Center for Creative Inquiry

People

Jack Petranker

Founder / Board Member / Senior Instructor

Jack Petranker (he/him) is the founder of CCI and regularly offers courses and retreats. He is the author of When It Rains, Does Space Get Wet? (Dharma Publishing 2006), and has written numerous academic articles in consciousness studies, organizational change, political transformation, and the value of work as a spiritual practice. Jack holds an MA in political theory from UC Berkeley, and a JD from Yale Law School. He is also the Director of Mangalam Research Center in Berkeley, CA.

Morgan Wells

Executive Director / Board Member / Instructor

Morgan Wells (she/her) is the executive director of CCI. She is a practitioner of TSK and Buddhism who has studied with Jack Petranker and other senior students of Tarthang Tulku since 2007. She completed the Nyingma Institute’s Path & Practices of Liberation program (1,200 hours) in 2010 and Four-Month Human Development Training Retreat (638 hours) in 2014. Morgan is also an attorney, adjunct professor, and Associate Director of the MSL program at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. She is also an adoring mom of twin girls.

David Filippone

Board Member / Contributor

David Filippone (he/him) has been a student of Tarthang Tulku’s Time, Space, Knowledge vision for over 25 years. For the past fourteen years, he has studied TSK and Full Presence Mindfulness with Jack Petranker, founder of the Center for Creative Inquiry (CCI). He also participated in programs offered by Carolyn Pasternak of the Odiyan Center. David curated the CCI Facebook page for five years, which is often TSK-focused, and he currently serves on the CCI Board of Directors.

Ignacio Ercole

Artistic Director / Instructor

Ignacio Ercole (they/them) is a psychologist, artist and mindfulness trainer. They have been trained as a psychodrama facilitator and contextual and mindfulness based therapy psychology. They teach mindfulness programs for general audiences and for educators including mindful art classes and mindful eating sessions. Currently they are completing teacher training programs in Full Presence Mindfulness and Kum Nye Tibetan Yoga.

Adrian Roman

Program Designer / Instructor / Community Builder

Adrian Roman (he/him) was introduced to the Time Space Knowledge vision in 2014 and has been training in Full Presence Mindfulness since 2017.  Through his continued practice of TSK and FPM, an opening emerged, to feel and live more fully. This nurtured his passions for facilitation, mediation, conflict resolution, group dynamics, systems theory and anti-racism. In his teachings, Adrian centers inclusion and strives to cultivate spaces where we can feel brave enough to go into the openness that arises. He is of Cuban and Chilean descent.

Anaïs Roman

Instructor

Anaïs Georgina Roman (she/her) is a Latinx educator who’s currently working in the Baltimore area as a curriculum consultant and instructional assistant. Her mission is to empower communities to build more intimate relationships with themselves and the world around them by cultivating trauma-informed spaces aware of historical context and systemic racism. Her mindfulness background is rooted in Full Presence Mindfulness, a perspective emerging from the Center for Creative Inquiry.

Patrícia Nascimento, PhD

Grant Writer

Patrícia Nascimento (she/her) is an interdisciplinary researcher, educator and trainer focused on reflexivity, core meta human and ontological skills (e.g., not-knowing, skillful listening, questioning, reflexive inquiry, critical looking), and perceptual sensitivities that are all foundational to the [de]construction of our own meanings and ‘realities’ as relational knowing beings. Her non-mainstream work seeks to invite what is uniquely new and unknown into our practical knowing-from-within, to activate transformative insights, and to prepare us to become better [un]learners. Patrícia has a Post-Doctorate (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) and a PhD (University of Tampere, Finland) in Communication Sciences. She has been studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism for more than 20 years, especially those related to mind, language, meditation, skillful means, and Tibetan yoga (Kum Nye).

Marion Frank

Instructor

Marion Frank (she/her) is a journalist who has been a devotional practitioner of Tarthang Tulku’s teachings since 2007. As a Kum Nye authorized teacher, she explores techniques of Full Presence Mindfulness in whatever activity is involved, a natural consequence of her work with Jack Petranker, creator of Full Presence Mindfulness. Currently living in Brazil, she is a member of the staff of Mangalam Center.

Phil Gold

Instructor

Phil Gold (he/him) has more than 20 years of experience in teaching, coaching and corporate consulting in Skillful Means (SM), working with both individuals and groups. He also has developed a continuing interest in Time, Space and Knowledge, exploring the possible interfaces with SM, leading to the enhancement of the almost magical results of adopting a Skillful Means way of life.

Bruce Alderman

Contributor

Bruce Alderman (he/him) is an affiliate faculty member at the John F Kennedy School of Psychology, in the Consciousness and Transformative Studies department; the co-creator of The Integral Stage YouTube channel; and a long-time Buddhist and TSK practitioner.  Bruce is married and has one son in university.

Michael Gray

Contributor

Michael Gray (he/him) is the author of a memoir, The Flying Caterpillar, two novels (Asleep at the Wheel of Time, Falling on the Bright Side), and Winter Came Early this Year, reflections on the path of grief.  He is co-founder of Friends in Time (a non-profit serving people with MS & ALS), and past president of non-profits serving adults and kids with disabilities. A regular contributor to journals (Kosmos, Gesar, ReVisions, Eckleburg), he writes a weekly blog @  www.michaelgrayauthor.com

Caroline Sherwood

Contributor

Caroline Sherwood (she/her) attended the three month Kum Nye training in Berkeley in 1981. TSK (including study groups and residential retreats in the UK) with Jack Petranker, Tom Morse and Carolyn Pasternak came later. Caroline is the author of Making Friends with Ourselves: Introducing Children to Meditation and her memoir, Following a Thread of Gold, will be published in 2022.

Photo credit: Rebecca Northway

Hugh Joswick (he/him)

Contributor

Hugh Joswick (he/him) has been involved with the Nyingma Community since the early 1990s when he began creating videos for various organizations. His interest in the moving image led to his active participation in Guna Foundation’s three films. Since the mid-2000s he has been an instructor at the Nyingma Institute where he teaches Buddhist studies and meditation classes. In 2018, he became managing editor of Mangalam Press at Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages. He holds a PhD in American Studies from Yale University, an MA from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a BA from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. He is a member of the Mangalam Center staff and has a strong interest in creative inquiry.

wei li king (they/he)

Communication & Outreach Coordinator

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