Membership Committee

I teach privately and in class settings such as at the 14th Street Y and as part of seasonal class offerings at RIAT (Riverside Initiative for the the Alexander Technique) aka Sapientia Initiative. I served approximately 4 years as an assistant teacher at RIAT where I completed my Alexander Technique Teacher Training. I also give experiential presentations to various organizations around NYC, including Gilda's Club, Stuyvesant Town Community Center, the 14th Street Y and Sirovich Center.

Amanda MacDonald - Wilmette, IL and Chicago - Lincoln Park and Wicker Park

Amanda is a Movement Educator specializing in Alexander Technique, Movement Pattern Analysis (Laban/Lamb), and Brain-Compatible Pedagogy. She offers private lessons, group classes, and professional development for teachers both online and in person.

Amanda is an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University School of Music, Roosevelt University Theatre Conservatory, and the University of Illinois, Chicago School of Theatre and Music.

Service includes:
Member, DePaul Adjunct Faculty Advisory Committee
Member-at-Large, AmSAT Board of Directors
AmSAT Membership Co-Chair

Amanda sings with her family in a multi-generational choir at Christ Church, Winnetka.

www.AmandaBlairMacDonald.com
https://linktr.ee/ABMacD53
abmacd53@gmail.com

Emily Sapa is an Alexander Technique teacher, flutist, and music educator in Pittsburgh, PA. She teaches AT at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and School of Music and offers private AT lessons to students of all ages, abilities, and interests. Emily also teaches group classes to musicians in person and online. The Alexander Technique is a fascinating way of helping students develop skills that maximize their well-being and potential. Emily discovered the Alexander Technique during her musical studies and found it to be an effective way of releasing excess tension built up from years of flute playing. She completed the AmSAT certified teacher training program at Alexander Technique School New England under the direction of Missy Vineyard in 2014.

About Renee Santo Schneider

Renee Schneider is a 4th generation Japanese American, born in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Los Angeles. Calabasas is her home town and UCLA her alma mater. 

Renee Schneider enjoys team-building and creative problem-solving. She has been teaching Alexander Technique in Normal, Illinois since 2012 after graduating from Joan and Alex Murray's training course which specializes in Dart developmental movement. Since the pandemic Renee has been providing sessions virtually as well.

She has been leading diversity-centered Alexander Technique workshops in person since 2016 and online since 2019. She is a founding member of the AT Liberation Project (formerly AT Diversity Coalition). She volunteered to Chair AmSAT's 2019 annual conference, because she was passionate about centering the topic of DEI in the organization and the Alexander Technique. The title of the conference was "Our Community's Future: Diversity, Equity and Belonging" and was held at Columbia University in New York City.

In 2020 Renee was the main writer of the charges for the Judith Leibowitz Scholarship Committee (JLSF), www.judithleibowitzscholarship.org) and AmSAT's Diversity Committee. JLSF has raised over $95,000 between its inception in 2019 to July 2022 when Renee was on the committee. Funds go towards grants and scholarships for people of color to train to teach Alexander Technique. The AmSAT Diversity Committee partners with the AmSAT Board and other committees to support and bring forward DEIBA initiatives in diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and access. She connected AmSAT with the DEI & NVC consultancy Necessary Trouble Collective (www.necessarytroublecollective.org) which was subsequently hired to consult on a 3-Phase project to develop DEIBA in AmSAT. Phase 2 is slated to start in 2025.

In 2021 Renee led the Society of Ortho-Bionomy International's (SOBI) first virtual conference, which entailed detailed project management, public speaking, and programming focused on community building. The conference is widely seen and infusing a new energy of connection and belonging amongst SOBI members, as well as generating funds for the nonprofit. Renee also served on the SOBI Board as a Member-at-large from 2020-2023.

Renee has an MBA in Global Management from Thunderbird at Arizona State University. As a grad student in 2001 she was part of a 7-person team with MBA students from Stanford and UCLA to organize a business conference for LGBTQ business students. Titled "Reaching Out," it raised an astounding $130,000 in profits for future conferences. 

Renee has worked philanthropically and in community development as an Community Development Assistant and Resident Assistant "RA" for several years in the UCLA dorms. For 4 years she also managed UCLA’s "Project Literacy UCLA", an adult and child literacy program in Watts, California, handling grant-writing, logistics, training, transportation and more. She has served in the Peace Corps teaching English in Kyrgyzstan, and working as an MBA Enterprise Corps volunteer business consultant assisting small and medium-sized businesses in Thailand after the 1997 Asian economic crisis. 

In Thailand Renee ran a major project of the Kenan Institute Asia setting up and providing an on-site business consulting office at the Thailand Board of Investment, producing newsletters for investors, managing official translations of investment legislation, conducting investment research, and writing speeches and powerpoint presentations in English for senior Thai government officials, including Thailand's Secretary General of the Board of Investment, Minister of Finance and Minister of Industry. This support work was critical for many Thai government officials to attract foreign direct investment into Thailand. Renee has a passion for learning languages and owns a school in Bangkok teaching Thai to expatriates working in Thailand for major companies and embassies.  

In addition to Alexander Technique and Ortho-Bionomy®, Renee also studies and practices Somatic Experiencing®, Somatic Resilience and Regulation for birth/developmental trauma, CranioSacral Therapy, Thai Reflexology, trigger point therapy, Reiki, and primitive reflex integration. She is also certified by Alexander teacher Betsy Polatin to provide Humanual sessions (humanual.com) to the public. 

Some of her important activities:
- Attends monthly meetings and annual summits for the Federation of Massage, Bodywork and Somatic Practice Organizations (FedMBS) which deals with pushing back on the legal over-regulation of bodywork (members include AMTA, Feldenkrais, ISMETA, Rolf Institute, AoBTA, Trager, Biodynamic Craniosacral and others. 

- Attends monthly meetings for the AmSAT Diversity Committee
- Renee is currently an AmSAT Member-at-Large Board member and also serves on the Executive Committee
- She helped organized the AmSAT conference and general meeting in July 2024 in Salt Lake City as the Board co-liaison to the 2024 ACGM Planning Committee.

- Developed skills in Nonviolent Communication, including NVC for BIPOC
- Continues to be part of the Volunteer Organizing Team for ATLP (Alexander Technique Liberation Project) which she has been a part of since 2016.

- One of Renee's passion projects is working to educate about and return the bones stolen by A.T. Still from indigenous burial grounds that are being held at the Museum of Osteopathy with a team of 9 people. Here is an article written last month by one member, Susan Raffo, about the need to return bones that bodyworkers may be using in their teaching that may be indigenous or stolen and how to return them. The group is now working to ask osteopathy-based organizations to share this article with their members. Renee is also working with Dr. Patricia StandTal Clarke in educating bodyworkers about the indigenous roots of what they practice and the stolen wisdom to create osteopathy-based bodywork modalities today.