Educator. Researcher. Author. Consultant. Artist.
Joanna Beltrán Girón, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Joanna Beltrán Girón (she/they) was born and raised in so-called El Salvador. She is a (great)/(grand)daughter of herbalists, farmers, medicine workers/curanderas, parteras, and community organizers.
She is an herbalist-in-training, artist, popular educator, organizer, and scholar whose work is committed to historical, intergenerational, collective, interpersonal, and personal healing from colonial and state violence wounds/soul wounds. Her work is rooted in ancestral healing practices, decolonial feminist pedagogies, and liberation psychology.
Joanna is the Founder and Owner of Sana Corazón Consulting – a trauma-informed, healing-centered, and resistance-oriented consulting company that offers research, educational, and mental health services to communities, organizations, collectives, and institutions whose goal is to implement decolonial feminist practices in their work with survivors of state violence.
She has received various distinguished fellowships and scholarships, including the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, the San Francisco-based Chicana Latina Foundation Scholarship, and the NYC-based 100 Hispanic Women Fellowship.
Joanna has taught (online and in-person) undergraduate and graduate students at various universities on the East and West Coasts. Furthermore, she served as Student Representative for the Central American Section of the Latin American Studies Association (CAS-LASA) from 2018 to 2020 and as Co-Chair of the Mesoamerican Studies Group at The CUNY Graduate Center in 2022 and 2023.
Joanna is a manuscript reviewer for Feminist Formations and Psychology of Women Quarterly and a grant reviewer for the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA).
Education
Education
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Master of Arts in Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Master of Arts in Psychology, The CUNY Graduate Center
Master of Philosophy in Critical Social-Personality Psychology, The CUNY Graduate Center
Doctor in Philosophy in Critical Social-Personality Psychology, The CUNY Graduate Center (currently)
Additional Education
Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (ITP) Certificate, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY.
Clinical Training & Certification
Sexual Wellness Education and Enlightenment Training Certificate, Institute for Sex Education & Enlightenment (ISEE) (In Progress)
Psychedelic Liberation Certificate, Psychedelic Liberation Certificate Program, MD.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, Dr. Priscilla Marquis Therapy, San Francisco, CA.
Somatic, Creative, & Land-based Training & Certification
Black and Indigenous People of Color Sci-Fi Screenwriting Lab, Justice for My Sister Collective, CA.
“Cuerpo y Acción”, Fundación Nacional para las Bellas Artes y la Cultura de Guatemala, Antigua Guatemala, GU (Performance Arts Certificate).
Reiki Levels 1 & 2 Certification, Awakening Transformation, Austin, TX.
Texas Master Naturalist Program, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, College Station, TX.
My Values
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“The medicine you seek is within you.”
One of my elders, Miguel, reminded me that the medicine I seek is within me. Oftentimes, we seek external answers when all we have to do is tap into the wisdom and medicine within.
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Education is liberation
Decolonial education helps us to unlearn, relearn, and ultimately heal our wounds.
Grounded in the work of liberation educator Paulo Freire, I believe that education must be used to raise consciousness, decolonize, heal, & liberate.
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"No Research About Us, Without Us."
Grounded in the Indigenous practices of collectivity, reciprocity, & respect – which are echoed by Critical Participatory Action Research – research must center the voices of those who have been the most impacted by a given issue.
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Healing work can be gentle & enjoyable
Healing work is not just talking about & reliving one’s painful past. Healing work must also be somatic/embodied, thus integrating art-based & ancestral/cultural methods is an integral element that can make the healing process more gentle & enjoyable.
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Trauma is a deeply spiritual experience
(and can be passed down intergenerationally). Research shows that chronic stressful/traumatic experiences lead to inflammation in the body, which impacts our health, including brain health (e.g., memory loss). Being in a constant state of susto takes a toll on the BodyMindSpirit, not only on the impacted person but also on future generations.
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We can heal through ceremonies, rituals, land-based wisdom, & sacred plant-fungi medicine
A decolonial education teaches/reminds us that (1) we are our ancestors’ wisdom, medicine, & gifts; and (2) for centuries, we have turned to the guidance of the beyond-the-human/more-than-human to process, transmute, & heal ourselves for the greater good of our communities.
