Tanja Kunz is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and educator working at theintersection of visual art, cultural heritage, and community engagement. She is the managing editor for an interdisciplinary journal which features scholarly works from medical doctors, traditional healers, poets, artists and others, who share a vision of explanatory pluralism, especially as it relates to health and healing. 

Her sculptures are conceptual narratives that weave together her interests in myth, spirituality, ancestry, and justice. 

With paint, Tanja explores the beauty and energy of the natural world. Her reverence is based on her experience with traditional healing methods, and as one who holds great respect for the planet. Paint allows her to speak to these things with fluidity and light. 

Tanja also brings a background in education, program development, and leadership in community settings. From teaching and curriculum design to team training and partnership-building, she specializes in translating complex ideas into accessible, meaningful knowledge. 

Tanja is currently an interdisciplinary PhD candidate at the University of Maine. Her dissertation addresses topics in anthropology (medicine, labor and gender) and healing with arts-based research.

Naj served as vice president, and a co-founder of the National Initiative for the Arts in Health in the Military and Lesley University’s Center for Arts in Health. A past president of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, Naj is the former director of the Healing Arts program of the C. Everett Koop Institute at the Dartmouth Medical School and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Naj works as a consultant with Aesthetics, Inc. that uses the arts to create environments that engage, connect and heal. For over three decades, Naj has served as the arts coordinator for Connecting Youth and Community. Naj is a professional artist, known for creating large-scale environmental sculptures and, for many years, was represented by the Zolla-Lieberman gallery of Chicago, and an award-winning columnist.

Marcel’s work focuses on integrating creative solutions with rigorous systems management for social justice initiatives. Fusing a background in the performing arts with quantitative data analysis, Marcel worked in Tanzania (with support from the Sullivan Scholarship) on two separate initiatives: dance/theater messaging around HIV, as well as research on chimpanzee behavior with the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center. These ventures provided insights for effective communications within public health programming, best-practice in data collection and statistical research, and transnational advocacy networks that inform local health systems. Following this international experience, Marcel worked as an Operations Manager for CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia, Dance/USA Philadelphia, and consulted numerous non-profits on building robust programs for community engagement initiatives. With funding, Marcel attended Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and graduated as the Commencement Speaker in 2017 with a Masters of Public Health and deepened expertise in community engagement and data analytics for global health programs.

Marcel is an arts & wellbeing expert and is an affiliate of University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine and the American Evaluation Association’s Arts & Culture Group. A fluent Swahili speaker, they have consulted in 12+ countries.

Marcel co-founded Performance Hypothesis in 2021 because of a lifelong curiosity about the intersections of arts and wellbeing.