Presenter: Diana Hill, PhD Modern psychologist, leadership coach, psychological flexibility guide Dr. Diana Hill, PhD is a clinical psychologist, executive consultant, and international trainer who helps leaders and teams navigate complexity without precedent. Her Wise Effort Method addresses a problem most high performers recognize immediately: the drive that got them here is now working against them. A leading voice in the evolution of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, she co-leads ACT BootCamp with ACT founder Dr. Steven Hayes, trains the trainers, and serves as an instructor for the University of California's Climate Resilience Initiative. She has led executive retreats and intensives for leadership teams including Deckers Brands, Lightfully Behavioral Health, and YPO. Diana is the author of Wise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most and three other books, hosts the Wise Effort podcast, and has been featured on NPR, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal. With over 20 years of yoga and meditation practice, she teaches from embodied experience rather than theory alone — her sessions are experiential and transformational.

Nia Page, MA, NCC (she/her), is a PhD candidate in Counselor Education at the University of Florida. She is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (FL). As a mental health therapist, Nia works with diverse client populations, including Black individuals and other racially and ethnically marginalized people; gender-expansive people; queer individuals; and traditional, nontraditional, and first-generation college students. Her research interests focus on understanding the impact of intergenerational anti-Black racial trauma and anti-Black violence on the body, race-based emotional and psychological distress, and the aliveness and joy of Black Women faculty across U.S. higher education institutions. Additionally, Nia is passionate about exploring the application of critical pedagogies in counselor education. She focuses on teaching practices that promote liberation and healing within counselor preparation classrooms. Nia is deeply committed to advocating for marginalized voices, viewing her work as a personal, professional, and ancestral responsibility. Through intentional identity exploration, strength-building, and empowerment, she strives to create spaces for healing, thriving, and justice across counseling, supervision, and teaching spaces. When she is not on the go, Nia enjoys restoring with her friends and family, and recharging with her reality television!

Dr. Adrienne Graham, LPC(GA), NCC, ACS is an Assistant Professor of Counselor Education at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). As a counselor educator, supervisor, and advocate, her research and scholarship focus on sexual, domestic/dating violence survivors' advocacy, resilience, and competencies, and trauma-informed practices, including supervision and teaching. Dr. Graham has devoted her career to serving survivors of sexual violence, domestic violence, and human trafficking, beginning in community-based advocacy centers and later serving on multidisciplinary task forces to promote compassionate, survivor-focused care. She has extensive experience in crisis response and supporting individuals and communities impacted by trauma across the lifespan. She is a member of the American Counseling Association (ACA), Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES), Counselors for Social Justice (CSJ), the American College Counseling Association (ACCA), and several other ACA divisions. She has delivered over 30 national and international presentations, serves on editorial boards, and co-chairs the ACCA’s Clinical and Supervision Training Committee. She has also secured grants to support research, Chi Sigma Iota (CSI) chapter development, and related fundraising and advocacy efforts. Within collegiate spaces and communities, she serves on committees and task forces dedicated to enhancing care and response for those affected by power-based violence through research, scholarship, and advocacy. Her teaching and supervision emphasize advocacy, ethical leadership, and trauma-informed practices, reflecting her commitment to mentoring students into confident, compassionate, and socially responsible counselors.

Dr. Jessica Stahl (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Counseling & Behavioral Health Department at William James College, in Newton, Massachusetts. In this position, she developed and directs a college-wide concentration in LGBTQIA+ Studies. This concentration trains future mental health providers to specialize in providing affirmative therapy for LGBTQIA+ people and their families. She earned her BA in Psychology from Middlebury College and her PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Stahl completed her pre-doctoral internship at Counseling & Consulting Services at the University of Minnesota and her postdoctoral fellowship at Counseling & Health Services at Salem State College in Massachusetts. Her clinical interests center on career counseling and LGBTQIA+ individuals; she has a small private practice focused on these concerns

After over 20 years in the health and wellness industry as a personal trainer and yoga instructor, Ann Bruck (she/they) returned to school when they recognized the importance of interweaving mental health into our lives. Ann earned an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in LGBTQIA+ studies from William James College in 2024. They are a Behavioral Health Therapist at Bridge Over Troubled Waters working with transitional-aged youth. Using their lived experiences as a queer person and having loved ones with substance use disorder, Ann aims to dismantle systems that have created barriers to all marginalized and oppressed individuals and communities by helping to destigmatize and decolonize the mental health world by providing culturally competent psychotherapy.

Lena Salpietro, PhD, LPCC, NCC, is an assistant professor in Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences at Kent State University. She earned her PhD in Counselor Education and MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of Toledo. Her clinical experience spans community mental health agencies, college counseling centers, and private practice, including work with survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking. She also has experience supporting adolescents and adults experiencing depression, anxiety, grief, trauma, low self-esteem, and life transitions. Her research focuses on gatekeeping and remediation in counselor education, LGBTQ+ health and counseling experiences, and counselor grief following client suicide. She received the 2024 Research in Counselor Education and Supervision Award.

Clark D. Ausloos, PhD (he/him), is core faculty in the Counseling Program at Oakland University, where he leverages his extensive experience working with LGBTQ+ youth in clinical and school settings. He holds an MA in School and Clinical Mental Health Counseling and maintains professional licensure in Ohio and Michigan. Clark's dedication to queer and trans youth and their families is reflected in his extensive scholarly work, which includes more than 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, as well as over 60 conference presentations. In 2023, he was named the UNC Charlotte Robert Barret Distinguished Lecturer on Multicultural Issues in Counseling. His contributions to the counseling profession have earned him numerous accolades, including the Ohio Counselor of the Year Award (2020), the Professional Integrity and Leadership Award from OASERVIC (2020), the Ned Farley Service Award from SAIGE (2023), and the SAIGE Presidential Award (2024).Clark provides consultation to numerous organizations, including the Court-Appointed Special Advocates of Clermont County, Ohio; the Northwest Ohio Family Resource Center; the Ohio State 988 Operators; Columbus Public Health; the Hunt Institute; and Rutgers University. He serves on the Sensitivity and Bias Review Committee and contributes as a content expert and item writer for the National Counselor Examination (NCE).His professional affiliations include active membership in the American Counseling Association (ACA), National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES), Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling (AARC), Society for Sexual, Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities (SAIGE), Association for Child and Adolescent Counseling (ACAC), and Association for Counselors and Counselor Educators in Social Justice (ACSSW).

Madeline Clark, PhD, LPCC-S (OH), LPC (VA), NCC, ACS, is an associate professor in the Department of Counselor Education, School Psychology, and Human Services at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She earned her PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision and her MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Old Dominion University, with doctoral cognates in qualitative research and educational research methodology. Madeline's scholarship focuses on poverty and social class in counseling, multicultural counseling competence, counselor preparation, professional competence, and inclusive learning environments. She has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, delivered numerous scholarly presentations, and published two books. Her professional leadership includes serving as president of the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling (AARC) and as the 2026–2027 president of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES).

Rosalyn Zacarias, MS, LMHC, CST, is a Florida Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Certified Sex Therapist at the Jacksonville Center for Sexual Health. She earned her Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Florida and completed additional training in mental health sexology. Rosalyn's clinical work focuses on sex therapy, identity exploration, anxiety, depression, life transitions, and relationship concerns, with particular interests in serving LGBTQ+ individuals, women, and couples. Her research has examined sexual curiosity among bisexual women, lesbian and bisexual women's perspectives on marriage and family, reproductive rights, and counselor grief following client suicide.

Jacob Perez, MS, is a doctoral student in the combined Counseling Psychology and School Psychology program at Florida State University, where he is also a member of the Career Development and Technology Research Team. He earned his Master of Science from the University of North Florida's Brooks College of Health. Jacob's research interests include multicultural counseling competence, LGBTQ+ counseling and advocacy, counselor grief following client suicide, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ students of color. His scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Counseling & Development and the Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools.

Denise Takakjy is a visionary movement architect, counselor educator, and public scholar whose work is transforming the field of counseling into a site of conscience-centered, liberatory praxis. As the founder of *Counselors for Liberatory Practice* (CLP), she leads a national coalition committed to dismantling white supremacy in counseling and reimagining the profession through curriculum reform, coalition-building, and strategic publishing. Her leadership is marked by radical attunement, systemic imagination, and a refusal to replicate harm under the guise of neutrality or cultural competence. Denise’s journey began with a deep reckoning: witnessing how counseling education and clinical norms often reproduce racial harm, silence dissent, and pathologize resistance. These experiences catalyzed her commitment to building alternatives rooted in abolitionist theory, decolonial scholarship, and Black feminist thought. She draws from thinkers like Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Mariame Kaba to reframe counseling as a tool for collective care, accountability, and transformation. Her qualifications span curriculum design, ethical supervision, and public scholarship. Denise has curated liberatory reading arcs for master’s-level counseling programs, revised syllabi to reflect emergent justice-oriented scholarship, and trained supervisors to recognize and interrupt racial harm. She operationalizes theory into scalable tools—reflection prompts, decision-making models, and movement-building frameworks—that help institutions shift from performative inclusion to structural change. Denise is currently writing a book on white supremacy in counseling, designed as both a scholarly intervention and a movement artifact. She is mapping aligned publishers and crafting a proposal that positions the book as a foundational resource for counselor educators, practitioners, and justice-oriented institutions. Her public scholarship bridges academic rigor with movement relevance, and her facilitation style fosters generative critique, deep listening, and co-creation. Her long-term vision is to establish liberatory standards for counseling education and practice nationwide. Through CLP, she is building the infrastructure for systemic change—where counseling is no longer defined by compliance, but by conscience. Denise’s work invites the field to move beyond reform and toward transformation, offering a blueprint for healing, resistance, and liberation.