Stella Akua Mensah (fae/faer) is a Black, Neurodivergent Peer Support Specialist, Psych Survivor, writer, Transformative Justice advocate, and artist from Chicago. She studied Literary Arts at Brown University, writing magical realism centering on themes of inherited trauma, Madwomanness, and Black Diasporic approaches to healing. Stella now serves as a Peer Support Housing Navigator for Homeless Women in Boston. Her ongoing passions center on transformative, decarceral, and communal care.

Alisha Ali, PhD (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University where she heads the Advocacy and Community-Based Trauma Studies (ACTS) Lab. Her research examines the mental health effects of various forms of oppression including racism and poverty. She is co-editor (with Bradley Lewis and Jazmine Russell) of the upcoming book “The Mad Studies Reader” (Routledge Press). Her current projects are investigating the effects of empowerment-based interventions for domestic violence survivors and low-income high school students, and the impact of an arts-based intervention to treat the effects of traumatic stress in military veterans. Alisha received her PhD in Applied Cognitive Science from the University of Toronto and completed her postdoctoral fellowship training in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

Sascha DuBrul (he/him) is a writer and educator who has been facilitating workshops and community dialogues at universities, conferences, community centers and activist gatherings for more than two decades. From the anarchist squatter community in New York City to the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas, Mexico, to the Earth First! road blockades of the Pacific Northwest, Sascha is a pioneer in urban farming and creative mental health advocacy. He is the co-founder of the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library, the first urban seed library in North America, and The Icarus Project, a radical community support network and media project that’s actively redefining the language and culture of mental health and illness. He is currently working in private practice and raising two children in Los Angeles, California. Learn more at www.saschadubrul.com.

Evan Auguste, PhD (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His identities as a Haitian-African American man have informed his work on examining how the U.S.’s history of anti-Blackness has shaped psychological realities both in and outside of the country’s borders. His work focuses broadly on addressing the mental health consequences of structural anti-Blackness through the lens of Black liberation psychology. To date his research has primarily examined these experiences among recent Haitian migrants to the United States as well as justice-involved Black boys. He also focuses on developing and piloting anti-carceral and community-based health interventions, such as the Association of Black Psychologists’ Sawubona Healing Circles, which he co-developed, to promote healing from an African-centered framework.

Arita Balaram (she/her) is a member of the faculty at the Evergreen State College teaching in the areas of community studies, psychology, gender, sexuality, and queer studies, and ethnic studies. For her doctoral research, she explored the uses of storytelling to break intergenerational cycles of violence among Indo-Caribbean women and gender expansive people. She is also a co-founder and member of Ro(u)ted by Our Stories, a collective of Indo-Caribbeans in the U.S. interested in community archiving and distributive justice. She holds a PhD in Critical Psychology from City University of New York, the Graduate Center.

Elmina Bell (she/they) hails from Indigenous African parents from the Indigenous Bantu Sawa peoples of Cameroon in Central Africa, and the Ewe peoples of Togo West Africa and was born and raised in Washington, DC (Indigenous Piscataway land). Elmina is a multiply neurodivergent person who centers Indigenous holistic psychologies and cosmologies for mental health, community building, and for the dismantling of oppressive colonial systems. Their work as a trauma-informed peer support facilitator, crisis counselor, tropical and sidereal astrologer, sound healer, and medium is guided by Mulema Alchemy. Mulema means heart in the languages of her parents. She believes in the transformative, alchemical power of the heart. She’s building a coalition devoted to ancestral Indigenous psychologies. Learn more at www.mulemaalchemy.wordpress.com.

Danielle Benjamin (name/only or king/queen) is an ancestral herbalist, astrologer, bodyworker, and a student of Spirit. Danielle is founder and steward of Evolutionary Medicine, currently creating Temple of Earth Apothecary, Black Native herb shop and healing space. Daughter of an Afro-Indigenous family reclaiming their diasporic roots, Danielle began cultivating with ancestors in family ceremony, dreams and nature as a small child. Within her own journey into motherhood, Danielle chose a healing path in the postpartum portal and began formal herbalism studies with Ancestral Apothecary’s School of Folk and Indigenous Medicine. Danielle holds a master’s degree in Special Education from CUNY Hunter College. Danielle was born and raised on Huichin Ohlone land in Richmond, CA and is currently based in Oakland.

Marie Brown, PhD (she/her) is a licensed clinical psychologist working in the community mental health system in New York City. She completed her PhD at Long Island University Brooklyn and postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center. She is the co-editor of Women & Psychosis: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (with Marilyn Charles) and Emancipatory Perspectives on Madness: Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Dimensions (with Robin Brown). She is the current Vice President of the International Society for the Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis US Chapter (ISPS-US) and an original co-founder of Hearing Voices Network NYC. She is currently working on a book on feminist approaches to psychosis and the female fertility cycle (menstruation, menopause, pregnancy) for Routledge’s Women & Psychology book series.

Bhargavi V Davar (she/her) is a child survivor of Indian psychiatric institutions. She endured four decades of psychosocial disturbances and trauma due to those experiences. She founded the Bapu Trust for Research on Mind & Discourse in 1999. The Trust works with communities providing psychosocial services using a design called the 'Eight Point Recovery Framework.’ She is presently Executive Director at Transforming Communities for Inclusion (TCI), a global organization of persons with psychosocial disabilities.

Sera Davidow (she/her) is a filmmaker, activist, advocate, and mother of two. As a survivor of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as a child and domestic violence as an adult, Sera has faced many challenges throughout her own healing process, including many ups and downs with suicidal thoughts, self-injury, and seeing disturbing visions. At present, she spends much of her time working with the Wildflower Alliance (formerly known as the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community), serving on the board of Hearing Voices Network-USA, and writing for Mad in America. She is also proud to be one of the lead organizers of the Black Movement Leadership project, and has learned a great deal about the importance of preserving history and stories from that work. You can learn more about Sera and the Wildflower Alliance in An Open Mind, a 2018 article in Sun Magazine.

Audrey di Mola (she/they) is a NYC-born storyteller, writer/artist, creative facilitator, and sacred space-holder; a wing-footed guide to the wilds of the deep heart. She is a person with lived experience – underworld-grown – grounded in the learnings of her descents and dedicated to carrying the revivifying waters of re-story-ation into modern society. Audrey's mythopoetic heart-work offers wondrous embodied experiences with the old stories in the oral tradition as well as journeys into the urban mythic and our own personal legends. For 15 years, Audrey has been lovingly gathering souls to safely and artistically explore their inner and outer landscapes. She has hosted and curated many multidisciplinary events, workshops, and performances such as How To Convert Your Life Into Legend: Inside The Hero's Journey, and How We Create & How We Cope: Intersections of Art & Mental Illness. Learn more at www.audreydimola.com.

Roxie Ehlert, LPCC, ATR-BC (she/her) is a disabled artist, art therapist, educator, and writer. She offers individual therapy, art therapy supervision, and ongoing “Breaking the Silence” support groups for mental health providers who are labeled with mental illness. Roxie is passionate about offering groups that create solidarity spaces for providers to process their experiences of sanist discrimination, stigma, and silencing in the field. Roxie teaches in the Art Therapy and Counseling graduate program at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, NM. As an educator she is committed to creating anti-oppressive learning spaces that politicize practitioners and foster the development of critical consciousness. Roxie’s art practice explores themes of ritual, grief, nostalgia, and queer belonging.

Ysabel Garcia (she/her) is a Dominican immigrant with a bold mission to engage in honest and authentic conversations about mental health, equity, and suicide. Having survived the psychiatric system, Garcia has witnessed firsthand the harmful effects of mainstream mental health practices. Despite this, she maintains a sense of humor and openly discusses her experiences with suicidal ideation to encourage others to do the same. She embodies her messaging and personality through her work with Estoy Aqui LLC, where she provides clarity, compassion, and culturally responsive support to organizations seeking to learn more about the social, cultural, and structural aspects of mental health in Latine and Black communities.

Randall Gates (he/him) is a Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist who has dedicated his life to helping people discover the causes of their chronic health conditions. Shortly after graduating in 2006 with a B.S. in Biology, Dr. Gates started his doctoral program in Chiropractic. During Chiropractic school, he was introduced to Functional Neurology. When he learned about Functional Neurology, everything clicked! He became fascinated/obsessed with neurology and spent much of his free time studying the brain in-depth including its dysregulations and rehabilitation. In 2009, Dr. Gates graduated from Life Chiropractic College West receiving his Doctorate of Chiropractic, as well as being Valedictorian of his class. Simultaneously, he was completing 300 additional credit hours in the field of neurology, and in 2010, Dr. Gates passed the rigorous American Chiropractic Neurology Board Examination. At 28 years old, Dr. Gates attained his designation as a Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist- one of five hundred in the world. Dr. Gates has since completed 250 hours of additional training in Traumatic Brain Injuries, Vestibular Rehabilitation and Movement Disorders. He continues to spend countless hours researching conditions that are not well understood, as well as conditions that are treated primarily through pharmacological medications. Learn more at www.gatesbrainhealth.com.

Noah Gokul (they/them) is the Program Coordinator for the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA). They are a Queer multidisciplinary artist and educator here to create liberated worlds through art, storytelling, and sound. They grew up in Oakland, CA/unceded Ohlone land, and identify as a trauma survivor with sensitivities to the world around them. They use music and art for meaning-making and the healing of others, integrating these passions into their work as a peer for young adults in a first-episode psychosis program. They have facilitated in a wide variety of settings, at the intersections of anti-oppression, trauma, incarceration, Caribbean ancestry, music, and mental health. Through their incantations they create spaces of radical imagination and possibility.

Swapnil Gupta (she/her) is a psychiatrist working in an outpatient clinic in NYC. She tries her best to place psychological suffering in context and minimize the use of psychotropic medications.

Dmitriy Gutkovich (he/him) has an extensive background in the hearing voices community, which includes leadership roles in nonprofit work (Hearing Voices Network-USA, ISPS-US, Hearing Voices Network-NYC, and NYC Peer Workforce Coalition), and authorship of Life with Voices: A Guide for Harmony. Leveraging over a decade of his own personal lived experience, his focus is on empowering voice-hearers in conversations on how strategies, support, and above all community can improve quality-of-life for those facing voice-related adversities.

Leah Harris (they/she) is a mad, queer, and disabled writer, facilitator, and advocate of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish heritage. Their work focuses on autonomy and choice, surveillance/tech in the mental health/suicide prevention space, the history of carceral mental health, and psychiatric abolition. Their writing has appeared in The Progressive, Passengers Journal, Rooted in Rights, the Disability Visibility Project, and Mad in America; and in the anthologies We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, Fat and Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives, and the forthcoming Mad Studies Reader.

Marika Heinrichs (she/her) is a somatic practitioner working at the intersection of culture and embodiment. Centering cultural regeneration, accountability, and ancestral reconnection, Marika supports other practitioners who feel called to repair intergenerational trauma and supremacy through their work.

Noel Hunter (she/her) is a clinical psychologist and advocate for the rights of those whose voices too often go unheard. She writes and teaches about the need for a truly trauma-informed and holistic perspective on what normally gets called “mental illness.” Her work has appeared in Truthout, Mad in America, and Alternet, and interviews have been featured in HuffPost, Forbes, CNN, National Geographic, and BBC, among others. She is the author of the book Trauma and Madness in Mental Health Services and is the founder/director of MindClear Integrative Psychotherapy.

Tasha Hunter, MSW, LCSW (she/her) is Black, queer, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Level 3 IFS Therapist, owner of Ascension Growth Center, PLLC. She is also an Air Force veteran, author of her memoir, What Children Remember, and host of the podcast When We Speak. She is passionate about speaking about childhood trauma, suicide, and collective healing and liberation. Since becoming a therapist in 2017, her experience includes working in community mental health, schools, and outpatient settings. Tasha specializes in treating Black, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ clients who are working through parental abuse/neglect, white supremacy culture, legacy burdens, life transition, grief, infertility, spiritual/religious trauma, and sexual identity. Learn more at www.tashahunterlcsw.com.

Keris Jän Myrick (she/her) is a long-time mental health activist and has held executive positions at the local, federal national levels. Myrick is the podcast creator and host of Unapologetically Black Unicorns and serves on the Boards of the National Association of Peer Specialists (N.A.P.S.) and Disability Rights California (DRC). Myrick has over 15 years of experience in mental health services innovations, transformation, peer workforce development and authored numerous peer reviewed articles and book chapters. Keris Jän Myrick is a Certified Personal Medicine Coach, has a M.S. in organizational psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology of Alliant University and MBA from Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson (he/him) is a writer, poet, and librarian living in New York City. He’s had words in The New York Times, Boston Review, and Vice. Cyree Jarelle has received fellowships and grants from Culture/Strike, Astraea Foundation, Rewire.News/Disabled Writers, and the Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund. He has delivered lectures and readings at The White House, TEDxColumbia University, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Brown University among other venues. Learn more at www.cyreejarellejohnson.com.

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu (they/she) is a multiply Disabled, Mad, and neurodivergent care worker and educator. They are rooted in historical and political lineages of Disability Justice and Mad Liberation, and show up for their communities as an organizer, parent, doula, peer supporter, writer, conflict intervention facilitator, and holistic healing practitioner. As the Director of Project LETS, their work specializes in building non-carceral, peer-led mental health care systems that exist outside of the state, reimagining everything we’ve come to learn about mental distress, and supporting care workers to build access-centered, trauma responsive practices that support whole bodymind healing. Learn more at www.stefaniekaufman.com.

Ji-Youn Kim (they/she) is a queer, currently non-disabled Corean femme, immigrant and settler, liberatory dreamer, psych survivor, justice-oriented therapist-ish, and ongoing creation of community. Born in Bucheon, Corea, they grew up and continue to live in what is colonially known as Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. With collective liberation as their vision, they aim to disrupt carceral practices of the mental health industry and its complicities and envision new ways of mental health care rooted in cultural and collective healing. Her work is informed by Black and Indigenous feminist scholars, abolitionists, land defenders, and organizers, as well as her own lived experiences and embodied knowledges. Learn more at www.itsjiyounkim.com.

sun kim (they/she) is the Membership & Community Engagement Associate for the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA). They are a Queer educator and emerging filmmaker curious about how understanding intergenerational trauma can cultivate collective healing. They bring a background of organizing trauma-informed survivor-centered spaces and resources within the Asian American community, and a lens of approaching anti-violence work through transformative justice practices. They also work as a film teacher, and believe in the power of nurturing the creative voices of youth in building our abundant and interconnected futures. They are thankful to grow their practices of somatic healing, altar/ritual building, and multimedia storytelling with the IDHA community.

Bradley Lewis, MD, PhD (he/him) is a psychotherapist, psychiatrist, and humanities professor at New York University. He is devoted to enriching everyday life and clinical practice through integration with the arts, humanities, and cultural/political/religious study. In his private psychotherapy practice, he works with people in collaborative dialogue, creative meaning-making, and imaginative problem-solving. He has books on Postpsychiatry and Narrative Psychiatry and his current book projects include Experiencing Epiphanies in Literature, Cinema, and Everyday Life and a co-edited Mad Studies Reader.

Chacku Mathai (he/him) is an Indian-American, born in Kuwait, who became involved in survivor/ex-patient advocacy when he was 15 years old. Chacku’s and his family’s experiences with racism and xenophobia-related assault and trauma resulted in his own loss of safety and confusing extreme states, including hearing voices and other sensory changes as a youth and young adult. These experiences launched Chacku and his family towards a number of efforts to advocate for alternative supports, equity, and inclusion in the community. He has since accumulated over thirty-five years of experience in advocating for and creating alternatives such as peer support and racial equity in community and in behavioral health systems in a wide variety of roles, always centering lived experience and human rights. He has held important leadership roles in youth leadership and community organizing, and executive and board management. Learn more at www.chackumathai.com.

Caroline Mazel-Carlton (she/her) has laid her head in a number of places, from Indiana jail cells to Texas psychiatric units, but now enjoys a freer existence as Director of Training for the Wildflower Alliance and member of the Board of Directors of the Hearing Voices Network-USA. Caroline’s passion is centering and exploring the experiences that are often the most silenced, such as suicide, trauma, and non-consensus reality states. Her work with “Alternatives to Suicide” and the Hearing Voices Network has been featured in a number popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Foreign Policy and O magazine. She has contributed to multiple academic publications on the topic of suicide and one book on her experience skating on a roller derby team as #18 “Mazel Tov Cocktail."

Daryl McGraw (he/him) is a Certified Addictions Counselor, Recovery Support Specialist, and Criminal Justice Professional. He has over 10 years of experience and expertise in urban trauma, addiction recovery, and community reintegration. Daryl’s journey through addiction and incarceration prepared him to be a voice and advocate for individuals caught in the vicious cycles of addiction and recidivism.

Jacks McNamara (they/them) is a trauma healing coach, facilitator, educator, writer and artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jacks has been in private practice for 11 years, with a specialty in supporting queer and trans trauma survivors, and in mentoring new queer and trans healing practitioners. They have been peer counseling, facilitating support groups, teaching art and writing classes, and leading workshops around radical mental health since 2004. Jacks is a member of the Generative Somatics Politicized Healers Network and a graduate of the gs Somatics and Trauma practitioner training program. In 2002 Jacks co-founded The Icarus Project, now known as the Fireweed Collective, an international support network and participatory adventure in mutual aid and healing justice. Co-author of Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness, their life and work are the subject of the poetic documentary Crooked Beauty. Jacks also hosts the podcast So Many Wings, a series of conversations at the intersection of social justice and transformative mental health. Learn more at www.jacksmcnamara.net.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD (he/him) graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine and trained in family medicine, psychiatry, and clinical psychology. He completed his residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has been on the faculties of several medical schools, most recently as associate professor of family medicine at the University of New England. He continues to work with aboriginal communities to develop uniquely aboriginal styles of healing and health care for use in those communities. He is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, and Coyote Wisdom, a trilogy of books on what Native culture has to offer the modern world. His goal is to bring the wisdom of indigenous peoples about healing back into mainstream medicine and to transform medicine and psychology through this wisdom coupled with more European derived narrative traditions. Learn more at www.mehl-madrona.com.

Akriti Mehta (she/her) is a mad disabled researcher and (aspiring) activist. She is currently doing her PhD exploring psychosocial disability activism in India. She is also involved in several projects related to disability studies, madness, and justice in the global South. Fundamental to her research and activist interests are questions of injustice, of power imbalances, of oppression and exclusion, but also equally of resistance and solidarities, of inclusive and intersectional movement-building, and of creating communities and practices of care.

Vesper Moore (they/them) is an Indigenous political activist, trainer, writer, and psychiatric survivor. They have been advocating for disability justice for over a decade and have been the recipient of many social justice and diversity awards. Vesper has brought the perspectives of mad, labeled mentally ill, neurodivergent, disabled people, and survivors to national and international spaces. They have experience working as a consultant for both the United States government and the United Nations in shaping strategies around trauma, intersectionality, and disability rights. They have been at the forefront of legislative reform to shift the societal paradigm around mental health. Vesper has made it their life’s mission to rewrite the ableist narratives surrounding mental health and disability in our society.

Zenobia Morrill, PhD (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Clinical Psychology Department at William James College. Her research interests include critical and liberation psychology, psychotherapy, qualitative methods, and decoloniality. She also serves as the Senior Research Associate of the Psychology Humanities and Ethics Center at Boston College; fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association; and as a board member of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (STPP) and the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (SQIP). Dr. Morrill is an Editorial Board Member for the Psychology and the Other Book Series and the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. In addition, for six years, she has been a Science News Writer for Mad in America.

Mayowa Obasaju, PhD (she/her) is a Black, Nigerian born, American raised clinical and community, trauma and healing focused, womanist and liberation psychologist, trainer, and educator. Mayowa brings over 12 years of clinical, organizing, teaching, and training experience centering the intersectional and complex experiences of Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. In her teaching, training, organizing and private practice spaces, she works at the nexus of trauma and healing, self-in-community care practices, systemic and intersectional analysis, critical consciousness development, and anti-oppressive and liberatory practice. She believes that deepening authentic connection to self, spirit, community and land is healing. She is a mother, partner, sister, daughter and a lover of tattoos, reading, and dancing.

Dainius Pūras (he/him) is a professor of child psychiatry and public mental health at Vilnius University, Lithuania. Since 2018, he has been the Director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, an NGO based in Lithuania. Prof. Pūras was a member of the UN Committee on the rights of the child (2007-2011). He was serving as a UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health in 2014-2020. Prof. Pūras has been actively involved in national and global activities in the field of developing and implementing evidence-based and human rights based health-related policies and services, with special focus on children, persons with mental health conditions and issues related to promotion of mental health and prevention of all forms of violence and discrimination. His main interest is management of change in the field of health-related services regionally and globally, with main focus on operationalization of human rights based approach through effective policies and services.

Sumitra Rajkumar (she/her) cut her movement building teeth in the racial justice uprisings of the mid 90’s. The fierce collective dignity and unity of those times instilled a lifelong commitment to rearrange unjust social orders alongside others willing and acting towards the same. After a decade in popular education efforts with youth and co-producing media and documentary work amidst ongoing study in political economy she moved on to political education workshops and organizational support with community organizers. While doing so she trained in politicized somatics – a method that addresses trauma and connects personally embodied values to social transformation. Since then she has applied her training as a leadership coach and therapeutic practitioner to organizers, cultural workers and social justice organizations.

Daniela Ravelli Cabrini (she/her) is an advocate in the fight against asylum practices in Brazil and a psychologist with a background in public policy. Currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the State University of Sao Paulo while also serving as a visiting student at King's College London in Social Medicine and Global Health, her research predominantly centers on participatory research methods to question conventional psychiatric approaches within Global Mental Health.

Jessie Roth (she/her) is the Director of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA). She is a writer and activist with more than a decade of experience organizing at the intersection of mental health and social justice. She is a longtime organizer with IDHA, supporting the development of initiatives such as Mental Health Trialogue, a forum bridging the perspectives of peers, family members, and providers. Inspired by her family’s experiences with the mental health system, Jessie’s work is focused on the healing power of storytelling and the importance of cross-movement organizing for mental health liberation. Her writing has been published in the book We've Been Too Patient: An Anthology of Voices from Radical Mental Health, the Intima Journal of Narrative Medicine, and the Village Voice.

Jazmine Russell (she/her) is a co-founder of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA), a holistic counselor, and trauma survivor. After receiving her degree in Applied Psychology from NYU and working as a crisis counselor, she became disillusioned with the mental health system and started organizing with grassroots mental health initiatives in New York. She later became a certified peer specialist working with those who experience extreme and altered states often labeled as ‘psychosis.’ Jazmine has been trained in holistic practices such as energy healing, embodiment work, and breathwork since 2011, which she uses along with her lived experience of extreme states to help others navigate the healing process. She is also a co-editor of the forthcoming Mad Studies Reader (Routledge). Learn more at www.jazminerussell.com.

Ronda “Ro” Speight (currently reflecting on pronouns) works as a New York State Certified Peer Specialist (NYSCP), Peer Specialist Interdisciplinary Trainer and Advocacy Specialist. Ro has extensive training and education with Hearing Voices Network facilitation, Alternatives to Suicide facilitation, Intentional Peer Support practitioner, Peer Supported and Peer Partnered Open Dialogue co-trainer, and other emergent lived experience based practices. Ro identifies as a person of color with lived experiences interfacing with oppressive psychiatric and sociocultural systems; These direct experiences have evoked a commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and multi-systems transformation and informed Ro of the impact of being psychiatrically labeled, racialized, and gendered. Ro has ferocious passion and understands the necessity and leadership regarding centering these intersections through anti-racism and anti-oppression frameworks within advocacy and various training contexts related to mental health, wellness, citizenship, and systems accountability.

Anjali Nath Upadhyay M.A.² (she/they) founded the grassroots adult education program Liberation Spring and hosts the decolonial feminist podcast Feral Visions. She earned an MA degree in Political Science & a Graduate Certificate in International Cultural Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. From 2010-2014, she was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu. She holds an MA degree in Women’s Studies from SDSU. She double-majored in Women’s Studies and Political Science with a minor in Philosophy at CSU Fullerton. Upon invitation, she has presented her original research at dozens of universities, in addition to professional associations, radio shows, and community events. She has organized for prison abolition, graduate student collective bargaining, & more. She’s currently working on a manuscript titled Pulling Weeds & Planting Seeds: Wayfinding towards Collective Liberation and building the Weeds & Seeds app.

Dr. Jennifer Wang-Hall (she/her) is a licensed psychologist in California who has treated EDs at all levels of care since 2011. Working in various treatment centers and teams with differing approaches, Dr. Wang-Hall has trained in a multitude of approaches and has witnessed the utility and futility of various modalities. These experiences have led her to an eclectic and client centered lens that facilitates empowerment and agency in ED recovery. Core to Dr. Wang-Hall’s approach is attunement to systems of oppression that manifest in both the development and treatment of eating disorders. She integrates attention to ableism, white supremacy, misogyny, cis heterosexism, capitalism, and settler colonialism in her care of individuals from all backgrounds struggling with eating disorders. Currently in private practice, Dr. Wang-Hall offers individual and group therapies, live meal support, trainings and consultation for providers, and online social media education. She is passionate about accessible, compassionate care for all people struggling with food and body concerns. Learn more at www.revolutionaryedpsychotherapy.com.

Sasha Warren (he/him) is a writer based in Minneapolis. Following the George Floyd Uprising in 2020, he founded the project Of Unsound Mind to trace the histories of psychiatry, social work, and public health in relation to capitalism, policing, prisons, and various disciplinary and managerial technologies.

Kim Wichera [GER/PL] (they/them) is an artist and activist living in Berlin, Germany. In the form of sound installations and performances, workshops, as a curator of exhibitions or in book publications, Kim investigates the location of social lines of conflict in the private and thus in the inner. How can vulnerable interior worlds be communally mediated, sustained, and shared are their central research questions. In particular, their approach is informed by long-time activism in health care and intersectional feminist analysis and practice. Through the use of video projections, voice, movement, installations, and sound, Kim gives insight into experiential worlds and outlines social exclusions. Member of INTAR, IDHA, Heroines'Wave, and New Health Care Movement.

Christina Wusinich (she/they) is a doctoral student in counseling psychology, researcher, and adjunct professor at New York University. Their research focuses on topics related to transformative mental health, peer support, and lived experience using a participatory approach, including ongoing projects at IDHA. In 2016, they obtained an interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree at NYU’s Gallatin School of individualized study, studying narratives of depression through psychology, philosophy, critical theory, literature, and neuroscience. In 2018, they completed a master’s in Neuroscience and Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.