Melissa Stangl is a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Soltara Healing Center, a Shipibo-led ayahuasca healing center. After a career in engineering, science, and cancer research, she left corporate life in 2015 to live and work in the Peruvian Amazon, where she managed operations at an ayahuasca retreat center before helping found Soltara. She is the author of ‘The Roots of Consciousness’ and has spoken widely on plant medicine, the ethics of ayahuasca tourism, and bridging Western and Indigenous approaches to healing.