Guest speaker for the University Forum Lecture Series, which provides opportunities for university students, faculty, and staff and for people in the surrounding region to hear some of the most stimulating speakers in the country.
The Better Food Policy Fund was co-developed with food policy councils nationwide. I designed trauma-aware, participatory processes that built trust, celebration, and shared ownership across the field.
The Wave Effect was a seven-month collaborative leadership development program. With reflective practice, trauma-aware facilitation, and emergent design, participants shifted from cautious leadership to collaborative, adaptive approaches, building resilience, confronting power, and embracing systems thinking to shape healthier community patterns.
As an informant in this article, I called for trauma-informed disaster response and recovery, providing real examples from my lived experience as a helper during response and recovery from Hurricanes Florence, Michael, Dorian, and Helene.
I co-presented "Embodied Leadership: Navigating Trauma for Greater Belonging" with renowned transformative lawyer J Kim Wright at the Leading With and Through: Fostering a Sense of Belonging Conference. We shared practical insights into the embodied practices that help leaders navigate and recognize trauma - working from the inside-out - to build trust and increase performance in their teams.
A story of quiet leadership and complex systems. In a coastal North Carolina community shaped by deep pride and layered trauma, I helped seed conditions for connection, healing, and change - by holding a container, honoring resistance, and working gently at the edges of what could be spoken.
Following an on-campus shooting at the University, I, along with colleagues Ann DuPre Rogers and Kim Wright, was invited to speak with faculty, staff, and MPA students about the need for trauma awareness in the local government profession.