Sarah Abbott (she/her) is a somatic coach and social movement practitioner with 15 years of experience in movements for racial, economic, climate, and gender justice as an organizer and an organizational leader. She is a white, bisexual, raised-Christian, chronically-ill woman with class privilege. Sarah grew up on Dakota and Anishinaabe land in a college and farming town in Minnesota, and recently returned home to Minneapolis after living for 8 years on Lenni Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY. She was first introduced to somatics by Susan Raffo in 2011 in Minneapolis through her somatic workshops on dismantling white supremacy. She has participated in generative somatics courses since 2013, and is a graduate of the Strozzi Institute Somatic Coaching Program.

Sarah's recent work has included fighting climate change and organizing for a Green New Deal as the Managing Director of the Sunrise Movement. Prior to that she spent a decade organizing young people with wealth for reparations and wealth redistribution while on staff at Resource Generation. Along the way she has been involved in immigrant justice organizing, co-founded the Showing Up for Racial Justice NYC chapter, has done extensive fundraising, and served on the board of Third Wave Fund. She currently organizes against Christian Zionism with the Twin Cities chapter of Christians for a Free Palestine. She loves to sing, tend to her houseplants, rest, and spend time with her beloveds.

Maura’s (she/they) transformative leadership development practice is rooted in her 30-year commitment to anti-violence and social justice movements. As a facilitator, coach, and consultant, she helps individuals and groups develop the capacity to hold complexity and the ability to work across differences of identity and authority. Maura holds a master's degree in Social-Organizational Psychology from Teachers’ College, where she is an adjunct faculty member and advanced doctoral student.

Cari Caldwell (she/they) catalyzes life as a facilitator, executive coach, consultant and entrepreneur committed to using her privileges and 20 years of experience to co-create better relationships, systems and communities.  Cari integrates a wide variety of liberatory methodologies and practices that open new possibilities for equity, relationship, and performance.  

A taste of her work includes teaching embodied racial justice for white leaders, facilitating multi-stakeholder social innovation labs, supporting executive and team collaboration, relationship, resilience and repair, producing a childbirth education film, and co-founding five organizations across the US and internationally.  

Cari has trained and/or certified in ontological and somatic coaching, organizational and family constellations, Theory U/social innovation, psychodrama, Art of Hosting, Barrett Cultural Values, sacred sexuality and intimacy, and somatic leadership with organizations including the Radical Resilience Institute, Strozzi Institute for Somatics, Visions, the BIPOC Alliance.  She lives on unceded Arapahoe, Cheyenne and Ute territory in Colorado with her beloveds and two sons, and loves the exquisite torture of hot yoga.

Viveka Chen (she/they) is an organizational and leadership development consultant, certified coach, facilitator and trainer. For 30 years they have worked for social, racial, economic, environmental, reproductive and gender justice. She is most often designing and facilitating leadership cohort programs and retreats centering QTBIPOC (queer, transgender, black, indigenous people of color) movement activists. Viveka brings a strengths-based approach, a commitment to liberation and joy and cultural grounding, and depth in emotional, healing, and mindfulness practices as a Buddhist meditation teacher and somatic coach and teacher. They are a founding partner with Maura Bairley and Monica Dennis, of co-LAB Collective, a Black and Asian women of color consulting group centering race and gender justice and guiding transformational processes: social innovation, vision and strategy, culture change, conflict resolution, team and alliance building, and leadership transition. 

Mary Alice Crim (she/her) is Practice Manager at Embodying Racial Justice. She serves as a support team member.

Building powerful, permanently organized, resilient and sustainable communities that are ready to meet the intersecting demands our people and planet face is at the heart of my organizing work. I have nearly 20 years experience working on a wide range of issues at the national and local levels, such as media and technology policy, community art, climate and the environment as well as racial justice. 

Before joining Dara and the ERJ team as their practice manager, my most recent roles included national field director, distributed organizing director and organizing director, respectively. I was first introduced to somatics through the Strozzi Institute’s School of Embodied Leadership (SOEL) in 2018.

I am a systems wizard with an eye for detail. Creating big picture systems and structures based in relationship and with flexibility built in for emergent needs makes me happy. I love a good toolkit.

I live in the Connecticut River valley watershed on Nipmuc and Pocumtuc land where I tend a small garden, a dog and a flock of chickens with my partner. I was a swim coach and instructor for 10 years, and I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit organizing adult softball and volleyball teams.

Tyler Grillo (he/him) is a somatic coach, bodyworker, and teacher. He started practicing somatics in 2015 when he began working on staff at Strozzi Institute, completing his somatic coach certification in 2018, and has been teaching with Dara Silverman through Embodied Racial Justice since 2022. Tyler also served as Director of Programs and Operations for Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness (David Treleaven), and Project Manager for The Politics of Trauma (Staci Haines), training with these teachers as well. He also teaches for Strozzi Institute and continues to leverage his organizational skills to support teachers and organizations working for a more just world. He is the founder of Whole Heartwood, where his coaching and healing practice focuses on weaving individual and collective transformation.

Tyler is an organizer with STAND Bay Area, a collective that leverages folks with white and male privilege to support social justice initiatives led by those most marginalized by systems of oppression. He also stewards a small urban farm and The Little Free Farmstand, offering free produce and encouraging home growing as a part of the movement for sustainable food systems and rematriating the Ohlone land (Oakland, CA) where he lives with his partner and cat community.

Coming soon

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J (they/them) is a queer, non-binary coach, consultant, and educator. With 28 years of experience in education, 12 years of experience coaching, and 11 years studying somatics, J  holds a deep understanding of the mind-body connection and the transformative power of somatics. J weaves this knowledge and experience into their coaching work and has a  passion for empowering individuals on their transformative journeys.

J coaches leaders from school districts and non-profits, and works primarily with LGBTQIA identified clients. J became an International Coaches Federation Professional Certified Coach in 2021, a certified somatic coach through the Strozzi Institute for Somatics in 2016, and a certified school leadership coach through the New Teacher Center and the Association of California School Administrators in 2013.

J earned their Doctorate degree in Educational Leadership from UC Davis, their Masters degree in Education from Nazareth University and their Bachelors degree in Art Education from Nazareth University. J was born in San Francisco, grew up in Dixon, California, and lived for 15 years in Rochester, New York while they trained in the sport of fencing, and was a member of multiple US fencing teams. J currently resides in Woodland, California on Patwin land and holds a deep commitment to decolonizing education, serving the queer community, supporting the growth and transformation of others. When J isn’t coaching, they can be found creating art projects, doing crossfit, or listening to their cats purr.

Michael Strom (they/them) is a facilitator and somatic practitioner living in the Northwest Bronx, NYC. They feel most at home when they can put their body in the sea, nerd out on a big idea, or find something to giggle about.

Michael came to life as an organizer through queer, feminist, and anti-war student organizing and driving predatory developers out of the Bronx with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition in the late 2000s. In the wake of the housing crisis, they helped bring together Organizing for Occupation (O4O) and Occupy Wall Street to blockade evictions and shut down foreclosure proceedings with song. After the Ferguson Uprisings in 2014, they founded the NYC chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a national network organizing white people to undermine white supremacy. Until 2021, Michael was a faith leader at New Day Church, a Bronx-based faith community confronting injustice with the compassion and abundance of God. From 2015-2024, they were a Director at The Wildfire Project, supporting social movement organizations to build healthy group dynamics, have hard conversations, turn toward generative conflict, and step further into their agency to reshape our world.

Michael brings 14 years of facilitation, a decade of somatic training, and a faithful delight in human beings to their work. Outside of work, they’re finding tremendous sweetness in reconnecting with the faiths and lifeways of their Sicilian and Irish ancestors (they’re still trying to figure out how to have hobbies that don’t involve healing). They firmly believe that wherever we're going, it'll be easier if we can laugh on the way there.

Becca (she/they) brings over 14 years of social justice organizing, non-profit laboring, embodiment, meditation and more recently, ancestral practices to her somatics offering. She has organized locally and nationally with white anti-racist communities in multi-racial movements and continues to deepen her understanding of the ways personal and collective experiences of resilience, trauma and oppression shape our bodies & our lives. 

Becca is a white, queer, femme and is a descendant of Western European colonizers and immigrants. She is clear on her role in dismantling systems of privilege and oppression, redistributing resources, and wholeheartedly organizing for collective liberation. She believes that healing work is intergenerational, nonlinear and woven together with families, the land, and movements for justice. Becca offers grounded healing that supports increased access to interdependence, dignity, agency and joy. 

Becca lives, parents her two kids, and organizes on unceded Duwamish and Coast Salish lands, otherwise known as Seattle, WA.

Misty Perez (she/her) is an organizational leader, somatic coach and bodyworker, with over 25 years of organizing and advocacy experience with organizations dedicated to social, racial and gender justice. She has worked with youth in residential and school based programs, survivors of domestic and sexual violence, organizers, policy advocates, executive leaders, caregivers and change makers. She partners with organizational leaders to work on organizational change and leadership development initiatives grounded in equity. She’s a skilled organizational leader with a focus on building up the people, operations and organizational culture needed to ensure a just future with a thriving multiracial democracy.

Misty has been studying Somatics with the Strozzi Institute since 2018. She became a Somatic Coach and Bodyworker in 2023 and is currently training as a Somatics teacher with Dara Silverman. Misty is a Somatic Coach and Bodyworker with a practice on Nipmuc land in central Massachusetts. Misty works with people to develop  greater awareness and presence, reveal their purpose and live into the life they long for. She’s guided by love and lives a life grounded in authenticity and purpose.

Misty has a Master’s Degree in Community Development and Planning from Clark University. She also has a Bachelors of Science in Human Services and Counseling and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She understands that for many organizers and changemakers who dedicate their lives to policy and social change work we are also engaged in the politics of trauma, which requires resilience, presence, openness, connection and a deep grounding in purpose.

She offers healing and transformation through coaching and bodywork for individuals and groups as we collectively move towards the futures we long for. Her joy and resilience practices include spending time with her Loves, gardening, walks in the woods, meditating and managing a small farm.  

Dara Silverman (she/her) is a white queer Jewish consultant, somatic coach and trainer with over 20 years with organizations and movements for social, racial, economic and gender justice. She partners with trainers of color to lead organizational change and leadership development initiatives centering racial justice, equity and liberation. Dara partners with white trainers to lead caucuses and trainings specifically for white organizers and leaders on dismantling white supremacy in ourselves, organizations and movements. Previously, she was the founding Director of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and the Executive Director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) in New York City.

Dara has been studying Somatics with the Strozzi Institute and Generative Somatics since 2011. She became a Somatic Coach in 2013 and was trained as a Somatics teacher to lead courses by the Strozzi Institute.

Dara lives in the Hudson Valley on Wappinger and Lenape land where she lives on a third of an acre where she grows eight kinds of berries. Dara founded Mutual Aid Beacon in March of 2020 to meet the needs of those most impacted by COVID-19. The group organizes more than 800 volunteers and prepares and delivers meals to 650+ families a week in Beacon, Fishkill and Wappingers in the Hudson Valley.

Coming soon