Michelle Q Slavik
Co Founder Waves of Grief Collective
Nonprofit CEO/Exec. Director Oceanflow Collective &
Facilitator
Half Moon Bay, CA
Michelle is a clinical operations excellence and surf therapy provider with a background in building infrastructure and integrating systems to deliver much needed medicine to underserved communities across the globe.
As head and co-founder of the new nonprofit, Oceanflow Collective, and the Waves of Grief Collective™, Michelle’s professional and personal experiences have aligned with her passion for healing, rekindling a sacred relationship to nature, and creating space supportive of loss and trauma among individuals seeking inclusive, authentic and caring communities in/with/by/for blue spaces, like the ocean and it’s virtual shore.
Her passion continues to drive awareness into cultures breaking down stigma surrounding mental health. Michelle led the defense of clinical data that gained approval for a sickle cell disease medicine, which subsequently won a 2021 Prix Galien award from The Galien Foundation for its “extraordinary scientific innovation in improving the human condition.”
She has been facilitating Waves of Grief since participating in the National Geographic Series, IMPACT. Later that year, she extended Waves of Grief into the workplace and onto a virtual shore at her Biotech company. Michelle was a member of Waves of Grief programming for US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surf therapy community at ISTO (International Surf Therapy Organization), and expanded community in Southern California with Anna Cho of HydroTheory.
"Growing safe spaces for this language of grief and loss to flow is the honor I can pay back to those we love. Plus it's easier to tap in to your heart space when you are in nature." Michelle says. "Nature mirrors and reweaves the space to heal."