Current President:
John Baker
Secretary:
Stephanie Fox
Treasurer:
Tiffany-Ashton Gatsby
Student Seat:
Tiffany-Ashton Gatsby
Executive Committee:
John Baker, Stephanie Fox, Tiffany-Ashton Gatsby
2025 & 2026 Program Coordinators:
John Baker, Stephanie Fox, Tiffany-Ashton Gatsby
Membership and Development Committee:
Open
Marketing and Outreach Committee:
Open
Programming Committee:
Open
Former Presidents:
Andrew Gurevich (2019-2021)
Bryan Rill (2014-2019)
Diane Hardgrave (2010-2014)
Steven Glazier (2001-2003; 2008-2010)
John Baker (1999-2001; 2003-2007)
Mira Zussman (Amiras) (1997-1998)
Jeff MacDonald (1996-1997)
Michael Winkelman (1994-1996)
Sidney M. Greenfield (1991-1994)
Geri Ann Galanti (1984-1990)
Philip Stanford (1978-1983)
Stephan A. Schwartz (1974-1977)
John R. Baker
John R. Baker, Dr.phil., is a Professor of Anthropology at Moorpark College, a California community college. His interest in consciousness grew out of the experiential studies he participated in as a high school student and college undergraduate and was shaped by his studies under Philip Staniford at San Diego State University and his dissertation research at the Universität Hamburg (Germany).
Although his primary focus today is on providing his students with the best possible introduction to anthropological thinking that he can provide, John continues to follow and write on topics related to consciousness, especially the cultural construction of altered states. He is the co-author (with Michael Winkelman) of Supernatural as Natural: A Biocultural Approach to Religion.
John has been a member of the AAC (formerly SAC) since 1990. In his previous terms as board member and as President, he worked diligently to ensure that our organization stood on solid financial and membership ground. His primary focus as current AAC President is to recruit a new generation of members and leaders so that the AAC can continue as a viable section of the AAA for many years to come.
Richard Choquette
Coming from a long career in public school education, it is refreshing to be part of this association that is dedicated to exploring the quirky, experiential side of anthropology. I enjoy contributing graphic arts to our promotional efforts, bringing my musical talents to lend some atmosphere, and concocting engaging presentations for our meetings.
Evgenia Fotiou
Christian Frenopoulo
Christian Frenopoulo is interested in issues of religion and health care. He has researched health care for an indigenous people, an ayahuasca church, and other topics. His regional focus has been the south-western Brazilian Amazon. He is an anthropologist trained in medical anthropology and public health.
Tiffany-Ashton Gatsby
Tiffany-Ashton Gatsby (they/them) is a doctoral student in Sociocultural Anthropology and Disability Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. They serve on the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association and the Student Council Executive Committee of the AAA. Their research focuses on the QueerCrip community, using arts-based research methods while examining accompaniment as an ongoing intervention to combat inaccessible and fractured healthcare, including patient and practitioner education impacted by the psychedelic boom. Tiff received their B.A. from the University of Washington, with dual departmental honors in both Medical Anthropology and Global Health & Interdisciplinary Visual Arts, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and was the recipient of the President’s Medal for the most distinguished academic record in the 2022 graduating class. They earned their M.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology from UW Seattle in 2025, and graduate support included scholarships from Pride Foundation, Point Foundation, and GSBA.
Lisa Gezon
B.A. Albion College, Anthropology, with a minor in Public Policy
M.A./Ph.D. University of Michigan, Anthropology
I am a Professor of Anthropology specializing in cultural anthropology. I came to University of Alabama, Birmingham in 2022 after teaching for 25 years at the University of West Georgia. My areas of research interest include various topics in environment and health. Within the area of health, I have done the most recently in the study of drugs: I wrote a monograph on the drug khat, based on fieldwork in Madagascar (Drug Effects: Khat in Biocultural and Socioeconomic Perspective. Left Coast Press, 2012). More recently, I co-authored a text with Niel Carrier on the anthropology of drugs (Carrier, Neil & Lisa L. Gezon. The Anthropology of Drugs. New York, 2024). I am currently doing research on the use of psychedelics, doing ethnographic research with integration groups as well as research into discourses around psychedelics in an online forum. Before that, I published a monograph on conservation practices in Madagascar (Global Visions, Local Landscapes: A Political Ecology of Conservation, Conflict, and Control in Northern Madagascar. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006). I am developing an interest in residential off-grid use of solar power in Madagascar.
Dhardon Sharling
Dhardon Sharling is an interdisciplinary scholar-activist with more than 20 years of experience in public advocacy communication, democracy promotion, and advancing gender, social and climate justice. She serves as a Lecturer in Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she earned her PhD in Communication and a Graduate Certificate in Feminist Studies. Her research examines how human communication practices—especially those shaped by emerging media—advance social change, with particular attention to gender and climate justice. Drawing on intersections among communication studies, new media, critical feminist theory, cultural anthropology, and lived experience, Dhardon seeks to generate knowledge that challenges and intervenes in systemic structures of power and injustice.
Dhardon’s career spans leadership roles, including Information Secretary of the Central Tibetan Administration and elected Member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile. She has also served as a Non-Resident Scholar at the Milton Eisenhower Foundation, co-leading a book project on democracy in exile. In addition, she has taught at Hampshire College and Syracuse University, contributed extensively to peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and currently serves as an Associate Editor of Anthropology of Consciousness.
James Roszel
James Roszel is a PhD student in human geography at the University of Victoria, Canada. James has over twenty years’ experience in consulting with communities and corporations developing recycling solutions globally. His interest in consciousness stems from a curiosity to explore the depth of the traditional knowledge structures and how the variances among different worldviews approach universal waste management challenges.
Yvan Greenberg
Yvan Greenberg (M.A. Consciousness Studies Concentration, Goddard College) believes that creative connection between people fosters understanding of complexity and seeds new possibilities. As a professional diviner, spiritual companion, ICF-Certified life coach, consultant, author and artist, he helps other curious individuals and organizations navigate the wilds of the world we live in through storytelling, ecological thinking, and orientation to the sacred. Greenberg is an active Warm Data Host, certified by the International Bateson Institute, facilitating practices that offer groups of people an introduction to the complexity of their own lives so that they may better see the complexity of others. His writing has been published in Anthropology of Consciousness and Unpsychology Magazine. From 2001–2021, Greenberg had a multifaceted career in non-profit performing arts management, leading and managing some of the most important experimental theater and contemporary dance companies in the US, and was the Artistic Director of Laboratory Theater. yvangreenberg.com
Stephanie Fox
