Educators, Knowledge Keepers, and Facilitators
At The Elsewheres, our educators, knowledge keepers, and facilitators are free to teach from the heart, not from a rubric. Each offering is born from lived experience, ancestral wisdom, and creative autonomy. Here, content belongs to its creator, and our equitable, transparent compensation model honors teaching as a reciprocal act rather than a transactional one. There are no contracts that bind or systems that silence. Everyone who contributes to The Elsewheres retains full autonomy over their work, voice, and process. In many traditional academic spaces, educators are constrained by rigid standards, discouraged from meaningful discourse, and often harmed by institutional violence. The Elsewheres is a refusal of that violence. It is a gathering place for those who teach in alignment with their values, in relation to community, and in reverence to the land and spirit that sustain us. We are growing all the time, expanding with every new teacher who joins this circle of liberation.
Dra. Serina Payan Hazelwood, PhD, MAIS, CSE
Dra. Serina Payan Hazelwood (Dra/She/Ella) is a queer, Indigenous Chicana scholar, educator, and community gatherer.Ā Steward of The Elsewheres, she creates spaces for learning rooted in ceremony, storywork, and embodied practice. She holds a PhD in Sustainability Education and an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Prescott College and is currently pursuing a second masterā€™s in Regenerative Design. As an AASECT Certified Sexuality Educator, Organizational Provider, and Supervisor in Training, her work bridges professional education with Indigenous and decolonial pedagogies. Living on Kumeyaay lands in Playas de Rosarito, she teaches from a core truth: violence to the land is violence to our bodies. Guided by the Nahui Ollin, her work re-animates Chingonisma as a body of knowledge that restores voice, memory, and communal power. Through The Elsewheres, Serina stewards spaces where people remember themselves, practice accountability, and build futures with land, body, and ancestors in right relation.
Read More About Serina @ PayanMedicine.com
Dr. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke Carnagie, PhD, MSW, MEd, CSE, CST
Dr. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke Carnagie (they/them, zie/zir) is an AASECT Certified Sexuality Educator, Certified Sex Therapist, loveologist, decolonial eroticologist, and consultant. The first Jamerican (Jamaican-American) to earn three degrees in Sexuality Studies from accredited U.S. universities, Dr. Hepworth Clarke holds a BA from NYU in Sexuality, Culture, and Oppression, an MEd, and a PhD in Human Sexuality from Widener University. They are an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of Social Work and a graduate of the National Academy for African-Centered Social Work, the International School of Transnational Decolonial Black Feminism in Brazil, and the Decolonizing Knowledge and Power Summer School in Barcelona. As co-founder of the anti-racist decolonial sexuality studies program at Goddard College and co-creator of the Decolonial Sexual Attitude Restructuring (D-SAR), their work reimagines eroticism beyond colonial and capitalist frameworks. Through The Pluriversity LLC, they offer decolonial guidance, love education, and counseling centered on erotic sovereignty, sensual justice, and the liberation of marginalized communities.
Visit Dr. Zel's Webpage
Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza
Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza is an award-winning chef, visionary, and cultural warrior whose work has redefined Mexican cuisine in the United States. Born into a family of bakers with an 800-year legacy, she blends ancestral traditions with fearless creativity and a lifelong commitment to justice. After studying at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, she traveled across Mexico learning from traditional cooks, a journey that shaped her mission to reclaim and elevate Mexican gastronomy as art, history, and resistance. Founder of the renowned Barrio CafƩ in Phoenix and its sister projects, Chef Silvana has earned nine James Beard nominations while centering food as activism. She created Taller de Cocina Mexicana in Playas de Rosarito, a free culinary program teaching youth ancestral and contemporary cooking as pathways to empowerment. Her book, La Hija de La Chingada: Chronicles of a Mexican Chef, is available in Spanish and English. Through flavor, art, and radical love, she continues to protect culture and nourish her communities today.
Visit Chef Silvana's Webpage
Mama Shabeta
Mama Shabeta is a curandera, elder, and spiritual guide whose medicine is rooted in the sacred relationship between land, body, and spirit. She works with sacred tobacco as a teacher and healer, honoring it as a bridge between the seen and unseen worlds. Her teachings remind us that every plant is a relative and every act of care is ceremony. Guided by ancestral lineages of healing, she tends to the wisdom of herbs, dreams, and prayer, helping others remember that wellness begins in reciprocity with the earth. As a teacher and mentor, Mama Shabeta invites students to slow down, listen, and learn directly from the land to honor what grows, what dies, and what returns. Her presence within The Elsewheres grounds our learning in sacred practice and humility, offering a living reminder that healing cannot be commodified. It must be cultivated, tended, and shared in love.
Visit Mama Shabeta's Website
