Meet Siana Altiise
Educator, speaker, sensory artist and founder of Sonari.
Bio
Siana Altiise is an educator, speaker and sensory artist, and the founder of Sonari. She has around eight forms of synesthesia, including hearing sound in color, and lives with misophonia, a strong reaction to certain everyday sounds. Her work helps people understand how what they hear and notice shapes their attention.
Trained in behavioral psychology and anthropology, Siana has spent more than eight years designing learning and research programs across AI, enterprise technology and immersive training, for organizations including Meta, Dell and The MACH Alliance. Her work also includes a stress-reduction curriculum for high school students and immersive sound installations in the United States, China and South Africa. She leads Sonari's learning design practice, Sonari Learning, and her work The Art of Slowing Down was featured at TEDxAtlanta and TEDx Centennial Park Women.
A coach and competitive bodybuilder, she brings the discipline of physical training to mental skills: practice, recovery and steady progress. She teaches in English and Spanish.
How I got here
For most of my life, I didn't know other people didn't experience the world the way I do. Sound arrives for me as color, shape and texture. It was only later that I learned I have around eight forms of synesthesia.
I also live with misophonia. Certain everyday sounds that most people barely notice can hit me with an intensity that's hard to describe. So I've always lived between two worlds: one where sound is the most beautiful thing I know, and one where it can be almost unbearable.
Living between those two worlds taught me to pay attention to attention.
I had to notice what I was hearing, what it was doing to me, and what I could change. I started composing soundscapes by their colors and designing listening experiences that help people slow down and tell the difference between sound and noise. That work took me to TEDxAtlanta, to galleries and installations from Georgia to Shenzhen and Cape Town, and into classrooms with a stress-reduction program for high school students.
At the same time, I was building a career in learning design, and training as a coach and competitive bodybuilder. The gym taught me what the classroom confirmed: people don't change because they heard a great idea once. They change because they practice, recover and practice again.
Sonari brings those threads together. Everyone is overloaded now, not just people with sensory differences. I teach teams the skills I had to learn to survive: how to notice what's pulling at your attention, reset when you're overwhelmed, and choose where your focus goes.
What makes Sonari different
Most attention training is either inspiring and quickly forgotten, or thorough and hard to sit through. Sonari is built to be both memorable and practical.
- Lived expertise in sensory overload
- Our founder hears sound in color and lives with misophonia, and teaches from a lifetime of managing an overloaded sensory world.
- Designed for learning that lasts
- More than eight years designing learning for organizations like Meta, Dell and The MACH Alliance means every session is built for practice and application, with follow-up that keeps skills alive at work.
- Sound and environment as tools
- We treat what people hear and the spaces they work in as part of attention, often the easiest thing for a team to change.
- Results you can show
- Surveys before and after, a 30-day check-in and a one-page results report.
Speaking
Siana speaks to organizations, conferences and associations about one idea: attention shapes behavior. Her signature talk shows why better performance starts before the decision, and each variation adapts it for a different audience. Every talk combines personal story, practical tools and a live listening moment, in person or virtually, in English or Spanish.
- Attention Shapes Behavior (signature talk)Why better performance starts before the decision.
- Reclaim Your AttentionWhy focus is a skill you can train, and how to start tomorrow.
- The Art of Slowing DownWhat living with synesthesia taught me about noticing.
- Train for the Hard ThingsWhat physical training teaches us about mental skills.
See full talk descriptions, audiences and lengths
Where Siana has spoken and been featured
- TEDxAtlanta
- TEDx Centennial Park Women
- Georgia Public Broadcasting, On Second Thought
- A TED video series on neurodiversity
- Verizon
- Sofar Sounds
Want Siana at your next event?
Talks can run from 30 minutes to an hour, stand alone or open a workshop or offsite. Tell us about your event.