History

Top photo is Chera in The Poet's Garden in Highland Park in Rochester, NY taken by Neko Elko. Second photo is the temple building on an ashram in the Catskill Mountains in New York state where Chera stayed for periods of time. Third photo is an issue of The California Psychologist in which Chera has a featured article. 

Chera started writing poetry at a young age. She won a county-wide poetry contest when she was ten years old and her poem was published in the Rochester newspaper. As an undergraduate, she minored in writing and philosophy, and since that time, she has participated in numerous poetry classes and workshops.

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In her teens, Chera developed a strong interest in eastern philosophy and altered states of consciousness, such as meditation and dreams, which eventually led her to study psychology, including the work of Carl Jung. It also led to more than a decade of immersion in yoga practices, often while living in ashrams. She studied ancient Vedic texts, such as the Rigveda and Upanishads, as well as the epic poem, the Mahabharata, which contains the Bhagavad Gita. She also regularly practiced Sanskrit chants and attended kirtans.

During her psychology doctoral studies in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chera was fortunate to train with renowned existential and humanistic psychologist, Rollo May, for several years. She completed her doctoral internship at Stanford University where she was mentored by well-known hypnosis researcher, David Spiegel, MD, and participated in trainings with noted Jungian analysts, Thomas Kirsch, MD and Thomas Singer, MD.

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As a new psychologist, Chera spent time in the Berkeley, California living room of psychologists, Allen Kanner and Mary Gomes, as they developed eco-psychology along with acclaimed writer, Theodore Roszak. During her psychology career, Chera published in psychology journals, was a professor of psychology in California and New York, and had a private psychology practice for many years. Most recently, she was a senior psychologist/supervisor at San Quentin State Prison, where she evaluated prisoners with serious psychiatric disorders, managed mental health teams, and developed and directed a psychology doctoral internship program.

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Chera's interest in environmental issues led to her position as executive director of Species Alliance, an environmental non-profit organization through which she produced the film Call Of Life. As executive director, she presented at a conference on climate change at the United Nations in NYC with prominent conservation biologist, Stuart Pimm, from Duke University. After six years in the director role, she stepped down but remains on the board of directors. 

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