We are an extensive community of trained professionals, dedicated to empowering teens and young adults in a supportive environment.
iBme teachers, assistant teachers, and mentors are professionals in the areas of mindfulness, health, and education, and bring years of personal mindfulness practice to their roles – modeling authenticity, compassion, and respect. Find out more about our teachers and assistant teachers below.
If you are interested in becoming an iBme retreat staff member, please complete our application form.
Please note: some retreat mentor positions are unpaid.
Teachers
Anthony Maes
Anthony “T” Maes found mindfulness during college when struggling with addiction, and it saved his life. He has practiced mindfulness meditation since 2003 including many weeklong and monthlong silent retreats. He’s been teaching teens in mindfulness retreats and weekly class formats since 2009 for various organizations including Spirit Rock and IBME. On retreat he enjoys teaching emotional intelligence, diversity and inclusion, relational mindfulness, multi-racial liberation, and acrobalance. He is a teacher and coordinator of the weekly Teen Sangha meditation group at East Bay Meditation Center. He has worked as a wilderness mentor for middle-school boys with Stepping Stones Project and Back To Earth. He is passionate about supporting college-aged young adults, and has founded a leadership program for “aged out” iBme alumni. “T” graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004, completed the yearlong Commit2Dharma program at East Bay Meditation Center in 2011, and is currently part of the Community Dharma Leaders training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
Barnaby Willett
Barnaby Willett is Director of Program Development at the nonprofit Peace in Schools, which offers semester-long mindfulness classes in public high schools. He teaches mindfulness at Cleveland High School in Portland, Oregon. Barnaby has practiced mindfulness since 1994. He is certified to teach a 12-week curriculum in Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Treatment for Adolescents (MBSAT). Barnaby was formerly employed in finance and investment management. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Pomona College.
Cara Lai
Cara Lai started meditating over ten years ago, and began sitting long retreats regularly in 2011. Most of her practice has been in the IMS/Spirit Rock tradition, although she has explored many other avenues of self-discovery. She seeks to find freedom through her own intuitive process, however that may vary from the ways we normally think about Buddhism, and to help others do the same. Nature, intuition, and the body are all integral to her teaching. She teaches for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education and works as a mindfulness-based psychotherapist, artist, and occasional wilderness guide. She has a Masters in Social Work from the University of Vermont; and in the past has worked in a therapeutic high school, an adoption agency, and various outdoor education settings. In 2020 she will complete the Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program. In her spare time she enjoys walking and watching plants grow.
Charisse Minerva
Charisse Minerva is a Community Builder, Educator, Contemplative and Performance Artist. She focuses on the three essential tools for this work: Culture, Creativity, and Contemplation. She has worked in corporate offices, counseling agencies, detention centers, with artistic groups, and athletes. She designed and directed a Mindfulness K-12 program for Friends School of VA Beach for 7 years and taught Mindfulness for five years as part of a College Success Skills course at Tidewater Community College. She has been working with iBme for several years as a Retreat teacher, Faculty member of the iBme Teacher Training course, and Board member. Minerva is a social activist. She places much of her focus on bringing Contemplative, Culture, and Creative practices to communities as a tool for healing and development and to reveal how these tools are already present in their lives. “I am a guide revealing to others what they already possess.”
Devon Cresci
Devon Cresci has been practicing mindfulness since 1997. She graduated with her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. Since that time she has worked with teens in many different capacities. Currently she works part time for Mindful Schools as a guiding teacher for their yearlong teacher training program and full time as a Social Worker in a public high school in San Francisco. There, she teaches mindfulness to both students and staff. Devon identifies as a queer woman and is heartfelt about the power of mindfulness practice to increase peace and freedom for all.
Dori Langevin
Dori began meditating in 1985 while attending a monthlong retreat at Esalen Institute entitled Mystical Quest: Attachment, and Addiction. During that retreat the mindfulness and compassion meditations and the teachings of suffering and freedom from suffering mirrored her direct experience of addiction and recovery (1980) and her professional work with others. Her meditation practice became the wellspring of her life.
In 1996 Dori moved from Moscow, Russia to the Washington DC area and met Tara Brach who founded Insight Meditation Community of Washington and invited Dori to teach in 2003. IMCW became the community ground of her life. Dori graduated from the 4-year Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training in 2010. She began teaching Teen Retreats in 2008 in Virginia and co-developed iBme Teen Retreats in the Pacific Northwest where she currently lives. Dori is delighted and feels honored to again be part of iBme Teen Retreats.
Enrique Collazo
Enrique Collazo is a new generation Mindfulness meditation teacher. Born and raised in Los Angeles and has been teaching and living in the Bay Area for the last 6 years. His passion is teaching the practice of mindfulness to teens. He is well loved and respected for his inspirational work at Challenge Day during the school year where he facilitates social and emotional learning workshops for thousands of young people all over the country. Enrique’s skill with teens has led to teaching internationally for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education. He is on the Guiding Teacher Counsel and Equity and Interdependence Committee for Ibme. Enrique is a frequent co-facilitator for teens at Spirit Rock and a committed advocate for bringing meditative interventions into jails and addiction treatment facilities.Enrique is a champion for helping young people create pathways that align with their goals and deepest intentions, and empowering them to broaden their confidence by opening their eyes to what’s possible when negative internal narrative is transformed into positive effort.He believes deeply in the power of marginalized voices to change the world.
Enrique was trained by Noah Levine and Vinny Ferraro at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society.
Eric Busse
Eric Michael B. is a teacher, facilitator, and researcher with a passion for transformation and justice. Informed by years of intensive meditation practice across a range of traditions, Eric specializes in teaching mindfulness and other contemplative practices to help individuals and communities navigate issues related to power, ethics, difference, and complexity with creativity and care. After studying performance and critical race theory as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse, Eric earned a Master of Bioethics degree (M.B.E.) focusing on trauma and health equity from Harvard Medical School, a Master of Divinity degree (M.Div.) in social ethics and contemplative studies from Harvard Divinity School, and an interdisciplinary graduate certificate in child protection from the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Eric currently studies the intersections of embodiment, mortality, and moral development as a doctoral student at Fielding Graduate University. He has collaborated with iBme in various capacities since 2015, and he’s a proud graduate of iBme’s Teacher Training Program. Eric is a lover of dance who believes in the power of art, community, and contemplative practice to change the world. His personal practice and professional collaborations strive to honor the wisdom of philosopher and community organizer Grace Lee Boggs: “To transform the world, we must transform ourselves.”
Erin Oke
Erin teaches meditation and is the Executive Director at the Consciousness Explorers Club, an innovative contemplative community based in Toronto. Her focus is on meditation for self-care and emotional well being and she has taught mindfulness skills in health care, education, corporate and non-profit settings. She has guided meditating teenagers on iBme’s Toronto Teen Retreats and taught mindfulness to high schoolers for KidEvolve. She served as Youth Programs Coordinator for EHM from 2007-2018, running a centre providing free programs for low-income children and youth designed to foster confidence and creativity. She also studied and worked in theatre for many years, and loves to infuse her teaching with a sense of play and creative exploration. Erin is passionate about the confluence of meditation practice and social justice, and using mindfulness in the service of caring better for oneself and others.
Jeff Warren
Jeff Warren is a writer and meditation teacher. He is the author of The Head Trip, a travel guide to sleeping, dreaming and waking, and co-author, along with Dan Harris and Carlye Adler, of The New York Times bestselling Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He is also Founder and Chief Exploring Officer of The Consciousness Explorers Club, a nonprofit meditation adventure group in Toronto.
Jessica Morey
Jessica Morey leads meditation retreats across the US and offers one to one meditation coaching. She is a co-founder and lead teacher for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education. She began practicing meditation at age 14 on teen retreats offered by IMS. She is currently in the IMS 2017-2021 Teacher Training Program. Before joining iBme, Jessica worked in clean energy and climate policy and finance. She holds a BA in Environmental Engineering and Masters degrees in Sustainable Development and International Affairs. She loves dancing, yoga, and being in nature.
JoAnna Hardy
JoAnna Hardy has been exploring and practicing multiple traditions since 1999. In 2005, her focus landed on Buddhism and Vipassana meditation, which is the premise for most of her current teaching. She teaches; adult and teen weeklong silent retreats, day longs and weekly classes, and works with at risk youth and non at risk youth in institutional and school settings. Helping communities and individuals that don’t typically have access to the traditional dharma settings and building multicultural community is top on her list of priorities. She has been trained in council facilitation with the Ojai Foundation and is an empowered teacher in the Ajahn Chah, Mahasi Sayadaw, Spirit Rock, IMS lineage. She is the grateful mother of CJ and Harris – her main inspirations.
Joe Klein
Joe Klein, LPC, is the lead clinician of a mindfulness-based addiction treatment program in rural Virginia. He began practicing meditation in 2001, began staffing teen retreats in 2007, and is a co-founder of iBme. Since 2010, Joe has been teaching a graduate course at Radford University and leading retreats and workshops on mindfulness practice for college students, counselors, social workers, and education professionals. Joe brings playfulness, Earth connection, and whole person engagement to his ways of teaching and embodying mindfulness practice.
Jose Shinzan Palma
Jose Shinzan Palma was born in Veracruz, Mexico. He is a Zen Buddhist Priest. He has been practicing Zen since 1996. He did a residential training for 4 years at the Zen Buddhist Temple in Toronto, Canada. He lived and trained in Upaya Zen Center for over 8 years. He is a Dharma Successor of Roshi Joan Halifax. He has taught Zazenkais and Sesshins at Upaya and has staffed Teen Retreats for Spirit Rock Center and iBme. He is a guest teacher in a Zen Buddhist Temple in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Shinzan left the residency of Upaya and he is the founder of Open Gate Zen Collective in San Diego. His vision is to work with youth and also create a Zen Hispanic community in the USA and Mexico.
Josh Kehler
Bio coming soon!
Kaira Jewel Lingo
Kaira Jewel Lingo teaches Buddhist meditation, mindfulness, and compassion internationally, with a focus on children, families, and young people. She began practicing mindfulness in 1997. She was an ordained nun of 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, and now leads retreats in the U.S. and internationally, offering mindfulness programs for educators and youth in schools. She also leads retreats for people of color, activists and artists. In addition to teaching in the Zen tradition and secular mindfulness, she is Spirit Rock-trained teacher in the Vipassana lineage. She explores the interweaving of art, play, ecology and spiritual practice and is a certified yoga teacher and InterPlay leader. She teaches and mentors regularly with Schumacher College, Sangha Live, iBme, the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, the Power of Awareness online course, and is a guiding teacher for One Earth Sangha, and formerly with Mindful Schools. She edited Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children. She loves teaching and practicing with teens and young people and has been teaching with iBme since 2015.
Khalila Archer
Khalila Archer is a mindfulness and yoga instructor with 20+ years of personal practice. Introduced to yoga and meditation in her teen years, she has attended many multi-day silent meditation retreats, including two month-long retreats. Her background includes over a decade as a wilderness educator leading multi-day expeditions for a variety of educational organizations, as well as teaching interdisciplinary curriculum in formal classroom settings and beyond. She holds a B.A. in Adventure-based Environmental Education from Prescott College and over 500 Yoga Teacher Training hours. Khalila teaches meditation retreats for all ages through Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) in both residential settings and remote wilderness environments. Her teaching is grounded in nature awareness and connection, mindfulness meditation as a means for insight, care, and well-being, and social justice praxis that recognizes our interdependence and collective need for freedom. Khalila currently serves on the Teachers Advisory Committee and is part of the core faculty for the iBme Mindfulness Teacher Training.
Mark Wax
Mark Wax is deeply grateful to be working with iBme. Mark has been practicing meditative arts for 20+ years, and is a passionate student/practitioner/devotee of several culturally rooted wisdom traditions. He has worked for Yoga International, The Himalayan Institute, and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He has had the privilege to spend many months of his life on silent meditation retreats as well as 5+ years deepening his practice through living in spiritually-centered communities. He has multiple certificates as a yoga teacher and an Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist.
Mark has worn many hats at iBme since first mentoring on a retreat in 2015. He participated in the first cohort of iBme’s Teacher Training and currently helps lead retreats and other programming as well as serves on the Teachers Advisory Council and a few other committees inside of iBme’s collaborative leadership system.
Mark currently lives in Northern New Mexico and spends his free time learning music and language, connecting to the natural world, supporting grassroots activism for heart-centered systemic change, and writing poems that sometimes come out pretty good if he may say so…
Marvin G. Belzer
Marvin G. Belzer, PhD, has taught mindfulness meditation for over fifteen years and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. For many years he taught a semester-long meditation course in the Department of Philosophy at Bowling Green St. University, where he was a Professor of philosophy. He and Diana Winston were instrumental in developing week-long mindfulness retreats for teens in the mid-1990s.
Mick Neustadt
Mick Neustadt is a long time mindfulness and meditation practitioner and clinical social worker. As a result of 20 years of personal practice Mick has experienced the profound benefits of mindfulness. He realizes that we have a great capacity to connect deeply with our full selves and others. Through dedicated practice we can transform the way that we relate to ourselves, those closest to us, and the world. With his rich background as a therapist, former school teacher and coach, Mick brings a wide range of skills and dedication to helping teens and adults on their journey of self exploration. Since 2011 he has formally taught mindfulness to teens in schools, on retreats and a weekly group. He has also taught teachers in schools, and teaches a weekly group for adults. Mick has completed numerous trainings for teaching mindfulness to teens and is also a Level 2 iRest Yoga Nidra teacher.
Nina Bryce
Nina [she/her] supports people in cultivating embodied presence as a way of coming home to themselves. She is a mindfulness facilitator rooted in multiple lineages of meditative practice, including both stillness and movement. Starting with her spiritual roots in her Jewish-Buddhist upbringing in a family of meditators, through her teen years as a student and eventually teacher of yoga, and into her training in Buddhist spiritual care and secular mindfulness education, Nina is grateful for a life path that has allowed her to explore contemplative practice in many forms. Nina holds a Master of Divinity, focused in the Buddhist Ministry Initiative, from Harvard Divinity School. Through her graduate studies as an M.Div, she is trained in facilitation of multifaith contemplative practice, interfaith chaplaincy, and leading mindfulness programs in both religious and secular settings, ranging from teen camp at a monastery to the cancer floor of a hospital. Her formal meditation practice and teaching has been shaped most by the Insight Meditation tradition, in which she was raised and continues to practice, and by the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. Nina is also trained as an RYT-200 yoga teacher in Vinyasa and Kundalini yoga, and her approach to leading mindful movement is informed by both yoga and modern dance. Nina is currently training as a non-denominational Spiritual Director with Still Harbor. She completed the iBme Mindfulness Teacher Training in 2018, and has been involved with iBme teen and college mindfulness retreats since 2014. She especially loves LGBTQIA+ mindfulness community, both as a participant & as a facilitator. As a Mindfulness Director with Mindfulness Director Initiative, she currently leads mindfulness programs at Harvard College. Nina is energized by working with young adults, because she believes that these years are ripe with potential for inquiry into core questions of who we are and how we relate to the world. She is inspired by the way that youth long for, and create, spaces where they can reflect honestly on their experiences, learn to take care of themselves and others, and build authentic, loving communities that support deep well-being and freedom.
Sara Shapouri
Sara Shapouri is an Iranian-American meditation and mindfulness instructor, artist, musician and lawyer. Sara’s experience with sharing mindfulness and meditation include curriculum development and instruction at Awake Youth Project, a program offering meditation and mentoring to teenagers in Brooklyn, and teaching meditation retreats with Inward Bound Mindfulness Education. She has completed teacher training programs with the Interdependence Project in 2016 and with Inward Bound in 2018. She has also trained in conflict mediation with the New York Center for Interpersonal Development, completed the year-long caregiver training program at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care in 2015, and in 2019 finished the Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy in Complex Trauma training. Sara is currently participating in the Community Dharma Leaders Program through Spirit Rock and is also in the Dharmapala Training through Sacred Mountain Sangha. While she is currently retired from the practice of law, she remains committed to social justice, particularly issues related to human rights and children’s rights.
Tuere Sala
Tuere Sala is a retired prosecuting attorney who has practiced Vipassana meditation for over 25 years. She has been an active member and volunteer at Seattle Insight since 2001. In 2009, she was appointed to be a Local Dharma Leader and has often supported SIMS in unconventional ways such as answering the many letters SIMS receives from practitioners in prison; offering beginning classes at Angeline Women’s shelter and Jubilee House, a women’s transitional house; and facilitating workshops using nonviolent communication (NVC) to support a mindfulness practice.
Tuere believes that urban meditation is the foundation for today’s practitioner’s path to liberation. She is inspired by bringing the Dharma to nontraditional places and is a strong advocate for practitioners living with high stress, past trauma and difficulties sitting still. Her teachings reflect an approach to Dharma that is both easy to follow and understand – making it accessible to everyone.
Tuere has completed extensive trainings including: the 2 Year Spirit Rock/IMS Community Dharma Leader Program; a 1 Year Focusing for Complex Trauma Course which incorporates mindfulness principles with somatic listening and a 1 Year Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training Course (MMFT) which incorporates mindfulness principles within the high stress work environments of first responders. She has sat 300+ days of meditation retreat (including residential, non-residential and day-longs) and has a long history of assisting others in establishing and maintaining a daily practice.
Zac Ispa-Landa
Zac Ispa-Landa has practiced and studied insight meditation, mindfulness, and other awareness practices for over 20 years. He’s deeply inspired by the role contemplative practices can play in supporting our individual and collective journey toward flourishing and sustainability. He became devoted to awareness practices in his early 20s and has spent thousands of hours in meditation and 100+ days on silent retreat.
At iBme, he has the joy of teaching Teen Retreats, Harvard Retreats, and the Mindfulness Teacher Training Program. He’s also a Senior Lecturer in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at University of Vermont, where he designs and teaches courses on environmental justice, beekeeping, environmental assessment, sustainability, and mindfulness. His work focuses on mentoring students in developing their capacity to create conditions for positive change in complex socio-ecological systems. He has many years of experience creating transformative education environments with a focus on contemplative practices, nature connection, and relationship. As an ecologist, beekeeper, meditator, and father, Zac has deep respect for interdependence, diversity, complexity, self-organization, gratitude, and the transformative power of awareness. He aspires towards embodied liberation, wisdom, and compassion in all domains of his life.
Zac lives in Winooski, Vermont with his partner, son, cat, and tens of thousands of honey bees.
Assistant Teachers
Day Nyugen
Bio coming soon!
Bea 'B.' Anderson
Bio coming soon!
Em Morrison
Em loves nothing more than creating safe, fun, and healthy spaces for teens and adults to flourish. She’s taught mindfulness at after school programs, summer camps, and on young adult and teen retreats. She began practicing meditation in 2011 because she was having the best day of her life (just kidding). She is honored to have the chance to share the tools that have brought her so much joy, contentment, and peace in her life.
Jacqui Clay
Board President, Equity and Interdependence Committee Member Photo: Path at Insight Meditation Center
Jen Zehler
Bio coming soon!
Joe Clements
Bio coming soon!
Nannette Weinhold
After attending Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, Nannette began her professional journey as a passionate experiential educator. She taught in a very rural Oregon school district before moving to the Rocky Mountains with her family to attend Naropa University. There her spiritual journey began as a contemplative educator, meditator, and yogini. Nannette is committed to helping young people thrive and have the confidence to be their true selves. She enjoys working with teens and being a positive presence in their lives. Nannette runs a summer mindfulness and art camp for middle school students and periodically teaches mindful parenting classes in her community. She also works with high school students teaching them meditation and helping them pursue their passions. Nannette is working toward her PhD in Somatic and Spiritual Psychology from the International University of Professional Studies, under the mentorship of psychotherapist, Matt Licata PhD. Her dissertation entails using contemplative photography to help young people see directly the world in which they live. Through contemplative photography, young people can experience a deeper connection to their inner and outer worlds. At this time there are no future plans except to joyfully be of service and to support those who are bringing forth goodness in the world.
Seonjoon Young
Bio coming soon!
Soroosh Vafapoor
Soroosh first encountered mindfulness while travelling in Thailand. Since then, he has spent time in different retreat settings all across the world, always looking for different ways and expressions of mindfulness practice. He believes that each individual can work to create their own understanding and practice of mindfulness through creative reflection and exploration of themselves. For Soroosh, mindfulness extends ‘beyond the mat’ and into the everyday activities and interactions that we sometimes take for granted. His knowledge of mindfulness and contemplative practice is complimented by his years of experience as an overseas experiential educator and as a community mediator. Soroosh currently works at an after school recreational facility for youth in Toronto. If you ask him nicely, he’ll teach you how to clap with one hand.
Tanzanite Msola
Tanzanite has a long-term interest and passion in supporting young people academically, emotionally, and helping them achieve a creative outlet. Tanzanite has spent the past 6 years in Massachusetts working with young people from all different cultural and economic background, with all levels of ability and disability. Now, as a recent transplant to NYC, Tanzanite currently assists with the Awake Youth Project at the Brooklyn Zen Center. Tanzanite was introduced to meditation at a young age by attending the Insight Meditation Society’s (IMS) Family and Teen Retreats. As Tanzanite leaned into ‘adulthood’ she returned as a staff volunteer for IMS Teen Retreats and for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) Teen Retreats. Tanzanite has found it truly rewarding and a privilege to witness the positive effects of hands-on projects, building a personal connection, and understanding that each moment is a learning experience through mindfulness. Tanzanite is excited to continue chillin and growing with the iBme family.
Tonya Jones
Tonya has spent the past 17 years working in the public sector driven by a strong commitment to social justice and equity, collective healing and building stronger, compassionate communities. Before joining iBme, Tonya was the Los Angeles Director at the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), a national organization that provides transitional work and permanent job services to the formerly incarcerated. At CEO, she was responsible for overseeing and supporting a diverse staff of 20, along with program development and management, community partnerships, fiscal oversight and working collaboratively with national fund and business development teams. Tonya is a certified mindfulness facilitator (UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior). She is a mentor for UCLA’s Intensive Practice Program, teaching assistant for UCLA’s Mindfulness and Theory course, guest teacher at InsightLA’s POC sangha, and has lectured and facilitated at numerous educational institutions and organizations. Tonya holds a BA from Howard University, MFA from Columbia University, and serves on the UC Irvine Advisory Board for the Customer Experience Certificate Program.