians, volunteered in prisons in New York City and San Francisco, helped to build green houses and operate an artist community and an organic farm in northwest Connecticut, and lived for several years in France.

In her last job in New York City, she worked as a program director in a sustainability education organization, conducting teacher training sessions for high school and college teachers and program managers, and integrating systems concepts into high school and college textbooks and classrooms.

Key Adjunct Faculty

Susan G. Carter, PhD, received an MA in women's spirituality and a PhD in humanities from CIIS. She has presented nationally and internationally on various topics related to engaged spirituality and higher education.

Susan has formed and directed a 501[c][3] foundation, consults with other Bay Area educational institutions to help promote community service, and teaches various courses at CIIS, including a course on spirit, compassion, and community activism.

Byron Dan Crowe, PhD, teaches key courses in the program, most notably the Capstone: Action Project. His areas of interest are what he calls "unleashing the spirit" and "the will to lead."
After his long experience on Wall Street and in the private sector, Dan taught extensively in graduate leadership programs and has won several awards for his teaching. Among these is the prestigious Paul E. Hoffner Award for Outstanding Faculty Service, given by the Consortium for Advancement of Adult Higher Education. Dan is a graduate of Harvard University.

Riane Eisler, JD, is an eminent social scientist, attorney, and author for the bestseller, "The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future," now in 23 foreign editions.

Her other books include the award-winning "The Power of Partnership and Tomorrow's Children"; "Sacred Pleasure," a daring reexamination of sexuality and spirituality; and "Women, Men, and the Global Quality of Life," documenting the key role of women's status in a nation's general quality of life.

Eisler is a sought-after presenter for keynote conferences worldwide, and is a consultant to business and government on applications of the partnership model introduced in her work. International venues have included Germany at the invitation of Professor Rita Suessmuth (ex-president of the Bundestag) and Daniel Goeudevert (former CEO of Volkswagen International); Colombia, invited by the mayor of Bogota; and the Czech Republic, invited by Vaclav Havel (former president of the Czech Republic).

Eisler, who was born in Vienna, fled from the Nazis with her parents to Cuba, and later immigrated to the United States. She obtained degrees in sociology and law from the University of California, and taught pioneering classes on women and the law at UCLA before becoming core faculty in the Transformative Leadership program at CIIS.

She is a founding member of the General Evolution Research Group (GERG), a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and the World Business Academy, and a commissioner of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality, along with the Dalai Lama and other spiritual leaders.

She is cofounder with Nobel Peace laureate Betty Williams of the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence (SAIV), and president of the Center for Partnership Studies, dedicated to research and education.

Roger Harrison, PhD, is a consultant, trainer, and theorist whose career spans 40 years. He has influenced every phase of the birth and growth of the discipline of organization development (OD), from its beginnings within the sensitivity training seminars of the 1950s to its current role in shaping the way organizations respond to the present chaotic times.

His work with such top multinationals as Shell International, Imperial Chemical Industries, and Xerox has brought him recognition worldwide as an expert in the real-world practice of OD, while his challenging vision has strongly shaped the way two generations think about the nature of organizations and the potential of the OD profession.

Always sensitive to the shadow side of organizational life and of consulting, Harrison in recent years has gone in new and radical directions with his work, integrating spirituality in surprising ways.

Allan Badiner, MBud Studies, is a writer and an activist. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, and a master's in Buddhist studies under the direction of the Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara at the College of Buddhist Studies in Los Angeles.

Allan has traveled to Buddhist sites in Asia with Thich Nhat Hanh, Stephen Batchelor, Robert Thurman, and Richard Baker Roshi. He is a contributing editor at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and edited the books "Dharma Gaia: A Harvest in Buddhism and Ecology" (Parallax Press, 1990), "Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics" (Chronicle Books, 2002), and "Mindfulness in the Marketplace: Compassionate Responses to Consumerism" (Parallax, 2002).

He wrote a column in the L.A. Weekly called "Mind and Spirit," and his articles have been published in Common Ground, The New York Times, and Omni Magazine. Allan serves on the board of several nonprofit activist organizations, including Rainforest Action Network, Circle of Life Foundation, and the Institute for Global Communication. He participated in the development of public programs for Esalen Institute, the Ojai Foundation, Bioneers, and Tibet House.

His forthcoming book is called "Buddhaland: Pilgrimage in Ancient India." Allan has been a student of Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh for more than 20 years.

Robert Kenny, MBA, researches collective wisdom, collaborative creativity, shared leadership and leaderful teams, reflective practice in teams and organizations, and the relationship between diversity and team wisdom.

He is a Fellow of the Fetzer Institute, a private, nonprofit operating foundation that sponsors research on cutting-edge topics. Robert is the founder of Leaderful Teams Organizational Consulting, specializing in executive coaching, leadership development, and the building of creativity and wisdom in teams and organizations.

Prior to beginning his consulting work and teaching, Robert worked for 30 years in nonprofit and business organizations in managerial and executive positions, including the Federal Reserve Bank, Deloitte Touche Kohmatsu, Citicorp, and the International Center for Integrative Studies (ICIS), where he co-led a comprehensive youth development program and community health and mental health center.

Albert Low, LLD, was a business executive for the first half of his life, employed as a senior human resource executive in South Africa and later in Canada. In Canada, he was responsible for introducing a new way of company organization, and he lectured widely on creativity in management.

Albert has a degree in psychology and philosophy, and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Queen's University, Ontario, for academic achievement and community service. He has been the teacher and director of the Montreal Zen Center since 1979.

Albert is the author of numerous widely translated books on Zen, including the classic "Zen and Creative Management," "The Iron Cow of Zen," "An Invitation to Practice Zen," and "Creating Consciousness." In 1996, Fast Company magazine profiled "Zen and Creative Management," originally published in 1976, as a prescient forerunner of the present interest in complexity, ambiguity, and spirituality in management.

Low has given many TV and radio broadcasts, has written numerous articles for magazines, and is well known in Europe, Australia, and throughout North America.

F. David Peat, BSc, MSc, PhD, is a theoretical physicist, director of the Pari Center for New Learning, and author of numerous best-selling books on the new science, including "Seven Lessons of Chaos" (with John Briggs); "Science, Order, and Creativity" (with David Bohm); "Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm"; and "Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native American Universe." He is a Distinguished Fellow at the University of South Africa.

His interests include the social and philosophical implications of science, Jungian studies, dialogue between art and science, and dialogue circles between Western scientists and Native American elders.

Gabrielle Pelicci, PhD, has taught holistic and integrative health studies at several universities including Georgian Court University, National University, and UCLA. She also presents at national educational and therapeutic conferences across the country.

Gabrielle has extensive background in the healing and teaching professions. She completed a bachelor's degree in psychology, a master's degree in education at Teachers College Columbia University and a doctoral degree in the humanities with a dissertation on integrative healers. Gabrielle has more than 1,000 hours of training in holistic healing modalities including several forms of massage therapy and yoga therapy.

For the past decade, she has been working as a holistic health practitioner for high-end treatment centers, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, wellness centers and private clients. She has also traveled to Asia, Africa, India, Mexico, South America and Europe to study different cultural approaches to healing. In 2009, Gabrielle produced two yoga fitness DVDs and presented her dissertation research at several national conferences including the Adult Education Research Conference (AERC) and the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) Conference.

Michael A. Raffanti has a varied professional background in education and social justice. A California native, he completed his bachelor of arts in history and philosophy at the University of Portland, and his Juris Doctor at Boston College Law School. He also holds a master's degree in teaching from The Evergreen State College where he focused on multicultural and anti-racist education.

He earned his doctor of education degree from Fielding Graduate University. Michael became interested in an educational career while practicing poverty law in San Francisco. His involvement in developing a law academy at an urban high school precipitated Michael's movement from law to education. While earning his teaching license, he directed the education department of an AIDS service organization and developed HIV prevention programs for adolescents, gay and bisexual men, and communities of color.

Michael has taught third grade in urban settings and served in a variety of educational leadership roles. He also taught at-risk high school students in a weekend community college program. Michael has online university teaching experience at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Western Governors University, Fielding Graduate University, and CIIS.

A scholar-practitioner, Michael's research interests are transdisciplinary, with particular emphases on action-oriented research, grounded theory, transformative leadership, diversity dynamics, spirituality in organizations, systems change, anti-bias education, and human rights law. Michael is an avid tennis player, world traveler, and animal rescuer.

Howard Rheingold fell into the computer realm from the typewriter dimension, then plugged his computer into his telephone and got sucked into the net.

In earlier years, his interest in the powers of the human mind led to "Higher Creativity," written with Willis Harman; "Talking Tech" and "The Cognitive Connections" with Howard Levine; "Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind: A Book of Memes"; "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" with Stephen LaBerge; and "They Have A Word For It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases."

He ventured further into the territory where minds meet technology, via the subject of computers as mind-amplifiers, and wrote "Tools for Thought" (New edition from MIT Press, April 2000). Next, "Virtual Reality" chronicled his odyssey in the world of artificial experience, from simulated battlefields in Hawaii to robotics laboratories in Tokyo, garage inventors in Great Britain, and simulation engineers in the south of France.

In 1985, he became involved in the WELL, a computer conferencing system. He started writing about life in my virtual community and ended up with a book about the cultural and political implications of a new communications medium, "The Virtual Community" (New edition published by MIT Press in 2000). He is credited with inventing the term virtual community. He had the privilege of serving as the editor of The Whole Earth review and editor in chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog.

In 1994, he was one of the principal architects and the first executive editor of HotWired. He quit after launch, because he wanted something more like a jam session than a magazine. In 1996, he founded and, with the help of a crew of 15, launched Electric Minds. Electric Minds was named one of the ten best websites of 1996 by Time magazine and was acquired by Durand Communications in 1997. Since the late 1990s, he's cat-herded a consultancy for virtual community building.

His 2002 book, "Smart Mobs," was acclaimed as a prescient forecast of the always-on era. The weblog associated with the book has become one of the top 200 of the 8 million blogs tracked by Technorati, and won Utne Magazine's Independent Press Award in 2003. In 2005, He taught a course at Stanford University on A Literacy of Cooperation, part of a long-term investigation of cooperation and collective action that he has undertaken in partnership with the Institute for the Future.

He teaches Participatory Media/Collective Action at UC Berkeley's School of Information, Digital Journalism and VirtualCommunity/Social Media at Stanford University, as a non-resident Fellow of the Annenberg School for Communication, and is a visiting Professor at the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University in Leicester, U.K.

In 2008, he was a winner in MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning competition and used his award to work with a developer to create a free and open source social media classroom. He has a videoblog that covers a range of subjects. Most recently, he's been concentrating on learning and teaching 21st Century literacies. He's blogged about this subject for SFGate, has been interviewed, and has presented talks on the subject.

Visit Howard's website>>

Robin Robertson, PhD, has spent a lifetime bridging the worlds of psychology, science, business, and the arts. He is a clinical psychologist and writer who has published 14 books and more than 100 articles in either psychology or his hobby field of magic.

Before becoming a psychologist, Robin was a vice president of software development for a large insurance company, and for the past 20 years, he has been a consultant to a multiemployer pension plan.

He has separate undergraduate degrees in mathematics and English literature,
as well as an MA in counseling psychology and a PhD in clinical psychology.
Since 1986, he's been a writer, editor, columnist, and editorial board member of the Jungian journal Psychological Perspectives.

Robin has also been heavily involved with the applications of chaos theory in psychology as a writer, editor, speaker, and officer of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences.

More recently, he's been a consulting editor and contributor for the cybernetics journal Cybernetics & Human Knowing, a journal that looks at deep issues about the nature of reality.

A lifetime amateur magician, and a member of the Order of Merlin of the International Brotherhood of Magicians who has published six magic books and many original effects, Robin has collaborated with the Scottish magician Peter Duffie and the well-known Italian magician Aldo Colombini.

Shoshana Simons, PhD, holds an MA in sociology and social policy from London Metropolitan University, and an MA in human development and a PhD in human and organizational systems from the Fielding Graduate University .
Shoshana, the CIIS program chair of the Expressive Arts Therapy program, has more than 25 years of experience working with diverse children and adults in the fields of education, counseling psychology, organizational development, and community work.
Shoshana has worked as a therapist in the U.K. and U.S., and has taught in the fields of counseling psychology and intercultural relations at Goddard College and the University of Vermont; and Lesley University.
She is the former director of special projects at the Open Circle Program, based at the Stone Center, Wellesley College, where her work included promoting socioemotional learning skills in elementary school systems, integrating the arts and mindfulness practices in learning and in running creative multicultural awareness programs for teachers and school leaders.
Shoshana's interests include narrative and systemic expressive arts practices, the exploration of our own indigenous healing traditions, Jewish mysticism and Jewish shamanic healing, the role of expressive arts in leadership, and arts-based research methods. She is a graduate of the Omega Transpersonal Drama Therapy program in Cambridge, Mass.

Kundan Singh, PhD, is an adjunct faculty at CIIS and at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, Calif. He earned his doctorate in humanities from CIIS and a master's degree in applied psychology from University of Delhi, India. Kundan is specifically interested in translating spiritual practice for inner and outer transformation, which includes building a new consciousness for global and local social change.

He is an author of "The Evolution of Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna, and Swami Vivekananda," and a few book chapters and journal articles including "Beyond Postmodernism: Towards a Future Psychology," "Relativism, Self-Referentiality, and Beyond Mind," "Relativism and Its Relevance for Psychology," "Beyond Mind: Towards a Future Psychology," and "Laying the Foundations of Indian Psychology." His areas of research include integral yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, contemporary and traditional Vedanta, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, Sufism of the Indian subcontinent, comparative mysticism, spirituality and social action, globalization, social change and personal responsibility, Indian psychology, transpersonal psychology, social psychology, depth psychology, cultural and cross-cultural psychology, Wilber's integral psychology, postmodern philosophy, philosophy of science and epistemology, critical thought and deconstruction, and East-West studies, among others.

Philip Slater, AB, PhD, taught sociology at Harvard, Brandeis, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was professor and chairperson of the Brandeis Sociology Department in 1971, when he resigned to found Greenhouse, a nonprofit growth center, with Jacqueline Doyle and Morrie Schwartz. At Greenhouse he led encounter groups and personal growth workshops. He has been a merchant seaman, actor, business consultant, cookie salesman, marriage officiant, and president of a theater. Slater is the author of "The Pursuit of Loneliness," a classic of American sociology, and numerous other books and articles, including "Wealth Addiction" and "A Dream Deferred."

He cowrote and narrated Paradox on 72nd Street, a one-hour TV documentary aired nationally by PBS, and has acted in more than 30 plays and films. In 1982, he was chosen by Ms. Magazine as one of its "male heroes."

Philip has written 20 plays, and has taught writing and playwriting at UCSC and in private workshops since 1989. He has a weekly blog at the Huffington Post. His articles have been published in the Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, Newsday, Washington Monthly, Utne Reader, and other leading magazines and scholarly publications.

Russ Volckmann, PhD, has worked for more than 30 years as an organization development consultant and executive coach. A former Fulbright Fellow in India, Russ has taught at UC Berkeley; the University of Arizona; the United States Army Intelligence School at Ft. Juachuca, Arizona; Sonoma State University; Golden Gate University; John F. Kennedy University; Leadership University; the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, Saybrook Institute; and Union Graduate Institute and University.

He has received and/or led training in many areas, including integral consciousness, integral leadership, Spiral Dynamics, stress management, sensory awareness, communication skills, organizational systems change and development, problem solving, team building, personal power and influence, transactional analysis, gestalt therapy, neo-Reichian body therapies, project management and leadership, total quality management and dialogue.

Russ was the founding editor of a professional journal, Vision/Action, for five years. He is publisher and editor of Integral Leadership Review and LeadingDigest. Russ, who has published numerous professional articles, is on the editorial board of Integral Review.