NJPN Annual Addiction Conference 2022

Jason Kilmer, Ph.D. University of Washington School of Medicine

Dr Valerie Mason-John (hon.doc) M.A Mindfulness Based Addiction Recovery MBAR

Dr Jason Kilmer is an Associate Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, at the University of Washington Medicine. The focus of Dr. Kilmer’s research has primarily been the development, implementation, and evaluation of brief interventions and prevention efforts to reduce alcohol- and other drug-related harms among college students and other young adults. Professionally, Jason has more than 20 years of experience conducting research on substance abuse etiology and prevention with high school students, college students, and young adults. For many of UWMedicine NIAAA- and NIDA-funded projects, Jason has played a significant part in intervention development for studies using personalized graphic feedback (delivered either in-person or on the web). He has a strong interest in efforts to bridge the gap between science and practice, including ways to bring empirically-supported approaches to scale, and always appreciate opportunities to teach, train, present, and put the spotlight on science.

Dr. Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John, M.A (hon.doc) is a public speaker and master trainer in the field of conflict transformation, leadership and mindfulness. Valerie is the co-creator of Mindfulness Based Addiction Recovery (MBAR). They are a certified professional Mindfulness Teacher, Recovery Coach, Life Coach, and a Compassionate Inquiry Facilitator and Practitioner. Valerie has been practicing mindfulness for over 30 years and is one of the leading African-descent voices in the field of mindfulness and addiction. She trains professionals working in the field of addiction all over the world. They are also the author of Detox Your Heart: Meditations for Emotional Trauma — a self-help guide on mindfulness of negative emotions. Valerie was featured at TEDxRenfrewCollingwood where they gave a talk titled, We are what we think, which outlined a course of action we can take to work on the global epidemic of bullying. Valerie is the award-winning author of 10 books, and the co-author and co-founder of Eight Step Recovery: Using The Buddha’s Teaching to Overcome Addiction. Since its publication, it has won the Best USA Book Award 2014 and Best International Book Award 2015 in the self motivational and self help category. Eight Step Recovery offers an alternative to the 12 step program for addiction. Eight Step meetings are now taking place in the UK, USA, Canada, Mexico, India and Finland. Juliana M. Mosley-Williams currently serves as the inaugural Special Assistant to the President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Salus University in Elkins Park, PA and previously held several positions in higher education including Chief Diversity, Inclusion & Community Relations Officer at Chestnut Hill College, a Vice President for Student Affairs at Lincoln University, EdwardWaters College, Marygrove College, and Philander Smith College. Juliana also serves as a consultant, having presented more than 80 times, to include a TEDx Talk, regional and national conferences, universities, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and corporations. In these instances, she provided training and development workshops in diversity and inclusion, leadership transition, strategic planning, and student development. Juliana earned a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and M.A. in Curriculum and Teacher Leadership fromMiami University of Ohio, and B.S. in Business Education from Ball State University . Affectionately called Dr. J. by her beloved students, Juliana’s commitment and service to education and the community is evident in her honors as a Philadelphia Tribune 2019Woman of Achievement honoree, and recipient of the Student Leadership and Success Award for Administrators (2015). Juliana is also extremely committed to serving her local communities, currently as a board member of Philadelphia Education Fund and a 25+ year member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Juliana seeks to educate and train people to engage in difficult dialog through cultural humility to make the unconscious conscious. Juliana M. Mosley-Williams, PhD, CDP DEI Consultant/Strategist

Natasha Buchanan Lunsford, PhD, MA Associate Director for Health Equity, Office on Smoking and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Natasha Buchanan Lunsford, Ph.D. is the associate director for Health Equity in the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. She provides leadership on efforts to advance health equity and to eliminate tobacco-related disparities. During her CDC tenure, she has served as a subject matter expert, technical lead and project officer for both domestic and international CDC-funded projects. She has authored nearly 60 publications and delivered numerous presentations on commercial tobacco, chronic disease conditions, health disparities and strategies to advance health equity. Dr. Buchanan Lunsford received advanced degrees from the University of Cincinnati and completed fellowships at Emory University School of Medicine and Yale University School of Medicine.

Beth Macy Journalist, Author

Beth Macy is the author of the critically acclaimed and New York Times-bestselling books, Factory Man, Truevine, and Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America (2018). Macy serves as an Executive Producer and writer on the acclaimed Hulu limited television series Dopesick, which is based on her book. Growing out of three decades of reporting from the same Virginia communities, Dopesick unpacks the most intractable social problems of our time: the opioid crisis, set against a landscape of job loss, corporate greed and stigma, along with the families and first responders who are heroically fighting back. Macy has won more than a dozen national journalism awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard for her newspaper writing. A frequent speaker, teacher and essayist, Macy has been published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Oprah magazine, and Parade. Her book, Raising Lazarus, Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Drug Crisis (August 2022), focuses on solutions to the opioid crisis and the heroic efforts of frontline workers who are applying harm reduction practices on the streets of America. It also will document the efforts of activists and parents of the dead who are trying to hold the Sackler family accountable for the crisis they helped create.

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