About Humaniterra

Our Why

To be a healer, you have to be able to listen, to learn, and to love.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General

This is the WHY that motivates so many of us to enter healthcare and public health professions — to ease suffering among fellow humans.

But how often are we able to actually practice in this way?

In the pursuit of ever more advanced technologies and greater efficiency, our human aspects of healing and caregiving have been sidelined.

You’ve likely experienced the effects of this…

  • workforce burnout & demoralization

  • lack of trust within the organization, or between care providers and patients

  • population health outcomes that seem stuck no matter what programs & strategies you implement

We cannot create wellness from an unwell container.

If we re-center what makes us human, can it make us well?

Humaniterra exists to make that happen.

RE-HUMANIZING HEALTH SYSTEMS

Why work with Humaniterra?

You've tried offering yoga classes, meditation apps, bonuses, and, heck, even pizza parties for your staff. And it’s no longer working.

We work in health systems and service delivery organizations in the U.S. and around the world to catalyze systems-level shifts that re-center our most powerful healing modalities: our human technologies.

THE HUMANITERRA TEAM

Our People

Heather Buesseler

(she/her)

Founder / Chief Visionary Officer

Heather Buesseler

Founder / Chief Visionary Officer

Heather is a 20-year global public health innovator known for her ability to craft bold visions and bring them into reality through creative partnerships, breaking down siloed mindsets, and developing systems-level solutions. Her vocational North Star is transforming public health and healthcare systems to be more human, compassionate, and equity-centered — particularly for those who work in them. Heather has deep experience working cross-culturally with populations experiencing health disparities. She has worked across Africa and Southeast Asia and with resettled refugees and immigrants in the U.S. and speaks French. When she's not plugging away at her next big idea, Heather loves canoeing, living room dance parties with her 8-year-old daughter, and coaxing food to grow in her backyard urban garden.

Dipanjan Chatterjee

(he/him)

HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN LEAD

Dipanjan Chatterjee

Human-Centered Design Lead

Dipanjan is an inventive leader and strategist who has led numerous complex, high-profile human-centered design projects spanning research, design, strategy, and workshop facilitation. He empowers organizations to create their future with innovative approaches that create a safe space for people to push past their comfort zone in favor of new thinking. Most recently, he led Medtronic's Innovation Lab, the company's internal user design group focused on improving the UX and efficiency of medical devices and healthcare experiences. He has also led a wide range of strategy, innovation, and design projects at UnitedHealth Group, Target, Apple, Zeus Jones, and Steelcase. But whether he's in a Fortune 500 boardroom or doing walkalongs with a community health worker in rural Uganda, Dipanjan always shows up authentically with humor and ease. Outside of work, he gets his kicks playing basketball, eating dessert, and spending time with his wife and two tiny humans.

Pierre Khawand

(he/him)

Mindfulness Programs Lead

Pierre Khawand

Mindfulness Programs Lead

Pierre is dedicated to fostering mindfulness and compassionate leadership in the workplace. Since founding People-OnTheGo in 2001, he has been helping transform organizational work cultures in higher education, healthcare, and the financial and technology sectors, including Stanford University, University of California San Francisco, Sutter Health, and several Silicon Valley tech firms. His holistic approaches weave innovative productivity strategies and the use of cutting-edge technologies with deeper contemplative awareness and compassion cultivation practices. Pierre earned his two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certificate under the renowned instructors Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and subsequently designed and launched the "Healing With Heart" mindfulness program for healthcare professionals in 2024. Hailing from Lebanon, having lived most of his adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area, and currently residing in Germany gives Pierre a unique global perspective on business and wellness praxis.

Jason Teeters

(he/him)

Regenerative Organizational Design Advisor

Jason Teeters

Regenerative Organizational Design Advisor

Jason is a regenerative leader, emergent strategist, soulful facilitator, and speaker who inspires, challenges, and educates leaders and organizational teams. Over the past two decades, he has worked across public health, education, business, technology, and entrepreneurial ecosystem design, advising organizations on people strategy, organizational purpose, growth strategy, and regenerative leadership practices. He is the Founder of JetSetState, an innovation firm that helps large global institutions work in ways that improve the well-being and performance of their organizational teams. He has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United Nations, Rockefeller Foundation, W.K. Kellog Foundation, and Movember, one of the largest NGOs focused on mens' mental health and well-being. Jason holds a Master's degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology. And outside of his day-to-day, he enjoys traveling the world with his wife and their two kids, whose names were inspired by their nuptials in Marrakech, Morocco, daughter Marra and son Kesh.

Dr. Mitch Radin

(he/him)

Trauma-Informed Transformation Advisor

Dr. Mitch Radin

Trauma-Informed Transformation Advisor

Mitch is a clinical psychologist with a 25-year career working in the field of trauma and crisis management. In addition to his consulting work, he is currently a psychology manager at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, where he is actively developing a robust system of emotional support and crisis response for healthcare workers throughout the health system to address issues of moral injury, burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and acute stress. The impacts from this work earned him the 2023 Healthcare Hero Award from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal. Mitch spent the first 16 years of his career tackling complex issues of mental illness and homelessness in the California Bay Area and teaching crisis intervention classes to law enforcement officials. Mitch is a music enthusiast who loves spending time with his amazing wife, two kids who inspire frequent moments of astonishment, and impossibly cute dog.

Tammy Sutherns

(she/her)

communications director

Tammy Sutherns

Communications Director

Tammy is a social impact professional with 14 years of experience in communications, marketing, research and writing. She is passionate about health systems strengthening and how compassion plays a role in this. As a South African living in the United States, Tammy is also curious about the intersection of context, culture, values, norms, people and place and how these influence how policies and processes unfold.

Allan Martinez Venegas

(he/him)

Human-centered designer

Allan Martinez Venegas

Human-Centered Designer

Allan is a social innovator, applied anthropologist, and human-centered design specialist with extensive experience tackling global social challenges. His projects include addressing mosquito-borne diseases in rural Panama, understanding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Kenya, identifying protection risks in humanitarian operations in Nepal, and tackling causes of school attrition in Liberia, among many others. With a strong teaching background, Allan is a global trainer, facilitator, and instructor at institutions including University of Turin, United Nations International Training Center of the International Labour Organization, Macalester College, and IDEO, a premier human-centered design firm. Outside of his work, Allan can be found in urban trails around the Twin Cities preparing for the next swim, bike, or running race.

Rev. David Hottinger

(he/him)

Spiritual Care & Trauma Advisor

Rev. David Hottinger

Spiritual Care & Trauma Advisor

David is a Harvard-trained, board-certified chaplain who is passionate about the role of spiritual care in promoting healing and well-being. He has served in hospital, mental health, hospice, governmental, and humanitarian aid settings in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Ohio, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and the Middle East. As an advocate for trauma-informed systems transformation, David has trained staff in governmental, non-profit, and healthcare settings. During his years at Hennepin Healthcare, a Level One Trauma Center in Minneapolis, David co-led an initiative to help the organization become a trauma-responsive care system and helped begin the first hospital-based violence intervention program in the Upper Midwest. In addition to his consulting work, David is currently the Director of Spiritual Care for Allina Health System and an Adjunct Professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities where his work focuses on spirituality and trauma.

Ready to Re-Humanize?