Dr. Ammar Saheli was born and raised in San Francisco. In addition to serving as the Pastor of the West Oakland Church of Christ for almost twenty-five years, Dr. Saheli has served as the Director of Student Support Services in the San Lorenzo Unified School District (18 years), CEO of Saheli7 Educational Consulting (20 years), and recently completed six-years of teaching Advanced Counseling Process, Lifespan Developmental Foundations in Counseling, Counseling Theories, and Multicultural Counseling in the Graduate School of Counseling at San Francisco State University. Dr. Saheli is also the author of the 2018 book, Eerie Silence: Race/Racism Explored Across Educational, Theological, and Justice Continuums Amidst America and Beyond.

Through his consulting business and educational work, Dr. Saheli brings a holistic, responsive, restorative, psycho-educational, and psychosocial approach to working with students, families, educators, leaders, organizations, and service providers. He also helps school districts and organizations respond to and resolve Office for Civil Rights complaints about race, disability, and discrimination. He has also functioned as an expert witness.

Dr. Saheli is skilled in the implementation techniques related to racial equity, cultural humility, unconscious/implicit-bias, Restorative Practices/Restorative Justice, Trauma-Informed Care, and instructional strategies related to critical pedagogy and paideia. He specializes in developing and implementing systems to address racial disproportionality, empowerment, and consciousness. He also manages the tough and necessary dialogues critical to moving systems, organizations, leaders, teams, students, and families beyond the impact of cultural bias and institutional barriers.

Related to racial justice and racial equity, Dr. Saheli works with professional sports teams, the PAC-12, School Districts, police departments, mental health agencies, the beauty industry, faith- based organizations, universities, law firms, non-profits, and more.