Collective Healing Institute
Isha Lucas, PhD, LPC
Executive Director and Founding Board Member
Isha is the Executive Director and founding board member of Collective Healing Institute, where she guides a vision rooted in ancestral memory, relational repair, and cultural transformation. She is a licensed professional counselor and brings decades of clinical, academic, and community-based experience to her leadership. She holds advanced degrees in Contemplative Psychotherapy and Anthropology and Social Change, and is currently pursuing a second doctorate in Depth Psychology with a specialization in Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices.
As an anthropologist, Isha approaches the world with a scholar’s curiosity; as a psychotherapist, she serves as witness and guide. A mixed‑race ‘colored woman,’ she acknowledges that race is central to her identity and to her work. Her first PhD dissertation uses activist ethnography to explore and heal the wounds of racism. It challenges the victim/perpetrator dynamic of conventional liberation approaches and examines how elimination efforts can inadvertently reinforce racism. Isha has also created a biracial tarot deck, viewing it as an articulation of racialized life in the United States and as a way to engage archetypal energies; she often incorporates this deck into therapy.
In addition to leading Collective Healing Institute, Isha founded Cultivating Wildflowers, a practice dedicated to intergenerational healing, grief integration and soul‑centered care. The practice weaves depth psychology, contemplative psychotherapy and anthropology to address racial and intergenerational trauma, depression, anxiety and grief. She believes healing racial trauma requires understanding its historical and ancestral roots, and she works to create spaces where both those labeled victims and those labeled oppressors can confront and heal from those injuries. Her philosophy integrates depth psychology, contemplative practices and ancestral wisdom; she argues that by healing individual and intergenerational trauma, society can move toward a more balanced nation.
Isha serves on the board of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness and previously served on the board of the Coatesville Cultural Society. Her leadership is guided by a commitment to cultural integrity, relational accountability and the reweaving of collective life through deep listening and embodied imagination. Her days blur between therapy sessions, board meetings, and pages of her dissertation. In the margins, she’s writing a book. Free time is not exactly free...
Leann Riley
Treasurer and Founding Board Member
Leann Riley serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors at Collective Healing Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing equitable access to mental health care and trauma-informed community support.
With over 25 years of experience managing clinical trials for leading pharmaceutical companies, Leann brings a wealth of scientific insight and operational leadership to the organization. Her background in clinical research has strengthened her commitment to bridging the gap between healthcare innovation and community well-being.
Leann holds a bachelor’s degree and is deeply motivated by personal experience—having witnessed family members, navigate the challenges of mental illness with limited access to care. Her leadership reflects both professional excellence and a compassionate dedication to improving mental health outcomes for underserved populations.
Ronald White
Treasurer and Founding Board Member
Ronald White is the Treasurer and a Founding Board Member of Collective Healing Institute, where he oversees the organization’s finances and supports its long-term financial stability. He brings a practical and steady approach to ensuring the Institute’s resources are managed responsibly.
His background spans entrepreneurship, hospitality, and technology. He has owned and operated an auto detailing business and ran a small clothing brand, and has also worked in the restaurant and hospitality industry managing staff and overseeing restaurant operations. In addition, he has experience in computer networking and systems management. These experiences have shaped his ability to manage budgets, solve problems, and work through complex systems.
With over a decade of leadership experience, Ronald focuses on financial oversight, accountability, and compliance. He works to ensure that the organization’s financial practices are clear, consistent, and aligned with its mission.
He approaches his role with a focus on transparency and follow-through, supporting responsible financial practices as the Institute continues to grow.
Leora Marion
Founding Board Member
Leora Marion is a nonprofit arts leader with over 25 years of experience building inclusive, community-based cultural programs. Her work is derived from and sustained by the belief that the arts can promote community healing by inspiring creative thinking, cultivating interpersonal connections, and producing conditions for healthy and meaningful communication. As a founding board member of Collective Healing Institute, she brings her expertise in organizational strategy, program development, and community engagement to support the Institute’s mission of fostering transformation through soul-centered healing.
The greater part of Leora’s career was spent as an artist and administrator of the Coatesville Cultural Society, a nonprofit theatre dedicated to promoting interracial good will and communication to help heal a culturally-divided community. Central to her work as a member of the resident theatre troupe was the daily study of spiritual texts, drumming and dancing that provided a means for the company to develop the ability to hear and understand one another, and move together harmoniously, and thereby, produce a considerable body of creative work.
Over 25 years, the company developed and produced a steady outpouring of programs that provided a context to build a diverse community of people who wanted to connect with others unlikethemselves in thought, belief and ways of life. These programs included: theatre (annual production seasons of a repertoire of 25 plays at home and on-tour to schools, senior communities and nursing homes, and internationally), weekly programs of poetry, chess, music and dance, square dances, festivals (3 discrete day-long celebrations continuing for multiple years), performances by other area artists (dance, music, plays), visual art shows, a Journal, and creating and operating a café.
Leora concentrated on areas of audience development (gathering small, intentionally diverse groups for theatre evenings consisting of watching a play, eating together, talking as a group together), donor relations (sending annual appeals and personally acknowledging donations), grant writing, bookkeeping and general office administration and for the organization.
She is currently a Co-founder and Board President of Arts In Unison (the beneficiary of the Coatesville Cultural Society), where she manages One Voice, an interracial community choir dedicated to building community through music. Leora holds a J.D. from Widener University Delaware Law School and a B.A. in Theater from Penn State University.
Xavier Talton
Board Member
Xavier Talton brings a unique blend of enterprise technology expertise and modern digital communication to the Collective Healing Institute board. As a Senior Manager of HRIS at global company, Xavier specializes in enterprise systems, data governance, and operational infrastructure. Skills he applies to help the CHI build scalable, secure systems that support its mission of mental health and healing.
Beyond his corporate technology career, Xavier is an active content creator and social media strategist, with a growing platform built around authentic, bilingual (English/Spanish) storytelling that resonates across diverse audiences. His firsthand experience building community and driving engagement online positions him to help the Institute expand its reach, destigmatize conversations around mental health/healing, and connect with populations that are often underserved by traditional outreach.
A former Division I basketball player at the University of Colorado who competed professionally overseas, Xavier understands the discipline, resilience, and mental fortitude required to perform at the highest levels, an experience that deepened his personal commitment to advocating for mental wellness and healing.
Xavier is passionate about using technology and digital platforms as tools for genuine human connection, and he is dedicated to helping the Collective Healing Institute leverage innovation to expand access to healing resources for the communities it serves.