M. Rako Fabionar has cultivated innovative learning environments for over two decades as a community educator, graduate school faculty member, and change consultant within the USA and abroad. Rako has created educational centers and designed transformative programs that support the insight of connection and well-being for young adults, social entrepreneurs, civic leaders, cultural workers, and spiritual teachers. Rako is passionate about serving the common good through integrative approaches for leadership development, cultural pluralism and social innovation. He is the co-founder and director of Kinship Blooms, and a founding member of Salmon Nation and the Guild of Future Architects.

Katie serves as operations director for ILALI and has over 20 years of experience developing, growing and leading long-term, immersive and transformative nationwide and global youth development programs, gap year programs, and cultural exchange programs. Katie has partnered and consulted with a broad range of youth development organizations nationwide to promote access, advance impact, and recruit and engage thousands of young adults from around the world for life-changing, immersive experiences.

Julie has been working with young adults in the fields of experiential education and community service since 2004 as a guide, facilitator, faculty member and program director. She has collaborated on numerous immersive learning experiences utilizing service learning, environmental leadership, and transformational education frameworks, applying her background in integrative healing arts, community advocacy, performance, and creative writing to her work. Her current passion is for reinvigorating rites of passage and expanding access to immersive learning opportunities for all ages.

Oren is the executive director of Commonweal and the program director of the Center for Creative Community at Commonweal. He was involved in the formation of the Retreat Center Collaboration as well as the early envisioning, conceptualization and formation of ILALI. Oren has been a senior program developer serving a broad range of populations and focus areas for more than 30 years.

Michelle serves as a senior program officer at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her research interests include spiritual development, LGBTQ spirituality, field building, and the changing religious landscape. Michelle's background includes program development, strategic planning, nonprofit boards, pastoral ministry, and group facilitation. She worked closely with Oren Slozberg in the early development, fundraising, and founding of ILALI.

Uvinie Lubecki is a thought leader, leadership development trainer, and coach focused on Compassionate Leadership. During her work with executives and teams at leading corporations and nonprofits, she discovered the need and calling to integrate mindfulness and compassion practically into leadership behaviors. She left the private sector to join Dalai Lama Fellows, where she learned how to translate values, such as compassion, and meditation practices into a secular leadership curriculum. Uvinie is the founder of Leading Through Connection, and holds a BA in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University and a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University.

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, PhD is a leader in the application of integrative thinking to leader development and organizational design, and has made significant contributions to the fields of integral ecology, integral business, integral education, and integral research. Sean has been the leading global academic figure in Integral Studies for over a decade driving numerous academic initiatives including: founding international conferences and symposiums, designing campus based and online graduate certificates and programs at four universities, and publishing academic journals and text books. Sean founded MetaIntegral — a social impact network that supports change leaders around the world in applying integrative principles.

Mindy Nettifee, PhD is a poet, professional teaching artist, and somatic therapist specializing in trauma healing and expression. She is the author of three full-length collections of poems - Sleepyhead Assassins, Rise of the Trust Fall, and Open Your Mouth Like a Bell - and the how-to book on writing poetry Glitter In The Blood.  She is a three time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, a Powell's Books Indie Press Best Seller, and has been featured on The Moth podcast. She currently produces with Portland, Oregon’s Back Fence PDX, hosts for The Moth, provides writing and performance services as a principal at Free Delivery, and performs her work and facilitates creative workshops around the U.S.

Andrew Nalani is a Doctoral Candidate in Applied Psychology (Psychology and Social Intervention) at NYU Steinhardt. He takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the design and impact of transformative programs that promote positive youth development across cultures and sectors, drawing particularly from theories and methods in community psychology and sociology. He works on the research teams of the Listening Project and SAFE Spaces: Systems Aligning for Equity at NYU, and is also engaged in innovation in the youth work field through a research-practice partnership with Partners for Youth Empowerment (PYE). He holds a Master’s in Education from Harvard University and an A.B. from Dartmouth College.

As a network weaver and program director for the Retreat Center Collaboration, Ben fosters connections across organizations and networks to creatively and strategically meet the complex challenges facing the retreat center sector. Ben was an early supporter and collaborator as ILALI began to emerge. His creative approach draws on his background in interfaith community-building and education, hairstyling, songwriting and performing.