For two decades I've studied what makes cities and communities thrive, what makes organizations thrive, and how we understand and react to the world through our own neuro-somatic responses and patterns. I've found that an interdisciplinary, holistic approach, grounded in nature, is what gives us startling insight, creative breakthroughs, and real change.
Nature runs underneath all three: the root beneath the roots.
We know what's coming: ecological strain, organizations too brittle to adapt, burnout that's become background noise, a polarization that leaves us more isolated even as we're more connected. Systems change is the obvious answer, and it feels close to impossible.
It's not that we aren't trying. We're just trained to understand the world by breaking it into smaller and smaller parts, a way of thinking that produced extraordinary scientific and technical progress, and left us with little practice or understanding of the complexity of a living organization, the natural systems that support us, a place that enables us to thrive, and our own bodies under stress.
What's missing isn't more evidence. It's connecting traditionally siloed bodies of evidence, challenging our bias toward purely cognitive ways of knowing, and acknowledging the role of sensing awareness to help us better understand the systems we live in: the natural world, our built environments, and even our own bodies in space, through neuroception, proprioception, and interoception. Indigenous perspectives have been telling us this for years. Western scientific thinking is only now catching up.
Two decades of research, strategic planning, grant-funded projects, workshops, and coalition-based work connecting human health to the places we build: cities, buildings, workplaces, and the nature woven through them.
See the research & projects →A peer-reviewed, transdisciplinary framework (twelve competencies, five levels, built with eleven researchers across ten countries) for measuring what actually predicts a resilient, thriving organization.
Explore the framework →One-to-one neuro-somatic practice for women ready to move from wired and spinning to grounded and resilient, through polyvagal science, somatic practice, and nature as teacher, not backdrop.
Begin the work →We're shaped by our experiences, places, and neuro-somatic patterns and responses. Understanding their interrelation is the missing piece for thriving people and places, and the shift we need to move the needle.
Scientific evidence in the West has prioritized our cognitive interpretation and ordering of the world, but our body and nature don't speak that language. Learning how to speak both languages, and travel between them, is the key to increased wisdom, creativity, and resilience for individuals, teams, and organizations: a fluency that's needed for the regenerative, empowered, and connected futures we want.
This fluency is my unique expertise: rigorous academic and industry-relevant evidence on healthy places and organizations, neuro-somatic practitioner proficiency, and almost two decades of nature-health relationship expertise. It's what lets me help a leadership team, a building project, or a single nervous system move toward the same thing: calm, connected, and ready to create, blending evidence and practice to create paradigm-shifting healthy places and people.
I hold a PhD examining health, wellbeing, and our relationship with nature and place. I spent years as VP of Research at the International WELL Building Institute, and over two decades running Greening the City, a research, coalition, and strategic planning practice connecting human health, performance, and the built environment, including coalition work with Jefferson County Public Health.
I'm the lead author of the 12 Competencies framework, published in the Journal of Corporate Real Estate, and founder of the Competencies Collective. I'm also the author of Small-Scale Urban Greening: Creating Places of Health, Creativity, and Ecological Sustainability (Routledge, 2020), examining the relationship between urban nature, health, and creativity. Alongside the research, I've completed extensive, ongoing training across polyvagal theory, neurosomatic education, Social Presencing Theatre, mindfulness, and movement, including dance, yoga, and pilates. I bring the same rigor to this body-based work as to the peer-reviewed research.
“An excellent summary of the literature regarding human interaction with nature.”
“…masterfully shines a light on…leftover, marginal, and abandoned spaces…”