STAFF
Our Staff carries out the activities of our nonprofit organization.
Marissa Ghavami - Founder and CEO
Marissa Ghavami founded SHEARED, Inc. in 2014 along with her Ph.D. therapist and mother at the end of her healing journey from surviving a "one-on-one cult." (To learn more about Marissa's story and hear her share it on an internationally syndicated online radio show, please see our About Our Founder page.) She started SHEARED in response to the enormous need she saw; the lack of integration between the trauma, mental health and medical fields, the missing link between all forms of abuse and exploitation and the harmful lack of understanding of trauma common among the public and professionals. She wanted to create the organization that she so desperately looked for during her healing process, sharing the information from various fields and sources that helped her the most by shining a light of accurate understanding of the root issues, and to provide hope by being an example of true healing.
Marissa grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, the only child of Debbie and Majid Ghavami, a former make-up artist and model and later a stay at home mom and a restaurateur, respectively. Marissa has also worked as a professional actor, singer, voice over artist and model since she was a child. Please visit www.marissaghavami.com and Marissa's IMDb page for more information about her work in the entertainment - or as she prefers to call it, storytelling - industry. Marissa also excelled academically, graduating high school as Valedictorian, President of the Student Council and with a 4.2 GPA, and was accepted into the prestigious New York University and University of Southern California, among others, but chose to defer her acceptance to continue pursuing her career. She later studied acting, voice and speech and movement at the esteemed William Esper Studio in New York, NY, the world's foremost studio dedicated to Meisner based actor training, and singing with the acclaimed Seth Riggs and later, Liz Caplan.
Marissa enjoys spending time with her family, friends and pets (a Maltese dog, Q-Tip, and two Bengal cat rescues, Sebastian and Viola), going out to eat, coffee, tea, reading, writing, poetry, yoga, theatre, film, television, music and dance as well as being an advocate for fellow survivors and victims and doing her very best to effect the change that she believes is so needed.
Email Marissa at marissa@sheared.org for general, Mentor, Media and/or Speaking Engagement inquiries.
Connect with Marissa on Social Media via the buttons below:
Debbie Ghavami - Cofounder and Secretary
Debbie feels fortunate to have been a stay at home mom during her daughter’s early years, after leaving the cosmetic industry. Married to her restauranteur husband, Majid, a native of Tehran, Iran, for 27 years, Debbie worked intermittently as the restaurants' special events' coordinator and in outside sales when not accompanying their daughter’s travels in the early part of her career. As the mother of Marissa Ghavami, who was the victim of a one-on-one cult, Debbie knows firsthand the nightmare and devastation a parent feels when their child’s entire personality drastically changes and their child’s world that once was, comes to an abrupt halt. Debbie is grateful and proud of her daughter’s fortitude in not only healing, but starting SHEARED in order to help others and to educate the public as well as professionals. Email Debbie at debbie@sheared.org.
Dr. Bruce Hardy, Ph.D. - Cofounder and Director of Education
Coming Soon...
Natalie Steinke - Administrative Assistant and Director of Yoga Outreach
Natalie resides in Phoenix, AZ where she owns and operates her own voice studio, Songbird Studios, and teaches at the Phoenix Conservatory of Music. She also enjoys hiking, avocados, attending live music, collecting albums, and playing with her oversized kitty companions, Ophelia and Pierre. Natalie began practicing yoga as a form of exercise, but now refers to it as her original therapy. She earned her 200-hour yoga teaching certification at Ashtanga Yoga Studio, and has studied with world-renowned yoga teachers including David Swenson, Andrew Eppler, and B.N.S. Iyengar. Natalie also has a B.F.A. in Acting from the University of Oklahoma, where she became an adjunct professor of Voice and Movement, helping to integrate yoga as an artist’s resource into the performance curriculum. She loves sharing yoga’s infinite capacity for self-discovery and self-healing with others. Email Natalie at natalie@sheared.org.
