Who We Are

Integrity & Compliance

We operate fully within Colorado's regulatory framework and hold ourselves to the highest clinical and ethical standards.

Collaboration & Respect

We meet every client with genuine curiosity, and every decision is made with their autonomy at the centre.

Trauma-Informed Care

Everything we do is shaped by an understanding of how trauma lives in the body and what safety actually requires.

Intentionality & Clarity

Nothing about our process is accidental. We communicate directly, prepare thoroughly, and hold structure as a form of care.

Empowerment & Growth

Our goal is not to fix you. It's to create the conditions for you to find your own way forward.

Co-Founder & President

Annmarie Kropp

DNP, PMHNP-BC, FNP-C, NMCF

Annmarie is a dual-board certified Psychiatric Mental Health and Family Nurse Practitioner who believes people deserve more than one path forward when it comes to healing.

She earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Arizona and spent more than five years working in pediatric neurology before specializing in psychiatry. Throughout her career, she has worked with individuals navigating migraine disorders, hEDS, dysautonomia, anxiety, depression, trauma, ADHD, and other complex conditions that often impact both physical and mental health. She also completed psychedelic and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy training through the Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI).

While completing her post-master's program, Annmarie wrote a paper on psychedelic use in psychiatry. The research sparked a curiosity that would eventually become part of her clinical work.

"I believe in having as many options as possible for patients to use for treatment. Medication isn't one size fits all and pharmaceuticals have a time and place. Psychedelics offer another treatment option to patients who are struggling."

Working in both neurology and psychiatry reinforced that belief. Annmarie has seen how often people find themselves searching for answers that don't fit neatly into a single diagnosis or treatment plan. Her interest in psychedelic medicine grew from the same place: a desire to offer additional options for those who have not found what they need through traditional approaches alone.

"We started the Collective to bring a space where people can feel safe, secure, and supported. We are all healers in some way — whether it's caring for an elderly or medically complex individual. We want to not only hold space for individuals who are struggling, but also for the providers holding space for the healing work."

Co-Founder & Medical Director

Dr. Alessio Luinetti

MD, ABPN-BC, NMIT

Alessio is a board-certified psychiatrist and U.S. Air Force veteran who has long been interested in what helps people heal, including the professionals who dedicate their lives caring for others.

He served as Chief of the Psychiatry Consultation Service at Brooke Army Medical Center and Medical Director of the Mental Health Clinic at the U.S. Air Force Academy. After twelve years of military service working in institutional medicine, Alessio found himself searching for something different. His interest in psychedelic medicine began not through research, but through personal curiosity and experience.

"First it was curiosity — as a psychiatrist, about the medicine itself, what it could do for me and how it would feel. A self experiment. And to some extent I wanted to try something that was the opposite of whatever rigidity I'd been exposed to for the previous 12 years of my life. Then the experiences brought clarity and a sense of well-being that had been missing, bringing a new sense of purpose and mission to my life."

That experience led him to formal training in psilocybin and ketamine-assisted therapy through the Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI) and shaped his belief that this work should extend beyond those seeking care to include the providers delivering it.

"Training with this wonderful medicine brought us together, finding shared ideals on how to practice medicine moving forward. We arrived at the concept of healing the healer — as it would be selfish not to share this process with other providers, to be able to renew and continue our calling to help others."

Alessio served a one-year term on Colorado's Governor-appointed Natural Medicine Special Advisory Board and continues to advocate for veteran mental health and expanded access to natural medicine.

Co-Founder & Director of Psychedelic Programming

Emily Sisa

MSN, PMHNP-BC, FNP-C

Emily is a dual-board certified Psychiatric Mental Health and Family Nurse Practitioner who has spent much of her career asking what happens before a person reaches a crisis point.

She trained at the University of Virginia School of Nursing and earned her Master of Science in Nursing at George Washington University. Before co-founding Zephyr Collective, Emily worked in emergency medicine and trauma centers in Bermuda, Washington D.C., and New York. She also served as a humanitarian aid worker with Project HOPE in India, Nepal, Haiti, and Cuba.

Working in emergency medicine, Emily cared for individuals experiencing acute psychiatric crises in settings that were often not designed to provide meaningful long-term support. The experience gave her a close view of the gaps in the healthcare system and shaped her belief that healing should begin long before a person reaches a breaking point.

"I wanted to work with individuals to prevent the traumatic ER and hospital stays. I didn't want to chase the sequelae of a dysfunctional system. I wanted to work in the preventative care model."

That perspective led her toward psychiatry and mental health, where she became increasingly interested in approaches that help people engage more deeply with their emotions, experiences, and sense of self.

"What happens when we stop suppressing painful or distressing emotions and start amplifying the human experience? Instead of turning the 'bad' emotions off — what if we expand the psyche's ability to understand and process those emotions?"

Cultural Healer & Psycho-Spiritual Consultant

Alejandro Castro

MA, LPC, LAC

Alejandro is a bilingual, bicultural, cisgendered-gay identified dually licensed trauma and addiction counselor and owner and lead clinician of Transcending Consulting Group. His passion for indigenous healing and medicine began at a young age through the teachings of his paternal grandmother, whose ancestral lineage originates from Tlaltenango de Sanchez Roman, Zacatecas Mexico. Through his father and grandmother, Alejandro learned about the Quauchichitl (Guachichil) ways of healing through ritual and indigenous medicines from the Huichol tribe of Mexico.

Throughout his career, Alejandro has worked in higher education, community intervention, the justice system, and addiction treatment — including consulting with the Department of Justice–FBI Crimes Against Children Unit on trauma-informed care, exploitation, and self-care for helping professionals. As a clinician, he has learned that the human comes first and the professional second. His Depth/Jungian perspective, indigenous rituals, and cultural practices always return to the importance of soul work and soul tending.

As Zephyr Collective's Cultural Healer and Psycho-Spiritual Consultant, Alejandro helps the team integrate cultural wisdom, psycho-spiritual perspectives, and respect for ancestral healing traditions in its approach to care.

Licensed Psychologist

Michelle Ertl

PsyD

Michelle is a licensed psychologist who has spent most of her career supporting people in navigating the deep impacts of trauma, ranging from early attachment wounds to experiences of sexual violence and combat. Through that work, she has come to believe that healing isn't about fixing ourselves, but about learning to hold our pain with compassion and to move toward growth with intention and care.

Her path into psilocybin-assisted therapy grew from a desire to offer deeper, more integrative approaches to healing. In this space, her role isn't to provide answers, but to create safety and a steady presence that makes room for it all — for grief, for anger, for insight, for awe. She strives to be someone clients can feel safe enough with to explore what they've been carrying and begin to release what's ready to move.

Michelle believes that psilocybin-assisted therapy has the potential to not only help people process their pain, but to reconnect with a deeper sense of self that feels honest and meaningful. This work continues to teach her the power of presence, and she is honored to join alongside others as they navigate this process.