​Transformation Happens Here. 

Our Mission

We help professionals create Trauma Informed ​environments that heal and empower. 

Our Story

In 2017, as a University instructor in the Educational Psychology department at California State University East Bay, our founder, Emily Santiago worked with professors to develop the Trauma Informed Educator program.  A year later, the Center for Cognitive Diversity (CogDiv) was established and our first certification cohort began.

Our pioneering program is building experts across the US and abroad who can respond effectively to the needs of children with trauma, implement practices that promote equity and healing, and ensure all educators have the emotional capacity to prevent burnout. 

CogDiv now builds on this model to provide training, coaching and peer support programs with the goal of expanding people's understanding of how trauma impacts all of us and providing strategies on how to build trauma informed communities.  We truly believe that when we focus on the needs of people impacted by trauma, we will drive a revolution of compassion and innovation in our communities. 

Our Team 

Executive & Operations

​Emily Santiago LEP, NCSP
Founder & Director

Emily Santiago MS, LEP, NCSP (LEP #3642) is an Educational Psychologist who designed the Trauma Informed Specialist program. She has worked in rural, urban and private schools in the US and abroad as a school psychologist, teacher, wraparound facilitator and university instructor for over 20 years. Her experience effectively transforming school climate and responding to the needs of families in crisis set the groundwork for becoming a leader in the Trauma Informed Education movement.
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Emily is passionate about ensuring all children have the support and opportunities to be successful through anti racist systems change, unconditional positive regard, and strength based approaches that build resilient communities.

​Emily has been a speaker at national and international conferences focusing on the topics of differentiation, mental health, mindfulness and trauma. She has worked in schools in Massachusetts, New York, California, Thailand, and currently resides in Southern Oregon with her family.​

April Brown
Program Director​

April Brown (M.Ed) is the Program Director of the Center for Cognitive Diversity and a certified Trauma-Informed Education Specialist. She wears many hats in the field of education, including consulting for educational organizations and school districts around the United States as a curriculum developer and instructional coach. 

April also writes articles for a wide range of education and parenting publications. Her passion lies in supporting parents and teachers in viewing education as “an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom” (Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed). She believes in the importance of teaching young children to be social justice driven and empowering them to use their actions to drive change in their schools and communities. April is dedicated to designing inclusive and accessible learning experiences that value the whole child. 

Formerly, April taught and held leadership positions in mainstream and alternative settings in the United States and internationally. She’s passionate about disrupting the status quo and constantly reflects on how schools can dismantle systems of oppression to move from traumatizing to transformative. More than anything, she’s an advocate for kids.
After spending the past decade calling many places home, April and her family recently moved permanently to Putney, Vermont. She spends her days with her husband, almost five-year old, and two rottweilers.

Instructors & Facilitators

Roxy Pittman MS, NCSP
Principles of Trauma Instructor

Roxy Hernandez is a school psychologist and graduate of the Educational Psychology program at CSUEB. She conducted research with Dr. Greg Jennings on Trauma Informed Schools with a focus on supporting recent immigrants. She is a Mental Health First Aid facilitator and an instructor in the Trauma Informed Educator program. She is currently a school psychologist in the Livermore School District. 

Roxy teaches the Principles of Trauma course as part of the Trauma Informed Specialist certification program.

Mari Lopez, MS, LEP, AMFT
Trauma Informed Schools Instructor

​Mari (Marisela) Lopez-Suarez has built her 20 plus year career in education. She began as a classroom teacher for middle school age children in Southern California before returning to graduate school. There, she trained & later worked as a school psychologist in a large Northern California school district. Currently, Mari works in the area of mental health as part of a school based clinic in that same district. As a Wraparound Facilitator, she case manages mental health teams to improve the functioning of clients within their family units.

​Mari is passionate about working with Spanish-speaking populations, yet she advocates for all while empowering families to build upon natural supports. For this reason, she will be completing the required hours for her license in Marriage & Family Therapy to continue with clinical work. 

Amanda McKerracher, PhD, MA, LEP
Facilitator for Educators

Amanda bring 14 years of experience in the field of education (as an early childhood educator, teacher, and school psychologist) to her work as a licensed Educational Psychologist.  She received her MA and PhD from University of California at Berkeley.  She specializes in working with students with ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia, Intellectual Disabilities, and Visual Impairments/Blindness.
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In addition to her clinical work, she teaches at the college level, offers professional development to districts throughout California and facilitates reflective supervision sessions for the Center of Cognitive Diversity. 

Meryl Roberts, MEd
Facilitator for Educators

Meryl Roberts M.Ed is a Autism Specialist and Trauma Informed Education Specialist (certified from Center for Cognitive Diversity). She has a bacherlors degree in Spanish from the University Of Denver. She earned her Masters in Special Education and Autism Speciliazation at Southern Oregon University. She taught in a variety of special education settings as aide and a teacher, then went on to be a Behavior Intervention Specialist. She is a former yoga teacher and  is trained by Mindful Schools . She currently works with special education assessment and eligibility for a school district in Southern Oregon and  facilitates reflective supervision sessions for the Center of Cognitive Diversity. She is passionate about supporting educators and advocating for youth. 

James Juarez, MD, DipPH
​​Volunteer Facilitator for Healthcare

James is an Emergency Physician in Medford, Oregon. He studied International Public health, at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.  He lectures and leads international trips for Wilderness Medicine and various humanitarian, educational and business investment teams. He has a passion to help people thrive in every area of their life.

Sarah Lamanuzzi, MD
Volunteer Facilitator for Healthcare

Sarah was born and raised in California and stayed there for university and for medical school with a stint in Montana for conservation corps. She and her husband moved to Oregon after completing family medicine residency, where they worked doing full-spectrum family medicine for nearly a decade (and where she was medical director of a federally qualified health center) before transitioning to rural and remote locum work in South Australia. They now split their time between South Australia and the US (rural Oregon and California) working in clinics, emergency departments, and as hospitalists. 

Gabe Mayland, MD
​Volunteer Facilitator for Healthcare

Gabe was raised in rural Northern California, before heading off for education in more civilized parts of the country.  During residency, he met Sarah Lamanuzzi, my wife, dance partner, medical colleague, and partner in all things.   After completing medical training, they worked in a small town in Rural Southern Oregon for nine years.  They then moved to South Australia for two years, to even smaller towns, working as locum support for local general practitioners.  Currently they work as full time locums, practicing mostly in small town clinics, hospitals, and emergency departments in Oregon, California and Australia.

Jeremy Rothenberg, LAc, MSTCM, DipOM
​Volunteer Facilitator for Healthcare​

For more than ten years, Jeremy has worked as an acupuncturist, herbalist and transformational coach specializing in the treatment of chronic pain and mental health issues. He has recently come out of the treatment room and returned to the world of tech, startups, and other demanding environments to support individuals and teams in their quest to achieve life-changing products and services. He loves solving problems, bringing people together for a common purpose, and getting stuff done. He has worked with many business leaders to integrate their lives with their work. Instead of achieving work-life balance, he helps people find LifeWork Purpose. ​

Terra Tolley, PhD
​Volunteer Facilitator for Healthcare

​Terra is a conflict analyst and global health educator based in Northern California. She serves as the Government Relations Manager for OZ Systems. Terra is a co-founder of the Balkans Peace Park Photography Project and a Shinnyo Peace Fellow and is a Biosophical Institute and Adrian St. John Scholar. Terra is a co-editor for the fifth volume of Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace and is currently working on maternal and child health programs, conflict resolution and leadership programs internationally. Her regions of expertise include Central and Eastern Europe, East Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Israel/Palestine, and natural resource conflict in the United States. She received her PhD from the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University in 2015.

Advisory Board

Greg Jennings, PhD
​Advisory Board Member ​

Dr. Greg Jennings the lead professor at CSU East Bay. His  current research and professional interests are in students’ resiliency and the marked capacity of individuals to cope with and overcome setbacks and stressors. He has presented nationally on the role of the school psychologist in promoting student coping and resources through family, school, and community systems. Current research focuses on individual, school, and family sources of resiliency among diverse, urban youth. Dr. Jennings teaches courses in mental health consultation, individual development, assessment, delivery of school psychology services, and supervision. He consults as a school psychologist in the Bay Area.

He shared his expertise and insights with the CogDiv community as a Guest Lecture in April 2020. See a recording of his presentation "Resilience, Cultural Capital, and Collective Well-being" here.
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Peggy Brandt Brown, PhD
​Advisory Board Member

Peggy Brandt Brown had a 25 year career working with at-risk youth in higher education, the juvenile courts, and human services agencies. In 2000, she decided to get her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of North Texas graduating in 2005. She has been on the Human Development /Education faculty at North Lake College as an adjunct professor for the past 14 years teaching student success courses to first semester freshmen who are at-risk. Following her interests in human resilience and trauma, she published College Can Be Killing: United States College and University Responses to Student Suicide During the 20th Century and Early 21st Century in The Journal of College Admission.   ​

She is currently using her expertise in curriculum development to help CogDiv adapt our Principles of Trauma curriculum for broader audiences outside of education.

Robin Leveilee, PhD
​Advisory Board Member

Rob served with distinction for nine years with AdvancED’s, the world’s largest accreditation body, as Vice President for International Services. He has also served school head international administrative posts in Peru, Australia, China and prior to his post with AdvancED, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rob began teaching High School English in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, followed by a Middle School Principalship, then chief of school posts in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In 1986 he was awarded a Ph.D. (with honors) in educational leadership from Boston College. Over the course of his career, Rob has served as chairman on hundreds of accreditation teams in the United States and around the world for AdvancED, WASC, MSA, and NEAS&C, with which he also served as a commissioner. He has met with students, Ministers, Ambassadors and Presidents, served on panels, key noted, and key-noted at more than two hundred conferences around the globe. Today he is known and respected as a “global mentor” by educators and students around the world and serves as “Chief Educational Advisor" to several boards and organizations around the world. 

Sarah Shaw MPH, PMP
​Advisory Board Member

Sarah Shaw is a certified project management professional and a public health informatics scholar.  She has a Bachelor's in Cellular Molecular Biology and a Master's in Public Health from Tulane University.  Sarah Shaw led the efforts to automate the Dynamic Empowerment tool.  She spearheaded the Center's initiative to support the healthcare community by recruiting 5 volunteer facilitators to provide free reflective supervision sessions during this time. 

​After a windy journey that started around Providence, RI for childhood, stopped in New Orleans, LA for school, then on to Austin, TX for the start of her career, she has finally landed in beautiful Ashland, OR.  Throughout this journey, building community has been at the center of everything she does.  From organizing events to training others, Sarah is eager to help non-profits and compassionate businesses thrive.

Peer Support Session Facilitators Needed

The Center for Cognitive Diversity needs more facilitators!  We are looking for compassionate empathetic people with excellent communication and organizational skills to join our team. ​
The Center for Cognitive Diversity 2020