Leader statement: 

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I am a biologist, epidemiologist and ethnographer by training.  However, healing through holding, listening to, and ushering in Story is my daily personal and professional practice. Much of what I support my clients to do inside of our coaching and healing collaboration is to brand or identify the Stories at play in their lives. Once we name the stories, we can decided to unravel them, rewrite them, or leverage them. I’ve come to understand that our personal stories are often informing, if not running, our professional and business lives.  I love the idea of sitting in a virtual council with other Story practitioners representing a variety of disciplines making the space and time to expand and deepen their (and my) understanding of and relationship with Story in order to better deploy Story in every aspect of their lives! 

Leader Biography: 

Dr. Giavanni Washington is an intuitive percussive healer with a special knack for recognizing the best version of you. Giavanni Washington received her doctorate in Culture and Performance from UCLA and lives in Los Angeles. She has studied sonic traditions and performed throughout many countries in the world, including Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Ethiopia, Guinea, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Senegal, Trinidad, Uganda, and the United States.  She facilitates sacred circles, where every voice is of equal value, to offer a sonic platform for safe exploration and transformation of self. More information about Giavanni’s work at http://rhythmquest.us

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Leader statement: 

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Having taught literature in Secondary and Post-Secondary education, and taught literature educators, I found the ideas in The Biology of Story Course exhilarating in their breadth and depth. They bring literary, cinema, and cultural studies into conversation with psychology, anthropology, indigenous knowledge, and recent developments in physics and biology; and they begin with the deep folk knowledge that makes the practice of storytelling primal in our lives. I'm still pursuing all the implications of this for education but can tell you it carries into all the courses I teach. I'd love to explore this further with other educators coming from any and all fields and settings.

Leader Biography:

Dr. Lisa K. Taylor is a full professor in the School of Education, Bishop's University, Quebec, where she primarily teaches future teachers. Her teaching and research explore pedagogical models of social justice education addressing conditions emerging from colonization, globalization, and transnational flows. Grounded in decolonial, feminist, and cultural studies, her principal research explores the dynamics of pedagogies of remembrance that seek to learn from historical memory of violence, genocide and injustice, and mobilize affective and aesthetic engagement in building an activated public sphere. Current projects focus on decolonizing teacher education through pedagogies of witnessing testimony of Indian Residential School survivors in dialogue with Indigenous educators' frameworks of Story and relationality. ​

Leader statement: 

I am excited to be able to offer the Biology of Story model to others for their own curiosity, learning, and wellness. Living and working for many years in the same community, I have witnessed the importance of family and community in both illness and health. When I take a medical history, I find that the patient is, without realizing it, molding a set of facts into a life story. Much of my work as a physician has been in helping individuals become aware of these stories. 

Leader Biography:

Dr. Suetta Tenney was born in Newark, NJ, graduated from Smith College with a degree in Biochemistry, and did her medical training at Tufts Medical School and The Cambridge Hospital of Harvard Medical School. She has been a community-based primary care doctor for 33 years in Andover, MA. She has additional certification in Integrative Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Care.  In her personal life, Dr. Tenney has learned about the central role of Story, as she lived with and cared for a disabled sister, nurtured three very different children, and cared for frail relatives. Family, friends, musical creativity, a meditative practice, and quiet time in nature have been major healing forces for her.