Cornelia Santschi, PhD is a licensed clinical neuropsychologist, humanitarian, and meditation teacher. She is a multi-lingual, dual national, deeply committed to enhancing well-being within individuals, communities, and systems.

At the Institute of Neurology in NJ, she specializes in the study of brain-behavior relationships, incorporating diagnostic testing, cortical mapping, neurofeedback, and trauma-informed mindfulness practices in patient care for over 25 years.

As founder/president of the grass roots non-profit Anatta World Health & Education Outreach, Cornelia has organized culturally sensitive, community-centered health, education, and women’s empowerment programs in multiple countries, with local partners since 2006. She co-leads meaningful eco-travel tours in Nepal and beyond.

Cornelia is a student of Buddhism with a dedicated insight meditation practice since 2000. She completed yoga teacher training (IYI-200) at Integral Yoga, NYC in 2000, graduated from the Community Dharma Leader Program (CDL5) through Spirit Rock in 2017, completed Ecodharma training at RMERC in 2021, and Ecodharma Teacher Certification with One Earth Sangha in 2026. She studies with teachers in Asia and North America, teaches meditation in nature, and facilitates Ecosattva training. She is an ANFT Forest Therapy Guide, leading Forest Therapy walks locally and abroad.

Currently Cornelia is integrating practices in psychology and meditation through certification trainings in Healing with Nature: Trauma Care Practitioner and Effortless Mindfulness. She is deepening her understanding of indigenous nature-based healing through courses in indigenous psychology, and the study of Andean earth practices in Peru. 

As co-founder of the Alegria Dharma Center, a growing meditation retreat center on the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, Cornelia is developing a comprehensive EcoDharma retreat program for international and local practitioners.

Closer to home, Cornelia is co-founder/board member of the Newark Center for Meditative Culture (NCMC) where she serves as meditation teacher, insight community liaison, and Council of Elders (COE) member, working to increase access to socially engaged, wellness-oriented secular and spiritual programs within a diverse, multi-cultural urban community. She continues to deepen her own embodied understanding of social justice and equity through programs including White Awake and Foundations in Somatic Abolitionism.

In all her endeavors Cornelia serves to accompany and support people’s re-connection with themselves, one another and the natural world, through direct embodied experience, across cultures and disciplines, to open doors to greater wholeness and the healing of our inner and collective world.

‘Nothing lives only in itself, needing nothing from the community.

Nothing lives only for itself, owing nothing to the community.

Nothing is untouchable or untouched.

The community is a web of life, and every strand on the web of life is a path to all other strands.’ – Daniel Quinn

‘To name the world as gift is membership in the web of reciprocity’ – Robin Wall Kimmerer