Ping Ho, MA, MPH – Founder & Director

Ping spearheaded the development of the Certificate Program in Social Emotional Arts (SEA) and the SEA Toolkit: Supportive Art, Movement, Music & Writing for Individuals or Groups in Any Setting. In addition, she co-developed and served as principal investigator for the evidence-based program, Beat the Odds®: Social and Emotional Skill Building Delivered in a Framework of Drumming. Ping is associate editor for the Creative Arts Therapies section of the Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine, and she is co-author of the 2019 National Parenting Products Award-winning book, The Innovative Parent: Raising Connected, Happy, Successful Kids through Art (Ohio University/Swallow Press). Ping was founding administrator of the UCLA Collaborative Centers for Integrative Medicine (now the UCLA Integrative Medicine Collaborative) and UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, which led to the privilege of writing for Norman Cousins and co-writing the professional autobiography of George F. Solomon, M.D., founder of the field. She has a BA in psychology with honors from Stanford—where she was appointed to initiate the still-thriving Health Improvement Program for faculty and staff, an MA in counseling psychology with specialization in exercise physiology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MPH in community health sciences from UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Krista Beagin, MFA – Operations & Communications Director

With over twenty years of experience in both the publishing and non-profit sectors, Krista brings a seasoned organizational aptitude and detailed editorial eye that is integral to her role at Arts & Healing Initiative. Always drawn to creating art from a particular arrangement of words on a page, Krista earned a BA in Literature from UCSC, followed by an MFA in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts. As the Operations & Communications Director, she wears many hats—from writing our monthly newsletters to captaining our website to codifying best organizational practices—which allows her a unique opportunity to utilize her skills and experience, be part of something she wholeheartedly believes in, as well as be a member of an extraordinary team that works each day to ensure the transformative power of the arts is accessible to all.

Christine Manley Martinez – Community Initiatives Manager

Christine brings nearly two decades of non-profit experience to her role as Community Initiatives Manager at Arts & Healing Initiative. She has designed and scaled programs across education, wellness, and social justice, with expertise in building community partnerships, program evaluation, and facilitation. Christine holds a Master’s in Applied Theater Arts from USC, where she trained in Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed and partnered with organizations such as the Garment Workers Center and USC School of Medicine. She is also a certified A Window Between Worlds facilitator and is training to become a Somatic Experiencing® practitioner. In 2023, Christine founded Revolutionary Healing, which supports resilience and empowerment through creative and somatic practices. Christine is deeply committed to culturally responsive, trauma-informed practices that expand access to the arts as a pathway to healing.