Leadership

Senior Scholars, Research Fellows and research associates

Dr. Marc Gafni – Co-Founder, President, and Lead Scholar

Dr. Marc Gafni is a philosopher, public intellectual, author and social innovator. He holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, rabbinic certification from the chief rabbinate in Israel, as well private rabbinic ordination. He is also ordained and holds a doctorate in religious science. He is the initiating thought leader, together with Ken Wilber, of World Spirituality based on Integral principles, as well as the leading theorist and teacher of Unique Self Enlightenment. He is the director of Center for Integral Wisdom, a think tank he co-founded in 2010 with Mariana Caplan which is creating a body of work to evolve the source code of human existence.A rabbinic lineage holder in Bible, Talmud, and Kabbalah, Gafni self-describes as a “dual citizen” of both integral World Spirituality and classical Hebrew practice. He is a guest editor of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice on issues of Integral spirituality, has been a faculty member of J.F.K. University, and is the author of eight books including the national bestseller Soul Prints, and The Mystery of Love, an exploration of the relationship between the erotic and the sacred. His newest books are Your Unique Self and Radical Kabbalah.

An iconoclastic artist and provocative visionary, Dr. Gafni has led spiritual movements and learning communities as well as created and hosted for several seasons a highly popular national Israeli television program on culture, meaning, and spirit. He is the father of four children (the youngest being two years old), is in committed relationship, and lives in Northern California.
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Dr. Zachery Stein – Academic Director

Zak Stein‘s work focuses on social justice and education through the lenses of developmental psychology and integral metatheories. He holds degrees in philosophy and religion from Hampshire College, and educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education from Harvard University. He was a co-founder of Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published in a wide range of outlets including American Psychologist, New Ideas in Psychology, Mind, Brain, and Education, Integral Review, and the Journal of Philosophy of Education. He is currently the Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and Core Faculty at Meridian University.

Ken Wilber – Co-Founder, Leading Voice on our Wisdom Council, and Lead Scholar

Ken Wilber is the most influential figure in defining the terms of discussion on what constitutes the “Integral” perspective today and he is a leading voice on the CWS Wisdom Council. His corpus of 25 widely translated books has erected an intellectual framework for understanding the nature of converging trends in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other disciplines. His books have often been bestsellers, and his scholarly books have been the basis for numerous academic programs, master’s and doctoral dissertations.

Revered as the “Einstein of consciousness,” Ken has written over twenty books exploring different facets of human development and cultural evolution. His first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, written when he was only 23, became a seminal text in the emerging field of transpersonal psychology. Among his diverse corpus of writings are a novel, Boomeritis, which provided a groundbreaking critique of postmodernity, and The Simple Feeling of Being, a corpus of mystical, spiritual writings of transcendent and lyrical beauty.

Wilber has also played an active role in supporting and promoting integral thinking. He is a leading voice in support of World Spirituality based on Integral principles and has been one of the founding members of the Wisdom Council of the Center for World Spirituality.

Howard Bloom

Daniel Schmachtenberger – Director for Research & Development and Senior Vice President

Daniel Schmachtenberger is the Founder of the Emergence Project and Director for Research & Development and Senior Vice President at the Center for Integral Wisdom. His background in systems science, human behavior, and activism brought him to focus on the global systems that interconnect and drive our major global challenges.

He has spent much of the last decade studying the etiology, scope, magnitude, timelines, and interconnectedness of major issues; inventorying global resources and solutions; doing detailedcomparative analysis of economic and comparative analysis of economic and governance systems; and developing comprehensive systems solutions, adequate to the issues and realistically achievable.

Sally Kempton, Co-Founder – Sacred Feminine Leader, Author – Awakening Shakti

Sally Kempton has been practicing and teaching in a Hindu tradition for 30 years, twenty of them as a Swami, or Hindu monk of one of the Dasnami order of sannyasins. A former New York journalist who wrote extensively for the Village Voice, Esquire, New York Magazine, and The New York Times, she left her career in the early 1970s to study with her guru, Swami Muktananda. In the 1980s, she became one of the key teachers in the Siddha Yoga tradition as well as the first editor of a magazine, Darshan, which aimed at finding the shared truths within different spiritual traditions.

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Lori Galperin

Lori Galperin is a clinician, writer and teacher who began her 27 year career working in the area of sex & marital therapy. Training at Masters & Johnson Institute, she eventually became co-director, co-founded the first inpatient sexual trauma program in the country, and ultimately established and clinically co-directed three such programs. Her work spanned diverse populations including incest families, sex offenders, victims of sexual abuse and individuals struggling with sexual addiction.

In 2000, Lori turned her attention to another under-served population: eating disorder clients, co-founding and clinically directing 3 residential treatment centers over the next 13 years. Most recently she has been working with populations with co-occurring disorders in a context that utilizes all prior skill bases.

Lori currently resides on the Monterey Peninsula of N. California, where she recently participated in the founding of the Monterey Institute of Mental Health. She is also hard at work in collaboration with Dr. Marc Gafni on a book project entitled: Unique Self Recovery, a distillation & application of the heart Marc’s Unique Self teachings to the process of healing.

Venodhar Rao Julapalli, M.D.

Venodhar Rao Julapalli, M.D. is founder and president of Integral Gastroenterology Center, P.A., an active private practice in gastroenterology. Inspired by the works of Ken Wilber, he started his practice in 2005 with a passion to bring an AQAL approach to patient care. With extensive experience on the front line of the American health care system, he has engaged in the best of what traditional allopathic medicine can offer and lamented the vast flatland of unconscious healthcare. His mission, with his brother Vinay, is to consciously co-evolve the practice of medicine. Venu graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. with Distinction in Biological Sciences. He was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He completed medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, with election to Alpha Omega Alpha. He underwent medical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he continues to serve as a volunteer clinical instructor. He practices in north Houston. Venu’s spiritual stream has flowed from his mother’s traditional Hindu rituals to Ken Wilber’s writings, from Vipassana to Adyashanti, and now to Marc Gafni’s Unique Self insights. He believes the Unique Self holds the key for all stakeholders in healthcare to enjoy lives well lived.

John Gray, Ph.D., Social Thought Leader & Author (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)

Dr. John Gray is the leading relationship expert in the world. His relationship and health books have sold over 50 million copies in 50 different languages. His groundbreaking book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, is the best-selling non-fiction book of all time. It launched his Mars Venus book series that forever changed the way men and women view their relationships. John helps men and women better understand and respect their differences in both personal and professional relationships.

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Dr. Warren Farrell – Senior Vice President for Gender Issues

Dr. Warren Farrell has been chosen by the Financial Times as one of the world’s top 100 thought leaders. He feels, though, that the mind can be misused as easily as well-used; spiritual centering facilitates the mind being well-used both externally and internally. Dr. Farrell’s books are published in over 50 countries and in 15 languages.

They include two award-winning international best-sellers, Why Men Are The Way They Are plus The Myth of Male Power. His book on couples communication, Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say, was a selection of the Book-of-the Month Club. His book, Father and Child Reunion, has inspired many dads to be more involved with their children. And Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap–and What Women Can Do About It was chosen by U.S. News and World Report in 2006 as one of the top four books on careers.

Dr. Farrell has taught at the university level in five disciplines, and appeared on more than a thousand TV shows from Oprah to Larry King Live. He has been featured repeatedly in Forbes, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He has two daughters, and lives with his wife in Mill Valley, California.

Terry Nelson – Vice President and Board Liaison

Terry Nelson writes, “In my 30 years working as a Lifespring trainer, I have coached thousands of people all over the world to be more successful in fulfilling their commitment to becoming fully human. I think the work of CIW, to provide us human beings with a new and powerful lens through which to view our spiritual journey, will help all of us greatly. Hopefully, this wisdom will also reduce the likelihood of bad things being done in the name of religion. I am not a fan of crusades or suicide bombers. Enough!”

Terry is currently an executive development coach. He is a former Vice-President of Lifespring, a personal development training company. He worked as an analyst for the Congressional Budget Office and was a Peace Corps Volunteer and Training Project Director in Thailand. For the last 11 years, he has coached his kids’ basketball and soccer teams. Terry lives in Mill Valley, California, with his wife and two children. He holds a B.A. from U.W. at Madison and an M.P.A. from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell.

Dr. Kristina Kincaid – Director of the Outrageous Love Project

Dr. Kristina Kincaid is the Director of the School of Integral Evolutionary Tantra (IET) in New York City. IET teaches, coaches and mentors individual to take the next step in self-transformation. IET was created to develop cutting edge Leaders, Projects and Initiative of conscious collaboration in the world. IET understands that in order to respond to the challenges that face our planet today, it is imperative to create a WE-space, where we as individuals, and individual systems, realize that enlightened consciousness is beyond ego, and is the essential next stage of self-transformation.

The School is an affiliate division of The Center for Integral Wisdom (CIW), a non-profit activist think tank founded in 2010 by Marc Gafni, Mariana Caplan and a leadership team that has expanded to dozens of the most respected spiritual teachers, leaders, authors and activists in the world. CIW is articulating and advancing a spiritual movement that is moving across the globe in the hearts of people everywhere. Evolving the source code of human existence is the urgent need and great planetary adventure of these times. Kristina is a CIW Scholar and a member of the Board of Directors.

Kristina is on faculty at The Institute of Core Energetics and holds an M.A. in Energy Medicine and a Doctorate in Theology from Holos University. A graduate of the Institute of Core Energetics and the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, she also holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Texas, Austin.

She is also a Senior Teacher of the Unique Self Enlightenment Process. Her Eros and passion for the Unique Self work, includes not only the depth and heart of the teachings but also the visceral, bodied realizations that are transmitted through the dharma and grounded through physical practices. The teachings allow a process of real, radical transformation. She is honored and excited to be part of bringing out into the world, this cutting edge transformational work pioneered by Dr. Gafni.

Kristina is also the Chairperson and creator, along with Dr. Gafni, of the OutrageousActsofLove.com, OutrageousLoveLetters.com and OutrageousEroticLoveLetters.com Projects. Outrageous Love Projects are community writing and art projects being utilized to birth the inner Rumi, the inner Outrageous Lover, in every man, woman and child. A grass roots movement that was birthed from Dr. Gafni’s creation of a community practice of writing outrageous love letters. The movement’s intention is to literally democratize enlightenment, empowering everyone to radically participate in the very evolution of love itself!

Lastly, Kristina has traveled extensively studying indigenous healers around the world and documented her findings in a film series called “In Search of Healing.” Her passions include the deep mysteries of the body, genetics, and evolution. Her journey has taken her into deep explorations of the feminine and healing around sexuality. She has a Healing practice in New York City.

Kerstin Zohar Tuschik 

Kerstin Zohar Tuschik serves as Co-Executive Director of the Center. She is a Senior Teacher for Unique Self and Representative for the Center for Integral Wisdom in Germany.

Her professional, academic, and experiential background ranges from professional stage dancing and its didactics, physics, human resources development, project management, coaching, and alternative education to personal and spiritual growth. She has been on a conscious spiritual path for more than 20 years always yearning for unity, love and consciousness, studying different practices and approaches with various teachers.

Integral Theory has helped her to connect the dots. Through her dedication to this field, she met Dr. Marc Gafni and connected deeply to his vision of a World Spirituality based on Integral Principles and his trans-lineage path dharma on Unique Self, Eros, Outrageous Love, and the New Enlightenment. Working and studying with him and representing Center for Integral Wisdom in Germany while working with this international trans-lineage sangha is a deep pleasure and joy for her.

Swami Chetanananda

Shawn Ramer

Kathy Brownback

Benjamin Swartout: Researcher, Fellow, Co-Leading publishing of the Great Library

Benjamin graduated from Lafayette College school of Engineering in 2011. During his time there, Benjamin attempted to address injustices through leading activist work with organizations like Save Darfur and Amnesty International. In the midst of confronting  massive systemic inequalities, which seemed beyond repair, Benjamin found the work of Integral Theory and the Center for Integral Wisdom which helped him reclaim the  hope and vision of a more beautiful world.

After college and earning his Permaculture Design Certificate through Kibbutz Lotan, he then worked in Silicon Valley at Bloom Energy and SunPower. Benjamin returned to Israel for a year in 2016 as a Fulbright Scholar, where he learned about the convergence of the environmental crisis and the Conflict in the Middle East. This took place on Kibbutz Ketura, a rarefied living laboratory of Arab, Israeli, and international students all learning with and from each other.

It was during this  year, that he began studying with Dr. Marc. While deepening his understanding of the Unique Self theory  and learning sacred texts  from original sources, Benjamin has also been working as a proton accelerator engineer at Varian Medical and a hardware engineer at Apple and Beats headphones.

As part of a 3 year internship with the Center for Integral Wisdom, Benjamin is currently co-leading the creation of a  publishing and editing process for the Homo Amor Great Library.

Benjamin also enjoys Tai Chi, sci-fi movies, and walking barefoot!