About Us
Salva has long had a passion for health & wellness and is driven by principles of compassion, empathy and God-consciousness. Her journey into the world of mindfulness practice began with the sudden onset of a serious health condition. After six months of hospitalizations, numerous procedures, and two major lung surgeries to stabilize a collapsed lung, Salva developed a unique appreciation for what it means to breathe. By practicing mindfulness during her recovery, she discovered the intersection between mindfulness and her own Islamic faith and their combined potential to deepen empathy and healing.
In 2014, Salva founded Mindful Muslims® to highlight this very intersection. An expert in mind-body preventative health, Salva is a practicing holistic nutritionist at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco. Here she counsels patients of all ages on wellness and integrative health.
Salva is trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) through the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center; she also teaches mindfulness at Ta’leef Collective. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science from the University of California at Irvine and a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Southern California. In the world of social impact, Salva has been recognized as a StartingBloc Fellow and a Hive Global Leader for her work with Mindful Muslims®. Salva lives in San Francisco with her husband and son.
Salva Summer Chak, Founding Director
Born in Connecticut, Micah Anderson spent several of his teen years in and out of placements and group homes. After years involved in 12-step fellowship, followed by extensive travel overseas searching for a spiritual path, he began a personal meditation practice in the early 1990s, and soon after embraced Islam.
Since 2011, Micah has been the Senior Instructor at the Mind Body Awareness Project, an Oakland-based non-profit that designs, delivers and researches mindfulness and emotional literacy programs for at-risk youth. He has taught retreats and led trainings on mindfulness and emotional literacy in five countries, and leads a weekly meditation group in the Bay Area. He is also the Director of Wellness Programming at Ta’leef Collective, a Fremont, CA-based organization that provides an alternative social and sacred space for Muslim converts and seekers.
Micah pulls from a wide variety of lived experiences, including struggles as an at-risk youth himself, years involved with straight-edge punk rock and hip-hop, living overseas for 6 years, as well as his ongoing practice of martial arts. Micah has a Master's degree in Psychology from Sofia University, and is currently a Marriage Family Therapist Intern (MFTi), leading groups as well as seeing individuals and couples. Micah lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and two children.
Micah Anderson, Lead Instructor
Advisory Board
Usama Canon, Founding Director, Ta'leef Collective
Chris McKenna is Program Director at Mindful Schools (www.mindfulschools.org), one of the leading organizations in the world integrating mindfulness into education and youth mental health. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the Mind Body Awareness Project, a nonprofit that pioneered the development of mindfulness-based interventions for high-risk adolescents with complex trauma. Chris is also on the Curriculum Advisory Committee of Dalai Lama Fellows and the Advisory Councils of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBME), The Mind Body Awareness Project (MBA) and Veteran's PATH.
Chris McKenna, Program Director, Mindful Schools
James Mitchell, PhD, UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine
Bob Stahl, PhD, has founded eight Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs in medical centers in the San Francisco Bay Area and is currently offering programs at Dominican Hospital, El Camino Hospitals in Los Gatos and Mt. View, and Good Samaritan Hospital. He serves as a Senior Teacher for Oasis Institute for Mindfulness-Based Professional Education and Training at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Bob teaches MBSR Teacher Trainings and Insight Meditation retreats worldwide and is the guiding teacher at Insight Santa Cruz and a visiting teacher at Spirit Rock. He is coauthor of five books: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Living With Your Heart Wide Open, Calming the Rush of Panic, A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook for Anxiety, and MBSR Everyday.
Bob Stahl, PhD, Founder, Awareness and Relaxation Training