The Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Team

Rachel D. Bryant serves as the Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), San Francisco, where she earned a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Community Mental Health. Her passion and research interests situate her life-work and scholarship at the intersection of social justice, education, and psychology.  She is working to facilitate closure between knowledge production in institutions and the need for knowledge in communities traditionally excluded. She serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Master’s in Counseling Psychology and Undergraduate Studies Programs at CIIS.  Rachel is also a Core Member of the Healing Clinic Collective, which provides loving traditional healing sessions to people from especially traumatized populations in the Bay Area.  As a teacher-student, Rachel honors the wisdom and intelligence of everyday people, the human body, and the natural world.  She confidently believes that all people have the innate wisdom and intelligence to serve as healers and educators in their communities. When Rachel is not working, you can find her creating multimedia artworks, gardening, or in the kitchen experimenting with soul food from around the world. She lives in East Oakland with her daughter. 

Damali is the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at the California Institute of Integral Students. She began a full-time career in DEI after a 15-year career in progressive non-profit leadership. She brings an unshakable commitment to equity and justice along with rich lived experiences to her role at CIIS. From 2008-2011, Damali helped pioneer Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives at the Haas Center for Public Service (long before the uprisings of 2020 and long before many organizations were ready to invest in this critical work). More recently, she spent a year leading an in-depth racial equity project to address the achievement gap between Black students and their peers at a Bay Area high school. That project inspired her to become an even more vocal practitioner, advocate and thought leader in the DEI space and motivated her decision to pursue a MA in Social Justice and Organizing. Most recently, she co-led DEI initiatives in the criminal justice space while also leading their fundraising and communications efforts, creating campaigns about the systemic injustices and disparities built into America’s criminal legal system. Damali grounds her work in decolonial and liberatory praxis. She is also mindfulness practitioner and circle keeper who approaches everything with a restorative impulse, integrity, lots of deep breaths and compassion. Damali lives in Oakland, CA and loves travel, spicy food, Reggae and Hip-Hop music. 

Paula Junn (she/her/hers) became a staff member at CIIS as the Program Coordinator for the Master of Fine Arts program in 2016 upon receiving her MFA degree in Creative Inquiry and Interdisciplinary Arts at CIIS. In 2019, she became the Program Manager for the Expressive Arts Therapy program. She also served the CIIS community as part of the Staff Council from 2019 – 2022 and has been on the Advisory Committee for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion since 2021. She is a passionate community builder interested in fostering belonging in and among people and organizations, so moving into the role of Associate Director of the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at CIIS is very exciting for her. In her free time, Paula enjoys spending time with loved ones, going on walks, making jewelry, and sharing stories. 

Adriana was born in Brazil, where she studied Visual Arts Education. Her ever increasing interest in the expression of the depths of human psyche, the connections to spirituality and the different philosophical traditions around the world led her to further her studies with a master’s degree in East-West Psychology at CIIS. At the institution, her love for integral education brought her to be part of the fellowship at the Center for Writing and Scholarship, the Bridge Program as a mentor and coordinator, and the Summer Bridge Program, where she has developed the program’s recent curriculum and taught as lead instructor. In the outdoors world, she has worked as a counselor for nature-based programs for children, teenagers and adults. She has also taught in the Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies at CIIS and was a grantee in the Wellness in Action program at the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants for two consecutive years, where she facilitated skill-building and process groups for Brazilian women in the Bay Area. Currently, she continues to serve the CIIS community as the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Program Manager, while holding her Astrology and Tarot reading private practice.

Glory is a nonbinary environmental scientist from Chicago who is dedicated to social justice and loves to make the sciences more accessible. Glory’s educational background in environmental studies and ecology as well as work experience in feminist and sustainable programming has brought them to CIIS. Having graduated from Franklin & Marshall College this spring, they are excited to begin their career here in San Francisco. In their free time, Glory enjoys doing yoga, camping, playing the cello, and spending time with their cat, Tobin.