Dr. Leonie H. Mattison, Ed.D., the fourth president, and Chief Executive Officer of Pacifica Graduate Institute, ushers in a new chapter as the first black female to assume leadership of the 45-year-old institution. Formerly Chief Operating Officer of a community agency that provides education and support services for vulnerable Santa Barbara residents. She began her term on October 3, 2022. Other leadership positions include adjunct professor and lecturer at Antioch University and Santa Barbara City College School of Extended Learning and Chief of Organizational and Talent Development at the County of Santa Barbara, where she was instrumental in developing the Employees University, an open-source university created through a partnership between the county and Santa Barbara City College that has provided high-quality training and cutting-edge leadership development for over 4,700 county employees.

Bayo Akomolafe, Ph.D., is the Chief Curator of The Emergence Network, a speaker, author, fugitive neo-materialist com-post-activist public intellectual and Yoruba poet. But when he takes himself less seriously, he is a father to Alethea and Kyah, and the grateful life-partner to Ej as well as the sworn washer of nightly archives of dishes. Bayo was born in 1983 into a Christian home, and to Yoruba parents in western Nigeria. Losing his diplomat father to a sudden heart complication, Bayo became a reclusive teenager, seeking to get to the “heart of the matter” as a response to his painful loss. After meeting with traditional healers as part of his quest to understand trauma, mental wellbeing and healing in new ways, his deep questions and concerns for decolonized landscapes congealed into a life devoted to exploring the nuances of a “magical” world “too promiscuous to fit neatly into our fondest notions of it.” Now living between India and the United States, Bayo is a father of Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden Abayomi. He is married to EJ, his dear life-partner of Indian descent. In 2014, Dr. Akomolafe was invited to be the Special Envoy of the International Alliance for Localization, a project of Ancient Futures (USA). He left his lecturing position in Covenant University, Nigeria to help build this Alliance. Bayo has been Visiting Professor at Middlebury College, where he taught on his own formulated concepts of ‘transraciality’ and postactivism.

Dylan Hoffman Ph.D., studied liberal arts at Georgetown University and psychology at Adelphi University before completing his Ph.D. in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute—concentrating in Jungian and Archetypal Studies. His work focuses on C. G. Jung’s theory of archetypes—on archetypes as the deepest nature of the psyche and how they interconnect spirit, psyche, and matter as numinous and mythic powers that animate, govern, and structure the cosmos as a whole. Dylan grounds his work in indigenous/shamanic perspectives and practices that provide a primordial, holistic, and sacred worldview within which to understand the archetypal psyche, to embody its wholeness individually, and to serve it culturally through creative imagination.

Susan Rowland, Ph.D., is Core Faculty, and Advisor in Research and the Humanities in MA Depth Psychology and Creativity, as well as teaching in the Doctoral Program in Jungian and Archetypal Studies. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Newcastle and her MAs from the Universities of London and Oxford. In 2003 Susan became the first Chair of the International Association of Jungian Studies (IAJS). She is author of many studies of Jung, literary theory, the arts and gender including Jung: A Feminist Revision (2002), Jung as a Writer (2005), and also edited Psyche and the Arts (2008). Another recent book is C.G. Jung and the Humanities (2010), showing how Jung’s work is a response to the creative, psychological, spiritual, philosophical and ecological crises of our age. In 2012 her book, The Ecocritical Psyche: Literature, Complexity Evolution and Jung was published by Routledge, followed by Remembering Dionysus (2017) and Jungian Literary Criticism: the Essential Guide (2019). Particularly important is Susan’s exposition with Joel Weishaus in Jungian Arts-Based Research and the Nuclear Enchantment of New Mexico. Here Susan shows that depth psychology animates art into providing therapy with the world. Her own work in JABR is represented by her first mystery novel, The Sacred Well Murders (Chiron 2022). See her website: https://www.susanrowland-books.com/

Roland Palencia, MA, is a Professor at California State University Northridge’s (CSUN) -Tseng College in the Diverse Community Development Leadership MA program, and an award-winning filmmaker. He is the former Community Benefits Director and corporate trainer at L.A. Care Health Plan, the largest public health plan in the nation. He is also the former Executive Director of Clinica Monseñor Oscar A. Romero and Equality California, and former multi-County Regional Director at The California Endowment and Chief of Operations and Vice-President at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

In 2001, he was honored as a “Local Hero” by KCET (PBS affiliate) and Union Bank of California. In the early 1980s, he became one of the founders and a pioneer of the blossoming LGBTQ Latine movement in the greater Los Angeles area, including co-founding Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU) and VIVA!, a Queer Latine artist collective. Palencia has been featured in a number of books and publications such as “Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians” by Stuart Timmons and Lilian Faderman (2006). “Central Americans in Los Angeles” by Rosamaria Segura (2010); and “The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle” by Lilian Faderman (2015).

The 165-page Master thesis by David Guzman, M.A., (CSUN 2014) records Palencia’s life journey as a Guatemalan political refugee and community activist. His Executive Producer film credits include “TransVisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story,” a documentary depicting the life and activism of the nationally renowned Trans Latina activist Bamby Salcedo,“UNIDAD: Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos,”  which chronicles the early 1980s queer Latino activism in Los Angeles, and “Art as Activism,” which depicts the history of Self-Help Graphics & Arts, the seminal East L.A. based arts organization founded in 1970. Palencia received a B.A. in History from UCLA and a Masters in Depth Psychology & Creativity – Arts & Humanities from Pacifica Graduate Institute based in Montecito, CA.

Andrea-Marie Stark is an intuitive practitioner rooted in Hakomi, Shamanic, Trauma, Depth, and Animal Assisted Therapies embracing the sacred feminine, eco-consciousness, intergenerational trauma, racial and ethnic equality, non-colonial attitudes, and indigenous wisdom traditions. Along with her partner Dr. Chris Tickner, she owns California Integrative Therapy in Pasadena CA. She also teaches workshops and long-term programs in Mystic Shamanism, tarot, energy work, and intuition. She is a dissertation student at Pacifica in the Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices track.

Dr. Thema Bryant Ph.D., is the 2023 President of the American Psychological Association. She completed her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Duke University and her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical Center’s Victims of Violence Program. Upon graduating, she became the Coordinator of the Princeton University SHARE Program, which provides intervention and prevention programming to combat sexual assault, sexual harassment, and harassment based on sexual orientation. She is currently a tenured professor of psychology in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University, where she directs the Culture and Trauma Research Laboratory. Her clinical and research interests center on interpersonal trauma and the societal trauma of oppression. She is a past president of the Society for the Psychology of Women and a past APA representative to the United Nations. Dr. Thema also served on the APA Committee on International Relations in Psychology and the Committee on Women in Psychology. The American Psychological Association honored her for Distinguished Early Career Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest in 2013. The Institute of Violence, Abuse and Trauma honored her with their media award for the film Psychology of Human Trafficking in 2016 and the Institute honored her with the Donald Fridley Memorial Award for excellence in mentoring in the field of trauma in 2018. The California Psychological Association honored her for Distinguished Scientific Achievement in Psychology in 2015. She is the editor of the APA text Multicultural Feminist Therapy: Helping Adolescent Girls of Color to Thrive.

Jemma Elliot, M.A., LMFT, LPCC, is Department Co-Chair and Core Faculty for Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Counseling Psychology Department. She supports administrative, curricular, and developmental aspects of the MA and PsyD Counseling Psychology programs, teaches in the MA program, and is a passionate contributor to faculty governance. Jemma has a clinical focus on adoption and separation trauma, and has provided trainings and spoken on panels to advance the understanding of the needs of children and families on the adoption spectrum throughout California. She also has a special interest in working with PTSD from a depth psychological perspective, and in witnessing and hosting the extrasensory gifts and energetic awakenings that often arise in clients after traumatic experiences. Jemma is a Clinical Member of the California Association for Marriage and Family Therapists. She has a great love for the arts, and is a long-time advocate for farmed animal and greyhound rescue and rehabilitation.

Camille Jarmie Harris, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in private practice, as well as Core Faculty and Associate Chair in the Clinical Psychology program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica in 2018 following a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling specializing in counseling with children and adolescents in 2011. Her clinical areas of expertise focus on supporting birthing families during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum periods, as well as early attachment, work with children and adolescents, and animal-assisted therapy through a depth orientation. Dr. Jarmie Harris’s areas of interest in research and scholarship also include the larger impact of society on individual wellbeing, best practices in psychotherapy with birthing families, children and adolescents, as well as eco-psychology, sustainability, and social justice.

Emily Lord-Kambitsch, Ph.D., is Co-Chair and an Associate Core Faculty member of the Mythological Studies Program. A scholar, poet-storyteller, and native of Santa Barbara, her lifelong exploration of classical mythology is rooted in the study of Greek and Latin language and literature. After completing a BA in Classics at UCSB, Emily received a Master’s degree from the University of Oxford, where her thesis focused on the healing of grief in Roman stoicism, and where she worked as a research assistant for the Oxford Emotions Project, a cross-disciplinary study of definitions of emotions in ancient Greece.

Dick Russell is a nationally respected activist, environmentalist, and author of several New York Times bestsellers. He has published fifteen books on subjects ranging from natural history to the assassination of President Kennedy.  The second and third volumes of Russell’s monumental biography, The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, are also scheduled to appear in 2023.  The first volume, “The Making of a Psychologist,” was published in 2013 and chronicled the early years of the pioneering founder of archetypal psychology. Russell is currently serving as a researcher and commentator for a 10-part podcast series about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, hosted by Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary.  He is the author of two ground-breaking books on the subject, including The Man Who Knew Too Much (1992 and 2003), hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as “a masterpiece of historical reconstruction.”  His 2005 book, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, will appear in an updated edition in November 2023.  For the past three decades, the environment has been a primary focus of Russell’s magazine writing and personal activism, particularly the crisis impacting the world’s fisheries and oceans. Russell’s book Eye of the Whale (Simon & Schuster hard-cover; paperback edition by Island Press/Shearwater Books), follows the migration of the California gray whale from Mexico’s Baja peninsula all the way to northern Alaska and Russia.  According to L.A. Times’ reviewer Richard Ellis, this book “will change the way you think about the natural world.”  Eye of the Whale was named among the Best Books of 2001 by three major newspapers: the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has been a guest on many national TV and radio programs, including the Joan Rivers Show and NBC Nightly News, and has been a guest lecturer at universities including Harvard and the University of California, at the National Arts Club, and elsewhere.  In earlier “incarnations,” Russell was a staff writer in the Hollywood Bureau of TV Guide Magazine (1977-79), and a staff reporter for Sports Illustrated (1969-70) in New York.

Janet Blaser (MA, MFT, Jungian Analyst, Sandplay Practitioner), is a Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumna, with a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology.  She is a certified Jungian Analyst member of the C. G. Jung Study Center of Southern California, where she has been a training analyst for five years and is currently serving as vice president. Janet has a private practice in Los Angeles, California. Her passion for Jungian psychology and Greek mythology has taken her to several Asklepian sanctuaries where she has immersed herself in the study of the ancient healing mysteries. She has written several articles published in the Journal for Sandplay Therapy, the most recent entitled:  The Asklepion:  Archetype of Sickness and Healing in Sandplay Therapy.