Staff & Instructors
INSTRUCTORS
Anahata Labaw , Leilani Nisperos, Vinny Ferraro, Will Kabat-Zinn, Jon Oda, Jonathan Weinstock, Sam Himelstein, Amutabi Haines, Amani Carey-Simms, Kekoa Won (not all pictured above)
STAFF
Chris McKenna – Executive Director: Chris comes to MBA with almost 10 years of experience in the non-profit sector. To name a few, he has served as: the Outreach Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, an NGO launched out of Amnesty International that provides legal and psychosocial services to torture and war crimes victims; the Executive Director of Tibet Justice Center, an NGO which does international advocacy on Tibetan human rights, religious freedom and environmental issues; and a Campaigner on WITNESS’s “Books Not Bars” initiative, working with grassroots prison reform groups to challenge youth incarceration policies in the U.S.; among others.
Over the years, Chris has also sat on the board of several other non-profits and is currently Secretary of the Board of the Tibetan Community Center of Northern California. He has had a daily meditation practice for the last 15 years; he studied Religion and Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and currently studies within the Zen and Orthodox Daoist traditions.
Vinny Ferraro – Teacher Training Director: Vinny is a long-time mindfulness meditation practitioner and meditation instructor. He runs a weekly meditation class in San Francisco, and is a teacher through Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Training program. In 1998, he spent a year sitting bedside with the dying through the Zen Center Hospice Program in San Francisco, as well as experiencing A Year to Live Practice. He has studied with several renowned spiritual teachers, the Dalai Lama among them. He is also the Teacher Training Director for Challenge Day, a nationally-recognized transformational change organization that helps adolescents to overcome internalized and external oppression, cultivate emotional well-being, and create healthier communities. Challenge Day has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Challenge Day’s Teacher Training process is a model for the development of instructors with profound emotional competency, empathetic capacity, and the ability to support young people through profound difficulties. Vinny has been responsible for the recruitment, cultivation, and development of an instructor corps that numbers 26 members. He has facilitated Challenge Days in schools and detention facilities around the world.
Gabriel Kram – Director of Consulting Services: Gabriel brings 14 years of mindfulness meditation, 10 years of yoga practice, and 7 years of participation in indigenous ceremony to his role as Director of Consulting Services. During his tenure as MBA E.D, Gabriel created a Memorandum of Understanding with San Mateo County Probation Department formalizing collaboration to support enhanced service offerings for incarcerated/post-incarcerated youth, and created a coalition of Alameda County public partners, including Probation, Behavioral Health, and Healthcare Services Agency to support therapeutic continuum of care for youth incarcerated in Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center. In 2008, he authored and oversaw the development of a strategic plan and proposal for a comprehensive Mindfulness-Based Rehabilitation Initiative in Alameda County that was advanced to final round consideration for $1 million in funding (half local, half foundation) from the Local Funding Partnerships of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has also overseen the creation of MBA’s Research Advisory Council, whose purpose is to oversee the development and implementation of evaluation as MBA seeks inclusion of its programming in evidence-based registries.
Oren Sofer – Director of Operations: Oren has been studying and practicing Vipassana meditation since 1997 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University. He is also a Collaborative Trainer with BayNVC, and has been teaching Compassionate Communication (Nonviolent Communication) since 2006. Currently, Oren is training as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner for healing trauma, and works with individuals, couples, groups and organizations as a communication trainer and counselor. Oren is also a trained mediator, musician and poet.
