Sustainable development work

Feeler by nature, it was the emotions Liz felt the first time she learned about extreme poverty that set her on a path of social impact, and the experiences of being on the ground, in community with folks across the world, that crystallized her commitment to social justice.

As a specialized generalist in the sustainable development field, she works across sectors to design and implement systemic approaches to our world's most pressing problems. Notable placements include: the SDG Academy at the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network under the leadership of economist Jeffrey D. Sachs. Developing the System Transformation Metric for the Presencing Institute's SDG Leadership Labs with 14 UN Country Teams. Women's empowerment program in Bangladesh through The Hunger Project. Time Bank social entrepreneurships with Socialab and Timerepublik. Grassroots education and housing through Harambee Youth Kenya.

Her innovative work on Time Banks in Colombia was published in Columbia University's Consilience Journal and received the Earth Institute's Travel Grant Award. Other publications include the UN SDSN's Getting Started with the Sustainable Development Goals: A Guide for Stakeholders, position paper on Indigenous Youth Suicide for the Canadian Psychiatric Association, and the Africa 2030 Report for the SDG Center of Excellence.

She graduated from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs with a Master's in Development Practice (MPA-DP) in 2015.

Launch of We Heal For All

After years of working in sustainable development, Liz began to see a gap in the field. She watched colleagues burn out, toxic work environments persist, and over-intellectualized responses to tragedy. She saw the "walk" not matching the "talk" and unconscious old power paradigms at play.

In 2018, she launched We Heal For All to address this missing piece, bringing healing-centered tools to help change makers thrive in their work and facilitate the deeper consciousness shifts needed to transform stuck institutions and facilitate systems change.

Her transdisciplinary approach weaves together science and spirituality, drawing from extensive training with emotions and neuroscience educators Hilary Jacobs Hendel (AEDP) and Sarah Peyton (Resonant Healing), evolutionary thought leaders Otto Scharmer (Theory U), Thomas Hübl, and Joanna Macy, and spiritual teachers such as Ron Young and Anneke Lucas. She has contributed to the Choosing Earth project with Duane Elgin, exploring humanity's collective response to our planetary crisis. Trainings include: Presencing Institute’s Theory U, certified yoga teacher (RYT-200), Wild Woman Project Circle facilitation, Relational Uprising Bonding , and Unconditional Model Liberation Prison Yoga.

She developed the We Heal For All Circle model—a social technology that uses meditation, storytelling, and resonance practice (embodied empathy) to help people process changes in the world and within themselves. Since 2018, she has facilitated collective healing Circles with hundreds of people from different walks of life and now trains others to bring this model to their own communities.

The work today

Liz's forthcoming book, When the World Hurts: Why the World's Pain Makes Sense—and What You Can Do About It (October 2025), connects dots between individual and collective transformation, seeing each of us as conduits for systems change.

Through the We Heal For All Circle Training, she teaches facilitators how to hold healing-centered community space using her signature model. She's developed facilitation tools including the Eco-Emotions Facilitation Package and various workshop curricula that help leaders bring these practices to their own communities. And her self-paced course Emotions 101 with Yoga teaches foundational neurobiology and healing-centered science of emotions.

As a speaker and educator, Liz brings collective healing perspectives to organizations, universities, and conferences. From lecturing at the Master’s of Development Practice Global Classroom to leading workshops for mission-aligned organizations, she helps groups understand and integrate the inner dimensions of social change.

She offers seasonal Circle programs and co-creates experiential workshops and retreats with beloved collaborators, weaving together different modalities to support deep transformation.

Through her Substack, she shares weekly essays, podcast episodes, and guided meditations with a growing community of helpers and healers.

At home

Liz lives in a vibrant, multicultural neighborhood in the Bronx, New York City, with her husband Anees—a healing-centered psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychedelic practitioner—their daughter Lila, and cat Woodrow. Their home is filled with what she calls "healing-centered pillow talk," as they explore the intersections of their work together, including through podcast episodes that bridge their complementary approaches to transformation.  

As a naturally sensitive, spiritual person whose path has positioned her to need to heal, Liz knows firsthand the value of inner work: how inherited patterns can hold us back from thriving, and how processing and integrating them can propel us into the new territory. This is what she sees as possible for us as a collective: to heal the wounds we've inherited, transform the stuck patterns we find ourselves in, and use these turbulent times to propel us into the next phase of our evolution.