Christopher Cherney

Christopher grew up outside of Detroit. 

Halfway through his undergraduate years as a Biochemistry major at Harvard University, he spent almost a year in Nepal, mostly near Kathmandu. 

At age 29, while training to be a hospice volunteer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he visited a nursing home. Immediately he knew he had found his vocation. Today, 30 years later, he remains in the nursing home field. He has been a licensed nursing home administrator for 27 years. 

After getting a Masters in Gerontology at San Francisco State University so that he could teach at the university level, for the next 11 years he taught courses on health care to more than 1,000 undergraduates at San Jose State University. He also taught graduate students at San Jose State and San Francisco State. 

For the past seven years, he has worked as a self-employed consultant to more than 100 clients in 22 States. His clients include five State Attorneys General. He routinely provides sworn expert testimony in litigation regarding U.S. nursing homes. 

In January 2024, upon the intercession of St. Damien of Hawaii, he founded a nonprofit organization, Conscious Touch Teams. This November, Conscious Touch Teams will conduct its first volunteer training in Oakland. Volunteer teams will be trained to provide supportive, nurturing touch to nursing home residents. 

This past April, Christopher and his wife Natasha celebrated their 25th anniversary. They are the proud parents of a daughter who is finishing up her final year at Scripps College outside Los Angeles. They have lived in Berkeley for 27 years.