Director:
Vivien Marcow Speiser, PhD, BC-DMT, LMHC, NCC
Division Director of National, International and Collaborative Programs, Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University
Vivien Marcow Speiser is a Professor and the Director of National, International and Collaborative Programs in the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences at Lesley University. Her work has allowed her unparalleled access to working with groups across the United States, Israel and internationally. She has used the arts as a way of communicating across borders and across cultures and believes in the power of the arts to create the conditions for personal and social change and transformation. As former founder and director of the Arts Institute Project in Israel, she has been influential in the development of Expressive Arts Therapy in that country. Her current interests are in cross-cultural conflict resolution through the arts and in the discipline of authentic movement. She is a co-editor of The Arts, Education and Social Change: Little Signs of Hope, published by Peter Lang.
Board Members:
Pat Allen, PhD, ATR
Art therapist and author
Pat B. Allen is an author, artist, art therapist, and teacher who connects to the Creative Source through art, writing, and working in her garden. Her two books, Art Is a Way of Knowing (Shambhala 1995) and Art Is a Spiritual Path (Shambhala 2005), explore the borders between art, psychology, spirituality, and social action. Pat divides her time between Chicago and Ojai, California where she has become an ardent student of the landscape, a volunteer on a local organic farm and a Master Gardener. She is experimenting with art and nature as a water activist and a home scale permaculturist. She blogs about her art and nature experiences at: studiopardes.blogspot.com and earthbound-ojai.blogspot.com.
Evelyn Berde
Artist
Evelyn Berde grew up in the old "West End" of Boston, which was a melting pot of immigrants from many countries. During her childhood, she was hospitalized frequently for treatment of congenital scoliosis, her older brother drowned in the Charles River, her neighborhood was demolished, and her Irish-Catholic family was struggling to survive. Art has always been a healing force in her life. Since graduating from Massachusetts College of Art in 1972: she has worked as a public school art educator, a Child Life Specialist at Children"s Hospital in Boston, and an artist-in-residence at schools, universities, hospitals and elderly care centers. Her art has been featured in galleries and museums throughout the United States. She recently completed her installation of art titled "Leaving The River," which deals with issues of loss and healing. This work is now being used by others as a path toward acceptance and healing.
Matthew Budd, MD
Developer of "Personal Health Improvement Program," Diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine (ret.) at Harvard Medical School
Matthew Budd trained at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. For thirty years he practiced Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the Harvard Community Health Plan. In the course of his practice he focused on the emotional factors that were related to disturbances of bodily function and developed the Plan"s Behavioral Medicine Program. He developed the Personal Health Improvement Program, a behavioral program now offered nationally for the ill and suffering and wrote a book, now in five languages, You Are What You Say. For the past six years, he has worked with cancer patients in retreat and group therapy form helping them to find meaning and peace in their cancer voyage. The program is taught in partnership with an expressive therapist and art is used as a window into the deeper psyche. Dr. Budd is also in training as a Jungian Analyst, which he practices and incorporates into his group and individual therapy work.
Debra Kalmanowitz, MA, RATh
Art therapist and author
Debra Kalmanowitz is a Registered Art Therapist (UK), a Research Postgraduate in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, and an Honorary Clinical Associate at the Centre on Behavioral Health University of Hong Kong. She has worked extensively in the context of trauma, political violence, and social change. Debra is the co-author of The Portable Studio: Art Therapy and Political Conflict, Initiatives in Former Yugoslavia and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and the editor of Art Therapy and Political Violence: With Art, Without Illusion and Art Therapy in Asia: To the Bone or Wrapped in Silk.
Catherine Koverola, PhD (ex officio)
Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University
Catherine Koverola is the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences. Dr. Koverola previously worked at Antioch University Seattle where she served as Dean of the School of Applied Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy as well as Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs. At Antioch, Dr. Koverola was instrumental in establishing the Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and several new program specializations within psychology. She has also served in a number of administrative posts such as Department Chair of Psychology and Director of the Alaska Rural Behavioral Health Training Academy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In Alaska, Dr. Koverola directed the development of the first joint doctoral program in the state by developing a collaborative partnership between the Fairbanks and Anchorage campuses. Dr. Koverola earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fuller Theological Seminar School of Psychology, her M.A. in Theology from the University of Western Ontario, and her BSc in Biology from the University of British Columbia. She began her academic career at the University of Manitoba as an Assistant Professor of Psychology.
Ross Prior, PhD
Teacher, Academic, Performer, Producer, Director
Ross Prior is the founding Principal Editor of the international Journal of Applied Arts and Health. He is a Reader and Principal Lecturer at The University of Northampton, United Kingdom. He has held a range of posts both within the profession and education, having taught at all levels of education for many years. In 2007, he was awarded the distinguished "Teaching Fellow of The University" for excellence in teaching. Dr. Prior was a key figure in the establishment of the first Arts and Health conference at The University of Northampton in 2007, "Inspiring Transformations: Applied Arts and Health Conference" in 2009 and "Colour My Well-being: Applied Arts and Health Conference 2012". He has been closely involved with professional actor training (his 2012 book Teaching Actors: Knowledge Transfer in Actor Training) and also the Drama in Education and Applied Theatre movements for much of his life, as a teacher, researcher and practitioner. In addition to Advisory Board membership of IAH (Lesley University), Dr Prior is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and is an International Advisory Board member for the AHRC funded International Health Humanities Network.
Naj Wikoff
Founder and President of the Creative Healing Connections, President Emeritus of the Society for Arts in Healthcare
Naj Wikoff is the Founder and President of the Creative Healing Connections, which organizes arts and healing retreats for women living with cancer and other chronic diseases, veterans of war, and other special populations, and the Arts Coordinator for Connecting Youth and Community, a community coalition that’s mission is to reduce the use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs by teens. Wikoff is the former Director of the Healing and the Arts Project, C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College, and a past President of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare. Recently, Wikoff served as a Fulbright Scholar at the East Siberian Academy of Culture, Ulan Ude, Russia. Wikoff has served as Director of Programming of the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth, Director of Arts & Productions at the Cathedral St. John the Divine, Coordinator of the Arts for the Global Forum of Parliamentary and Spiritual Leaders, Vice-Chairman of the National Fine Arts Committee for the XIII Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, and Executive Director of the Dutchess County Arts Council. Wikoff is the author of the Americans for the Arts monographs Cultures of Care, The Arts in Times of Trauma and Arts in Medicine: Linking Culture to Care; Taking Care Starts in Medical School for Medscape; Art in Hospitals for State magazine; and Bringing the Arts Back into Healthcare for Russia Today, amongst others.
Lisa M. Wong, MD
President of Longwood Symphony Orchestra
Lisa Wong is a pediatrician, musician, and author dedicated to the healing arts of music and medicine. She has been a pediatrician at Milton Pediatric Associates for the past 25 years and is also a clinical instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. In April 2012, she published her first book, Scales to Scalpels: Doctors Who Practice the Healing Arts of Music and Medicine. Dr. Wong is President of Longwood Symphony Orchestra, a Boston-based orchestra devoted to Healing the Community through Music. In the spirit of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, LSO launched its “Healing Art of Music” program in 1991, which incorporates service into every one of its performances. Each concert raises awareness and funds around important public health and medical issues and supports medical nonprofits in the community. In addition to her work with music and medicine, Dr. Wong is deeply devoted to music education, and was a former board member of Young Audiences of Massachusetts. She also has a deep interest in Venezuela's El Sistema program. In 2009, Dr. Wong was appointed to the Board of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state-agency, in 2009. She is married to violinist Lynn Chang, and has two grown children who are also musicians.
Faculty Fellows:
Mitchell Kossak, PhD, LMHC, REAT
Division Director of Expressive Therapies, Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University
Mitchell Kossak is the division director for Expressive Therapies. He has also been the international coordinator for the Expressive Therapies program in Israel since 1999. He has worked as an expressive arts therapist since 1983 and has been a licensed clinical counselor since 1994. His clinical work combines expressive arts therapies with body centered approaches with a variety of populations. In addition, he has worked extensively with autistic children and adults. He has written about and presented his research on rhythmic attunement, improvisation, psychospiritual and community based approaches to working with trauma and embodied states of consciousness at conferences nationally and internationally. He is the Executive Co-Chair for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) and the Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Arts and Health. He is also a professional jazz musician, performing for the past 30 years in the Boston area.
University Professor, Lesley University
Shaun McNiff teaches and lectures on the arts and healing, creativity practice, leadership, and art-based research. An exhibiting painter whose art assimilates different elements of his lifework, McNiff is also the author of many books including Trust the Process, Art as Medicine, Art Heals, Art-Based Research, Depth Psychology of Art, and Integrating the Arts in Therapy. His writings have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, and other languages. In 1974, McNiff established Lesley"s Integrated Art in Education and Expressive Therapies graduate programs, both emphasizing relationships amongst the arts and other areas of professional practice. Honors and awards include the Honorary Life Member Award of the American Art Therapy Association and citations from the Massachusetts House of Representative and Senate for founding the Expressive Arts Therapy profession. NcNiff left Lesley in 1995 to serve as Provost and Dean of Endicott College and returned in 2002 as the first University Professor.