Our Faculty & Staff

Mar Aige

Mar Aige, BFA, MA, RYT, is a painter, art educator, and teacher of meditation and yoga, specializing in therapeutic breathwork and self-massage. She received her BFA from Universitat de Barcelona and her MA from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and is a certified kundalini and Tibetan yoga teacher. At the Nalanda Institute, Mar graduated from the Yoga, Mind & Spirit and CBRT Teacher Training programs, where she teaches yoga and breathwork. Mar co-directs the Contemplative Psychotherapy Program in Spanish and Portuguese, where she also coordinates translations and teaches contemplative practices. 

Mar started teaching art to children over 20 years ago in museums and schools. Inspired by progressive education approaches like Reggio Emilia, Montessori, and Waldorf, she has taught at the Guggenheim Museum, The Met Cloisters, St. John the Divine, and the Brooklyn Historical Society. She started The Rubin Museum’s Family Programs department, which she managed for 5 years. She currently lives in Barcelona with her husband Isaac and her pup Tara.

Co-Director: Contemplative Psychotherapy, Spanish & Portuguese. Visiting Faculty: Contemplative Psychotherapy Program. Core Faculty: Compassion-Based Resilience Training.

Elazar Aslan

Elazar Aslan, MBA, CPC, is an executive advisor able to integrate his successful career as an executive and an entrepreneur with his own contemplative practice to provide sustainable solutions to clients inspired by the neuroscience and wisdom behind mindfulness. He received his B.S. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also completed his M.B.A. at the Wharton School. Elazar also has CPC certification from the International Coaching Federation and is a Certified Energy Leadership Practitioner from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. Additionally, he has 15 years experience as an executive in Fortune 100 companies, 10 years experience as an entrepreneur growing a strategic marketing agency to $86MM in capitalized billings, and has been a certified professional coach for 10 years. Current projects include being founder of A Day of Kindness in Philadelphia, President of the Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia, and a NICS board member.

Director: Boundless Leadership. Core Faculty.

Fiona Brandon

Fiona Brandon, MPS, MA, MFT, is a psychotherapist, contemplative educator, and writer. For over a decade she has integrated Buddhist psychology, depth psychology, expressive arts therapy, dream imagery, and sensorimotor psychotherapy in her clinical work with clients. She is the Director of the Nalanda Institute’s Compassion Based Resilience Training (CBRT) and Embodied Psychotherapy programs. Fiona is co-editor of the anthology Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy: Accelerating Healing and Transformation (2nd ed.). She is also co-editor of the CBRT Student Manual. As a graduate of the Masters program in Counseling Psychology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, Fiona’s research focused on the meditative practice of Authentic Movement and the use of symbols and dream imagery in psychotherapy. She currently sees adults and couples in her private practice in San Francisco.

Director: Contemplative Psychotherapy Program, Embodiment Year, Psychotherapy track.

Director: Compassion-Based Resilience Training. Core faculty.

Chantelle Brown

Chantelle Brown, MSW, LMSW is meditation teacher, and a graduate of Nalanda Institute’s Contemplative Psychotherapy Program and Meditation Teacher Training Program. Chantelle received her MSW from the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and holds a post-graduate certification in Couple and Family Therapy from the Ackerman Institute for the Family. Chantelle is a cultural worker and relational therapist working at the intersection of social justice and clinical practice utilizing contemplative methods for personal and collective transformation. Her work revolves around her commitment to providing culturally attuned, trauma-informed care to patients and families while advocating for health equity within medical systems. Chantelle has a special interest in taking an integrative approach to addressing intergenerational trauma of those who have survived the Middle Passage and beyond. She currently lives with her family in Brooklyn, where she was born and raised.

Co-Director: Contemplative Psychotherapy, Embodiment Year, Psychosocial Change track.

Dan Donohue

Dan Donohue, BS, MA, is Nalanda Institute’s Executive Director. He received his BS from Rutgers University and his MA in International Affairs from the New School. He brings with him over 17 years of senior management experience in educational media and technology. At both BrainPOP, a leading K12 educational technology company, and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street, Dan oversaw the development of programs that have reached millions of children in the U.S. and abroad. Prior to this work, Dan managed relief efforts in South Sudan for the humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger. He was also a teacher in the Peace Corps, and worked on documentaries, movies and commercials. Grounding his life and work is his meditation practice, the 12 past years of which have been with the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism.

Director of Marketing and Operations

Rahshaana Green

Rahshaana Green, MBA, PMP, RYT, is a business consultant with expertise in Business Development, Marketing, and Strategy in Healthcare and Science. She is also a yoga/meditation teacher, specializing in work with injured, aging, and perinatal clients. Green received her BA in Biophysical Chemistry from Dartmouth College, her MBA from University of Texas-Austin, and her foundational yoga training with Ana Forrest. She is a certified  Nalanda Institute Compassion-Based Resilience Training Teacher, and is the Contemplative Psychotherapy Program Director. She has taught mindfulness meditation and yoga in corporate, group, and private settings and is passionate about empowering others to cultivate well-being and resilience. Contact: rahshaana@nalandainstitute.org.

Director of Equity and Contemplative Psychotherapy

Diego Hangartner

Diego Hangartner, PhD, PCC, is a clinical pharmacologist and certified coach (PCC), using neuroscientific, performance and clinical scientific insights, combining them to strengthen mental fitness and wellbeing. He spent many years at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in India, studying, translating and publishing several Tibetan works, and organized many large events with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Asia, Europe and the USA. Diego was COO of Mind and Life Institute in the US and co-founder and director of Mind and Life Institute in Europe until 2015. Today, he continues his research and teaching with the Max Planck Institute, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich University of Applied Sciences, and is a lecturer at the Business School of the University St.Gallen. For more information: diegohangartner.org.

Co-Director: Contemplative Psychotherapy, Compassion and Mindfulness Years.

Pilar Hurtado

Pilar Hurtado is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. She holds Masters’ degrees in Addictive Behaviors, Clinical Mental Health, and Severe Mental Disorders; a Diploma in Mental Health in Political Violence and Catastrophes; and a postgraduate in Psychoneuroimmunology. Pilar has trained in Narrative Psychotherapy and EMDR. She has worked with people with addictive disorders deprived of liberty and in the Exile Center, caring for people who have experienced different types of human rights violations. She has collaborated with the Psychosocial Support Unit of Doctors Without Borders, supporting team members, and currently works in public health. She is a vipassana meditation practitioner and has trained in MBCT-MSR with Fernando Torrijos, in MBCT for OCD with Fabrizio Didonna, in Compassion Focused Psychotherapy (CFT) with Paul Gilbert and in the application of mindfulness in clinical practice with the Spanish Association of Mindfulness (AEMIND). She loves to integrate neuroscience, psychoneuroimmunology and psychotherapy in her work.

Co-Director: Contemplative Psychotherapy Program in Spanish & Portuguese

Geri Loizzo

Geri Loizzo is Nalanda Institute’s Director of Programs and Community Engagement. She is also a meditation faculty member and has served on the Institute’s board of directors since 2007. She’s had a regular practice of Hatha Yoga since 1982 and, since 2006, has studied with Nalanda Institute yoga faculty member Mary Reilly Nichols. In addition, Loizzo has been studying and practicing Tibetan meditation since 1999. She offers facilitation support in the Contemplative Psychotherapy Program and Racial Affinity Group space.  Her mentors include Khyabje Gelek Rimpoche, Professor Jan Willis, Reverend angel Kyodo williams, Venerable Robina Courtin, and Kathleen McDonald.

Director of Programming: Nalanda Institute. Core Faculty. Meditation Faculty.

Joe Loizzo

Joseph (Joe) Loizzo, MD, PhD, is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and Columbia-trained Buddhist scholar with over fifty years’ experience studying the beneficial effects of contemplative practices on healing, learning and development. He is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in Integrative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, where he researches and teaches contemplative self-healing and optimal health. He has taught the philosophy of science and religion, the scientific study of contemplative states, and the Indo-Tibetan mind and health sciences at Columbia University, where he is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Columbia Center for Buddhist Studies. Joe is Nalanda Institute’s Academic Director and Core Faculty in its programs as well as a facilitaor in the Undoing Patriarchy affinity group.

Academic Director: Nalanda Institute. Core Faculty.