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It all began in Nebraska. I’m the girl given away to adoption—the giveaway girl. In Native American culture, the Giveaway is a ceremony where beloved possessions are given to others with no strings attached and no regrets. |
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A sacred convergence—woven with synchronicity, longing, and grace—led me to my birth family 33 years after my adoption, marking a profound homecoming and igniting a spiritual and scholarly journey that would transform my life, research, and teaching.
Dr. Susan Mossman Riva is the author of Homing In: An Adopted Child's Story Mandala of Connecting, Reunion, and Belonging and Crafting Peace Through Autoethnography: Reflexive Pedagogies for Navigating Difficult Times. Her writing and research are grounded in autoethnographic methodology, offering a transformative approach to understanding identity, conflict, and connection through lived experience.
Adopted as an infant in Omaha, Nebraska, Susan’s life path took her to Switzerland as a young exchange student. There, she would eventually raise five children in the Swiss Alps, create a mediation service for asylum seekers, and earn a doctorate in Social Sciences with a dissertation on intercultural conflict narratives. She currently teaches in the Medical Anthropology Program at Creighton University, where she developed the Transformagram Learning Model, a reflexive pedagogical tool that guides students through their conflict and illness narratives that story complex personal and social challenges using autoethnographic exploration.
Her postdoctoral research has focused on hyper-diversity in public health, with particular attention to mental health, LGBTQ+ health, migrant health and hopeful, healthy aging. Across her teaching and her books, she accompanies students and readers as they navigate difficult times and explore the healing potential of story, synchronicity, and narrative coherence.
Susan’s work invites scholar-practitioners, students, and seekers alike to activate their inner compass and engage in the sacred practice of transformative peacemaking.
Dr. Susan Mossman Riva is the author of Homing In: An Adopted Child's Story Mandala of Connecting, Reunion, and Belonging and Crafting Peace Through Autoethnography: Reflexive Pedagogies for Navigating Difficult Times. Her writing and research are grounded in autoethnographic methodology, offering a transformative approach to understanding identity, conflict, and connection through lived experience.
Adopted as an infant in Omaha, Nebraska, Susan’s life path took her to Switzerland as a young exchange student. There, she would eventually raise five children in the Swiss Alps, create a mediation service for asylum seekers, and earn a doctorate in Social Sciences with a dissertation on intercultural conflict narratives. She currently teaches in the Medical Anthropology Program at Creighton University, where she developed the Transformagram Learning Model, a reflexive pedagogical tool that guides students through their conflict and illness narratives that story complex personal and social challenges using autoethnographic exploration.
Her postdoctoral research has focused on hyper-diversity in public health, with particular attention to mental health, LGBTQ+ health, migrant health and hopeful, healthy aging. Across her teaching and her books, she accompanies students and readers as they navigate difficult times and explore the healing potential of story, synchronicity, and narrative coherence.
Susan’s work invites scholar-practitioners, students, and seekers alike to activate their inner compass and engage in the sacred practice of transformative peacemaking.
Read my publications on my academic website. As a social scientist I do needs assessment research using narrative methods for social transformation. The Narrative Model of Mediation and social constructionist approaches have guided my work.
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