Tanya Ranchigoda is a first generation Sri Lankan, Canadian, American. Tanya has been a faculty lecturer at the graduate School of Social Work at the University of Washington since 2010 and has also taught at the newly emerging Seattle University MSW program. In addition, she maintains a private mental health practice where she focuses on supporting individuals and families with adjustment to chronic/terminal illness, significant life transitions, grief and loss, and crisis intervention. She provides individual and group MSW supervision with a focus on BIPOC communities. Tanya’s teaching is informed by a mindfulness framework, antiracism, and co-liberation. It includes a framework of diversity and inclusion, not limited to, but including discussions on micro-aggressions, power dynamics, and privilege. In the past 5 years, Tanya has provided diversity, equity, and inclusion consultation to profit and non-profit organizations. Recently she joined the MEND counseling team as their clinical director. Tanya has been a member of the Washington State Society for Clinical Social Workers for over 10 years and served on the board as part of the ethics and professional development teams.

Her past professional social work experiences include pediatric oncology, children’s wellness, and Children’s Administration Child Welfare. She has presented at multiple national conferences on a variety of topics related to the psychosocial impacts of illness and the promotion of social justice through contemplative practices.   In the midst of these work experiences, she was able to take a short sabbatical to volunteer as a pro bono mental health specialist at an orphanage in Honduras.  Tanya’s personal and professional life are both grounded in the practice of striving for balance, non-judgment, and compassion for self and others. She lives in Seattle with her two children, husband, and 11yo boxer/lab.