Advisory Council

Nirasha Darusman (Indonesia)

EKR-Nirasha-Darusman-headshot

Nirasha is an author with a personal calling — to help people dealing with grief as she’s experienced significant losses in her life. She co-founded Grieftalk.id in 2020, a support group specializing in grief. Nirasha then began the journey of building a community for people who suffered the loss of their loved ones, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Katie Eastman (USA)

Dr. Katie Eastman is a national grief/trauma therapist, speaker, and consultant with ReCreate Coaching and Counseling in Anacortes, Washington.

As a licensed psychotherapist, licensed social worker, and life coach specializing in loss and transition, she supports individuals and communities before, during, and after serious loss for the past thirty years.

Deborah Grassman (USA)

Deborah Grassman: The country’s foremost expert on veteran’s affairs involving hospice. Deborah Grassman is a Nurse Practitioner.

Her career at Bay Pines VA in St. Petersburg, Florida lasted for nearly 30 years, where she was the Director of the Hospice program and personally took care of 10,000 

Cole Imperi (USA)

Cole Imperi is a dual-certified thanatologist, a two-time TEDx speaker, and one of America’s leading experts on death, dying, and grief.

She is best known for her work pioneering the fields of Thanabotany and Deathwork (which includes Death Companioning) 

Dani Monte (Brazil)

Dani Monte is based in Fortaleza, Northeast, Brazil. After a near-death experience, I felt a turning point in my life when I met Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross. Those eyes looked straight in my soul and have been guiding me ever since. Her light, her love, her words touch my heart.

Paul Quilliam (Australia)

Paul Quilliam is a former Board Chair of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN).  Paul is also a Cofounder of Hummingbird House, which opened in 2016 as Queensland’s only children’s hospice, and only the third facility of its kind in Australia.

Having spent two decades in education and IT, Paul completed his Executive MBA and pivoted to healthcare, community services and not-for-profit advocacy.  He is passionate to bring his leadership, management and governance experience, coupled with his experience in philanthropic and political persuasion, to bring advice and added value to the grief and bereavement sector.

In 2019, he received the international entrepreneurship award for Hummingbird House from the global Association of MBA’s (AMBA) in the non-profit category, from a field of nominations from 257 business schools around the world.

He is currently the CEO of Epilepsy Tasmania and Director of Epilepsy Australia.

Paul is our “most southern” advisory council member based in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia with his wife Gabrielle and two daughters, Shiloh and Stephanie.