Meet the Speakers

Dr. Felisha M. Burleson

Felisha Burleson, PhD, is an educator, researcher, and advocate focused on trauma recovery, resilience, and healing journeys. She has worked across housing programs, education systems, and child welfare to strengthen community well-being. With her expertise in trauma research, Felisha empowers professionals and families through education and development while fostering authentic connection and support.

Emma Chambers

As the world becomes more and more interconnected, the need for people with an understanding of how the world works outside of their home country grows. As an English major, there is one thread that weaves through all of my work, class assignments, and independent language studies - communication with the final goal of empathy and greater action. I want to foster the kind of learning I was able to do in my time studying abroad, and inspire others to think more globally. 

Dr. JaNiece Elzy-Palmer

With over a decade of experience as an educator in K-12 settings, before joining higher education as a literacy scholar, I have both deep practitioner insight and research grounding. Additionally, my lived experiences and connection to the communities shaped by this history allows me to speak on why literacy has always been a form or resistance and why that truth is still urgently matters today. 

JennahRose Shakespeare English

JennahRose Shakespeare English is a teacher by trade and a perpetual student. She is currently seeking a Ph.D. in Rhetoric at Texas Woman’s University, where she is studying Death Rhetorics, Gallows Humor, and Infant Loss. She has a few kiddos and a gaggle of pets. You can find her with a horror book or jamming in her pickup to bluegrass music.

Kimberly Gadlin

Kimberly Gadlin is a Ph.D. candidate in Dance at Texas Woman’s University and a student-centered, community-driven dance educator, performer, and choreographer. Her research focuses on employability, culturally relevant pedagogy, equity, and care. With a three-decade career that includes serving as a principal dancer with Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre and PHILADANCO!, she teaches diasporic and contemporary forms at the College of DuPage and has taught at Pomona and Drexel.

Alasdair Green

Alasdair Green, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, is an educator driven by empathy, taking chances, and a deep belief in connection. He came to TWU with over a decades experience in Title I schools., and his journey as a nontraditional student shapes his resilient approach and dynamic style. He fosters deep connections with students and peers using the restorative power of the outdoors to redefine success as well-being, courage, and creativity—not just test scores or titles.

Rochelle Gregory

I grew up on a farm in rural central Texas, became a teen parent, and was the first in my family to graduate from college. I went on to earn a PhD and now teach writing in all its forms. My work centers on how writing can challenge stigma, reject shame, and affirm justice and dignity. I believe writing is the tide that raises all boats.

Lou Ann Hintz

I'm an occupational therapist with 20 + years of experience in schools, clinics, and academia. My PhD research reveals that occupational therapists don't just help people bounce back, we help them thrive through meaningful engagement. During and after COVID-19, I witnessed how using our hands purposefully creates ripples of resilience that transform communities. I want to share what occupational therapists know: everyone can control their well-being through purposeful doing.

Katrina Kauffman

Katrina is a graduate student in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Texas Woman’s University, exploring adolescent and emerging adult mental health through an existential lens. She and her husband created TINNER, a biweekly space where high-achieving students share life questions, build belonging, and cultivate resilience. Katrina is also a small business owner, mentor, wife, and mother, who believes meaningful change begins with connection and curiosity.

Jodi Clee Kennedy

As a nurse scholar and researcher, my professional and academic work centers on understanding
resilience as a multidimensional process that extends from the societal to the cellular level. My
TED Talk, "Resilience by Design: A Nursing Perspective," reflects years of inquiry into how
human adaptation operates across biological, psychological, and social systems, and how nursing
science uniquely integrates these domains to promote holistic healing.

Tamyra LaFrance, MBA

Tamyra LaFrance, a New Orleans native, is a Human Development & Family Studies Doctoral Candidate at Texas Woman’s University. She holds a B.S. in Human Services Management and a MBA. Tamyra is a mother, author, Family Life Educator, creative, End-of-Life Coach, cancer thriver, entrepreneur, & founder of Good Girlfriend Connection™, a women's empowerment group that creates spaces for women to enjoy other women’s company, build authentic connections, lasting relationships, & supportive villages.

Crystal Lina Lopez

Crystal Lina Lopez is a doctoral student in Marriage and Family Therapy at Texas Woman's University, with clinical experience supporting marginalized communities and an advocacy background as a former hotline advocate at a national domestic violence hotline. As a researcher and future educator, she integrates narrative and culturally sustaining approaches to promote resilience through storytelling, play, and community connection. Her work empowers adults of all ages to reclaim imagination as a vital tool for healing and transformation.

Ángeles Muñoz

Ángeles Muñoz Carranza is a PhD candidate and former bilingual educator with nearly two decades of experience supporting multilingual learners. Drawing on her lived experience as a multilingual learner and her research on biliteracy and equitable assessment, she advocates for practices that honor students’ resilience, brilliance, and full linguistic identities.

Aimée Myers

Dr. Aimée Myers knows what it is like to be "Reduced to Resilience,” and her past lived experiences inform her current mission to reform systemic barriers in education. She holds a PhD, has authored over a dozen publications on empowering marginalized youth, and was recently awarded a national grant for teaching in prisons. Her work focuses on culturally responsive practices, developing community solutions like the COPE clothing closet and Latinx Juntos mentorship program. Dr. Myers offers a lived and studied pathway to educational justice.

Terisa O'Dowd, PhD

Diana G. Rodriguez

Dr. Diana G. Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor of Counseling at Texas Woman’s University, Licensed Professional Counselor, and researcher whose work centers on Latinx/e resilience and bilingual counseling. Drawing from her scholarship and lived experience, she shares how mujerismo — a Latina feminist framework — illuminates the collective strength, spirituality, and advocacy that sustain communities through adversity.

Joshua Tabor

Dr. Joshua Tabor is a professor and former K–12 educator who specializes in online learning, AI in education, and gamified course design. With over two decades of classroom and instructional design experience, he has spent his career helping students and teachers rethink learning. His work on making failure safe, meaningful, and repeatable uniquely positions him to champion a new vision of resilience in education.

Misty Schmidt, PhD, LMFT

Dr. Misty Schmidt is a therapist, researcher, and neurodiversity advocate whose work with Autistic and ADHD partners uncovers new ways of understanding communication, resilience, and connection. She brings clinical, research, and lived insight to reimagining relational resilience.

Robyn von Schimonsky

Robyn von Schimonsky is a psychology student, hotline support specialist,
writer, astrologer, fashionista, and all-around nerd. Robyn aspires to become a licensed
counselor and provide trauma-informed therapy catered to neurodivergent minds like her
own, who are all too often underserved by conventional mental health approaches. When not
working, volunteering, or studying, Robyn can be found turning her eyes into bat wings with
eyeliner, thrifting, reading, or listening to goth music.

Lillia Whittington

Lillia Whittington is a fashion design instructor at Texas Woman’s University and the creator behind Just Lillia. She teaches patternmaking, construction, and digital design, blending research on DIY makers and emerging tech with accessible instruction. Her work centers creativity, community, and sustainable sewing, empowering makers to draft, fit, and create with confidence.

Alison Williams

Alison Williams, MSN, RN, is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), an advocate, and a PhD student exploring how trauma-informed care can reshape the body’s stress patterns after early trauma. A former emergency nurse, she turns science into stories that spark connection and possibility. Her work invites audiences to imagine a world where every survivor is met with safety, dignity, and hope.

Dr. Tara Zimmerman

Dr. Tara Zimmerman is an established researcher in Library and Information Science who introduced the term “social noise” to the field through her dissertation research and subsequent publications. While the concept has gained traction in scholarly journals and discussions, Dr. Zimmerman is passionate about introducing the idea of social noise outside of academia, believing it can provide helpful insight and empowerment to everyday social media users.