Executive Leadership

About Meridian

Board of Trustees

Chair of the Board of Trustees

Susan Shaw

A family therapist of 35 years, Susan Shaw has been teaching and training therapists in family therapy and Narrative Practice for many years. In 1995 she co-founded Narrative Training Associates, a non-profit group dedicated to organizing in the professional community for social justice. Her work has been instrumental in developing the North Bay Organizing Project (NBOP) where she serves as Executive Director. Susan directed the development and organizing of the Graton Day Labor Center (Centro Laboral de Graton) from 2003 - 2008, and has served on its board since 2002. She was the recipient of the Activist of the Year Award from Community Action Partnership in 2007.

Trustee

Larry Robinson

Larry Robinson is a retired Marriage and Family Therapist whose specialty was ecopsychology; he maintained a private practice in Sebastopol, California from 1986 to 2006. He served on the Sebastopol City Council from 1998 to 2010, including two terms as Mayor of Sebastopol. During this same time he served as Chair of the Sonoma County Mayors and Councilmembers Association and as a Director of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. In years past, Larry worked as a staffing consultant to a number of major corporations in Silicon Valley. As well, he served as the Administrator of the Tomales Institute of Psychotherapy (a CA State Approved MA program in Counseling Psychology), and Headmaster of Renaissance School, in Palo Alto, California. Larry currently serves as President of the board of the Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy and is a board member of the Climate Protection Campaign. A ceramic artist and poet, Larry has also produced numerous poetry events including the past 13 seasons of Rumi's Caravan.

Trustee

Rebecca Evert

Rebecca Evert has been a Registered Health Information Administrator for over 25 years, primarily in health care settings (as professionals, RHIAs are responsible for health information systems that meet all legal, ethical, medical and accreditation requirements). Rebecca was Director of Health Information at numerous facilities and most recently a health information system consultant for the St. Joseph Health System. As part of her community-oriented work, Rebecca serves on the advisory boards of Hospice of Petaluma, Memorial Hospice and North County Hospice, and is a member of their joint Performance Improvement Committee. Rebecca is a founding member of Mnemonic Productions, now in its fouth ninth year, which produces about 10 events each year that focus on women as creators, keepers, and contributors to culture - both historical and current. She also participates in local Climate Protection Campaign activities. Other community pursuits Rebecca enjoys and hosts are oral tradition poetry salons and a semi-monthly dream work group.

Trustee

Chris Simmons

Chris Simmons, PhD has spent over 25 years in the public sector and serves as a law enforcement executive in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chris received Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Sonoma State University and a Master's and Doctorate from Meridian University. His research has focused on criminal psychopathy and sociopathy, forensic psychology and investigation, and the psychology of the shadow. With his background also rooted in organizational leadership and development, Chris has facilitated and taught governmental administrators on collective shadow and groupthink processes that can affect management decision-making. He has extensive experience interviewing hundreds of violent offenders and those whose disidentified shadows have led to criminal behavior.

Trustee

Ed Biery

Ed Biery, PhD DVM, received his Bachelor's and his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from the University of California, Davis. He then went on to receive his Master's and Doctorate from Meridian University. Ed's interests relate to the practical interface of neurobiology with clinical practice in Imaginal Psychology, to help clients better understand what is going on in their bodies as well as their psyches, primarily through the exploration of image and the expression of affect.

Chief Academic Officer

Melissa Schwartz

Melissa Schwartz, PhD, is the Chief Academic Officer at Meridian University where she guides integrally-oriented programs in Education, Business, and Psychology. The Director of Meridian's Center for Transformative Learning, Melissa is dually licensed in California as both a psychologist and as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). She has served as a reviewer for the American Psychological Association's Psychology of Women Quarterly and as a Subject Matter Expert for California's Board of Behavioral Sciences in the development of the state's MFT licensure examination. For over a decade she has served as a provider reviewer for the California Psychological Association's Office of Professional Development. Melissa's research interests are in the areas of adult development, the psychology of women, Integral Transformative Assessment, and the role of culture in transformative learning.

In Memoriam, 1938 - 2024

Eleanor Criswell

Eleanor Criswell, EdD, was a core faculty member at Meridian University for over 30 years and served on the University's Board of Trustees as Vice Chair. She was also the editor of Somatics Magazine and Director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training. An Emeritus Professor of Psychology and former Chair of the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, Eleanor was the founding director of the Humanistic Psychology Institute (now Saybrook University), where she was a Distinguished Consulting Faculty member for many years. Eleanor's books include Biofeedback and Somatics: Toward Personal Evolution; How Yoga Works: An Introduction to Somatic Yoga, and she was editor of Cram's Introduction to Surface Electromyography. Criswell was a past president of Division 32 — Society of Humanistic Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and as well was president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology Association, the Biofeedback Society of California, and the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She was also president of the Somatics Society. A licensed psychologist, certified biofeedback practitioner, and somatic educator, Eleanor's somatics discipline was rooted in Hanna Somatics. She taught yoga beginning in 1967 and was the creator of Somatic Yoga and Equine Hanna Somatics.

President

Aftab Omer

Aftab Omer, PhD is the president of Meridian University which offers degree and professional programs globally, emphasizing the power of transformative learning. He is a sociologist, psychologist, developmentalist, and futurist. Raised in Pakistan, India, Hawaii, and Turkey, he was educated at the universities of M.I.T, Harvard and Brandeis. His publications have addressed the topics of transformative learning, dialogic capability, developmental power, cultural leadership, civil society, generative entrepreneurship, and the power of imagination. Aftab's advising work focuses on team development and on leveraging the creative potentials of conflict, diversity, and complexity. Formerly the president of the Council for Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychologies, he is a Fellow of the International Futures Forum and the World Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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