Our Leadership

Dr. Kia Darling-Hammond (she/they) holds a doctorate in developmental and psychological sciences in education, is author of the Bridge to Thriving Framework©, co-author of The Civil Rights Road to Deeper Learning: Five Essentials for Equity, and co-editor of T* is for Thriving: Blueprints for Affirming Trans* and Gender Creative Lives and Learning in Schools. As CEO of the research and education firm Wise Chipmunk LLC, she leverages over 25 years of experience in youth development, education, and organizational leadership to offer healing-centered research, advising, coaching, counseling, and public speaking, as well as designs for professional learning, curriculum development, and organizational growth.

Dr. Darling-Hammond’s work emphasizes the importance of combining the sciences of learning and development, thriving, and flourishing with healing and transformative justice to promote an evolution toward thriving for all. This approach is grounded in the knowledge that innovation driven by those furthest from power is key to improving everyone’s lives. 

Maria Leister, JD, SMB 

Maria Leister serves as the Director of Training and Medical Bioethics at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), where she leads global initiatives to advance trauma-informed leadership, bioethics, and human rights in humanitarian settings. Maria has been a member of HPRT’s Global Mental Health, Trauma and Recovery teaching faculty since 2016.

Her work focuses on building sustainable, cross-cultural frameworks that support resilience and dignity for communities affected by mass violence, conflict, and displacement.

Prior to joining HPRT, Maria designed and led programs and projects for organizations, including UNICEF, FIFA, and Kotter International, and helped create the Jack T. Litman Fellowship and Emerging Leaders programs at Harvard Law School. She also directed an immigration program for a global relief and development organization, where she established legal services offices and led community engagement initiatives for migrant workers. Her expertise includes training healthcare professionals and leaders in high-risk environments, with a focus on psychological safety and bioethics frameworks. She has presented extensively on collective trauma and the power of community to heal, and continues to advise on a range of bioethical issues.

Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia. She believes in collective action and community work, the profound power of holding space for the telling of our stories, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education. She also is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts, which has published over 900 Latinx voices in its history.

She educates current and future agitators/educators as a full professor of education and frequent guest speaker nationwide. She is an emerging visual artist and digital archivist, particularly with StoryJoy, which she co-founded with her mother, Dr. Norma Thomas. She is the lead coordinator for Nomadic Press in Philadelphia and a senior researcher on various grants in education and literature.

Unapologetically Black and Queer - Je-Shawna Wholley (she/her) is an artist, independent scholar, and community organizer. Drawing from her considerable talents as a memory worker and curator of sacred space, Je-Shawna created the Earthseed Black Family Archive Project a community offering resourcing Black folks who are interested in delving into their family history, doing it within community and creating something from what they find.

Earthseed seeks to follow in the tradition of Black feminist artistic influence and Black feminist action by building intimate spaces of care, mutual aid, and political education around questions of transgenerational healing and liberated futures.