CCA Research Pod

Presenter(s) Bio

Elsa Selva, is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions, Stellenbosch University. Her research explores how nature-based group coaching can support the kind of change demanded by the polycrisis. Elsa argues that mainstream group coaching theory has three important blind spots: it is often ecologically disconnected, insufficiently informed by complexity thinking, and tends to underuse the outdoors as a developmental mechanism.

Elsa is currently working on the first paper in a planned series: a critical interpretive synthesis bringing together coaching theory, transformative learning, nature- and adventure-based practice, and complexity thinking into a new theoretical position for group coaching. Her subsequent papers will examine how practitioners are formed for this kind of work, and what conditions actually produce transformation in the groups she facilitates. This research will eventually inform a practitioner pathway she is developing through her own practice.

You can find Elsa here:
Website: http://www.wildpaths.eco/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elsa-valdivielso-martinez/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elsaselva_/

Fern Beauchamp, is a PhD researcher at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon. Her research examines whether breathing practices can help restore fundamental connections — to self, others and nature — that sit beneath many of our converging global challenges.

Fern’s starting point is that interconnected crises such as declining mental health, loneliness and environmental disengagement may share a common root: disconnection from self, others and nature. Breathing practices are a promising field of inquiry because they influence vagal function and emotion regulation, offering plausible pathways from inner regulation to broader felt connection. Yet research has rarely examined these practices beyond individual outcomes.

Her PhD is a three-study mixed-methods project: a systematic synthesis of breathing practices and multidimensional wellbeing; participatory mapping of pranayama’s ripple effects; and a randomised controlled trial measuring heart rate variability alongside psychosocial indicators of connectedness. Fern is currently mid-project and deep in data analysis for the first two studies. Her findings will help refine an innovative pranayama-based intervention to support inner development, climate action and wellbeing across multiple domains.

You can find Fern’s work here:
Scoping review protocol: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0333360
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernbeauchamp/
Previous research on pranayama and mid-life wellbeing: https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13080