Narrative, Resilience, and Social Change

Urmitapa is leading two ORA Research Grants, including Storytelling as Survival: The Itamugur Community Media Initiative for Miya Rights and Recognition as well as a project to understand the narratives of culture and the arts that exists within community-based projects within the larger ORA community. She is a community psychologist, scholar-activist, and educator whose work is rooted in transnational feminist and decolonial frameworks. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she also serves as  the Chair of the UMass Lowell Greeley Peace Scholar Program. Her co-authored works with community partners and students have appeared in Qualitative Inquiry, American Journal of Community  Psychology, Journal of Peace Psychology, and the Journal of Social Issues and several decolonial community psychology handbooks.
 

Susan James, Ph.D. is leading two ORA Research Grants, including Integrating Global South Knowledge Systems into Organizations in the Global North, as well as a project to understand the narratives of both traditional and modern technologies—including sacred practices and ritual—that exist within community-based projects within the larger ORA community. She is a member of the core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and co-chair of the Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco-Psychologies specialization of the M.A./Ph.D. program in Depth Psychology. Her work has focused on structural violence, transnational African spiritualities as resistance and innovation, visual design methodologies and research communication strategies. Her journal publications include American Journal of Community Psychology, Violence Against Women, and Women and Therapy.
 

Susan Grelock Yusem, PhD leads strategy and innovation at Commonweal, where she’s part of the stewardship team guiding the organization and supporting the 30+ programs that call Commonweal home. A trained depth psychologist and community psychologist with a doctorate from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Susan’s career has unfolded at the forefront of the organic and regenerative food movement, including leadership roles at Patagonia’s regenerative food division and Amy’s Kitchen. She brings together strategic communication, psychological depth, and collaborative leadership, with deep interests in narrative design, radical hospitality, and bringing the sensibilities of depth psychology into everyday life and group settings. Susan lives in Point Reyes Station, California, where you’ll often find her hiking, trail running, writing, cooking, and celebrating the ways we gather and create meaning together.