Cindy Rutter, LMFT, BSN, RN brings more than 45 years of expertise in burn care to her work as a clinician, advocate, and dedicated champion for burn survivors and their families. A burn survivor herself for 66 years, Cindy's personal and professional journeys are deeply intertwined, giving her a uniquely powerful perspective on healing and recovery.

Cindy began her career as a burn unit nurse and went on to serve as Nurse Manager of the UCSD Regional Burn Center. She is currently in private practice as a psychotherapist in San Diego, with a primary focus on burn and trauma recovery. Throughout her career, she has contributed to the field through service on the Education Committee for the American Burn Association, the Executive Board for the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation, and the Advisory Board for the San Diego Burn Institute.

Cindy's passion for aftercare has shaped some of the most meaningful contributions of her career. She co-founded one of the first national adult burn survivor retreats in the United States and continues to serve as a facilitator at adult retreats, youth summits, and children's burn camp support programs. She was instrumental in designing, developing, and implementing SOAR (Survivors Offering Assistance in Recovery), a peer support recovery program for burn survivors and their family members, and she remains on the National Advisory Committee and National Faculty of the SOAR program. She has taught peer support training across both the United States and Canada. Cindy is also a frequent speaker and presenter at the American Burn Association conference and the Phoenix Society World Burn Congress.

Her extraordinary contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including California Nurse of the Year in 2000, the San Diego Chargers Community Quarterback Award in 2002, and the Remarkable Women Award from Redbook Magazine in 2007. In 2011, she received the prestigious Alan Breslau Award for her sustained commitment to the burn community.

Cindy is the proud mother of two grown daughters and the devoted grandmother of two grandchildren.

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Jill Sproul, MS, RN brings more than 30 years of dedicated expertise in burn care to her work as a clinician, leader, and passionate advocate for burn survivors. She began her nursing career in 1990 as a new graduate from San Jose State University, joining the Burn Center at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, an institution that would become the cornerstone of her remarkable career.

In 1996, Jill expanded her experience at the University of California San Diego Burn Center, serving as Assistant Nurse Manager before returning to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in 1997 as Burn Center Nurse Manager, a role she held for 20 years. Her leadership continued to grow as she took on the Director of Critical Care, Emergency Department, and Perioperative Services, and ultimately became Chief Nursing Officer for Valley Medical Center in 2017. In 2019, she was elevated to System CNO, overseeing hospitals and clinics across the system until her retirement from Santa Clara County in June 2023.

Alongside her clinical and administrative leadership, Jill's deepest passion has always been outreach and aftercare for burn survivors. She is especially proud of her contributions to the Phoenix Society's SOAR peer support program as a member of the National Advisory Committee. A steadfast believer in the power of peer support, she conducted her graduate research in 2009 at San Jose State University on peer support and its perceived benefits for burn survivors. Her relationship with the Phoenix Society spans three decades, beginning in 1994, and includes service on the Board of Directors from 2012 to 2022. She has also been an active contributor to the American Burn Association, including service on their Board of Directors from 2013 to 2016 and participation on numerous ABA committees.

Since February 2024, Jill has served as Director of Programs for the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors, continuing her lifelong commitment to the burn community in a new and meaningful chapter.

Jill is married and the proud mother of four grown children. Since retiring from Santa Clara County, she has remained deeply engaged in the burn community, a testament to the relationships and mission that have defined her career.

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Vida Nikzad, PsyD is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Los Angeles, California, with a private practice in Santa Monica. Rooted in an Existential, Humanistic, and Gestalt orientation, her work integrates depth psychology, somatic awareness, and evidence-based approaches to support individuals, couples, and families navigating trauma, mood disorders, addiction, and relational healing.

Dr. Nikzad holds a Doctor of Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy from Phillips Graduate Institute. She is a Certified Gestalt Therapist, EMDR Certified Therapist, Certified Hypnotherapist, and EFT-trained couples therapist, with additional training in DBT, CBT, Jungian dreamwork, archetypal analysis, and mediation.

Her clinical career has spanned private practice, hospital, and residential treatment settings, including seven years as a Staff Psychologist at the Betty Ford Center, where she specialized in dual-diagnosis treatment, DBT and CBT-based addiction and relapse prevention, and family codependency therapy. She has also served as a program therapist at Mission Community Hospital, providing crisis intervention, geriatric psychiatric care, and dual-diagnosis group treatment.

A passionate educator and group facilitator, Dr. Nikzad has led ongoing clinical workshop series integrating dreamwork, Iranian and American fairy tales, myth, poetry, and film as pathways to archetypal and narrative trauma processing. She is fluent in both English and Farsi, and brings a rich multicultural perspective to all of her clinical and educational work.

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Charlyne Gelt, PhD, CGP is a licensed clinical psychologist, certified group psychotherapist, and educator based in Encino, California, with over 30 years of experience working with individuals, couples, adolescents, families, and groups. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and brings a rich integrative approach to her work, drawing on cognitive-behavioral, depth psychological, family systems, and self psychology frameworks.

Dr. Gelt is the author of "Hades' Angels: The Transformative Journeys of Women Who Love Lifers and Death Row Inmates," a groundbreaking exploration of the psychological dynamics of women in committed relationships with incarcerated men. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Psychologist, The California Therapist, and numerous professional publications, and she contributes a monthly Cinema Therapy column to the San Fernando Valley CAMFT newsletter.

Dr. Gelt’s interests span the intersection of cinema, therapy, relationships, and the transformation of consciousness. Her clinical workshops, Women's Empowerment Groups, and Men-Only group series focus on moving individuals from emotional dependency and destructive relational patterns toward emotional independence and mature interdependency.

Her clinical specialties include women's relationship and empowerment issues, grief and loss, family therapy, and children with special needs, particularly those on the autism and Asperger's spectrum. She has facilitated a College Survival Process Group for students on the autism spectrum through UCLA Extension's Pathway Program, and has volunteered for over a decade as a group facilitator for families with a loved one in prison through Friends Outside LA.

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Patrice Roy, PMH-NP, BC, CNS is a board-certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with over 25 years of experience spanning clinical practice, academic teaching, and the emerging frontier of psychedelic-assisted therapy. She brings to her work a rare combination of rigorous clinical training and a deeply human perspective forged at the edges of convention.

Before stepping into clinical practice, Patrice was hauling lobster traps off the coast of Maine, playing banjo and ukulele, and creating encaustic art. These weren't detours from her professional path; they were the foundation of it. Every unconventional experience taught her something essential about resilience, meaning, and the wisdom that comes from standing outside looking in.

That perspective has shaped her clinical career at every turn. At Maine's largest tertiary care hospital, she helped build the Substance Abuse Consultation Service and co-founded the Dana Foundation Addictions Training Project, training healthcare professionals across New England to see patients with addiction through a more compassionate lens. She later joined Mayo Clinic in Arizona before turning her full attention to ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Now in private practice in Scottsdale, Patrice offers ketamine-assisted treatment to clients with treatment-resistant depression, chronic PTSD, and anxiety, integrating preparation, real-time support, and structured post-session integration into immersive retreat formats. For over two decades, she has also taught at the University of Southern Maine, Boston College, the University of Vermont, and Drexel University, consistently bringing the same message: the best clinicians aren't the ones who follow the rules perfectly. They're the ones who understand when the rules themselves need to evolve.

Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, MFT, SEP is a psychotherapist, leadership coach, and international trainer in Mindfulness Meditation, Core Creativity, Gestalt Therapy, Ericksonian Mind-Body Therapies, and Somatic Experiencing. He is the Executive Director of the OpenMind® Training Program, offering personal and professional training in mindfulness-based mind-body therapies, transformational leadership, and meditation for over forty years.

A lay Zen Buddhist practitioner, Dr. Alexander specializes in utilizing mindfulness meditation to help individuals access the mind states that open the portal to their core creativity. He is the author of two books: "Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self" and "Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change."

Since 1972, he has conducted workshops and professional clinical trainings supporting personal, clinical, and corporate excellence across the United States, Europe, Canada, Russia, Asia, and Australia.

Recent advances in neuroscience, somatic therapy, and mindfulness practice have transformed the way we understand trauma, painful thought patterns, and destructive emotions. A powerful new approach is emerging, one that views symptoms of suffering not as problems to be eliminated, but as the body's own wisdom pathways, creating communication between the unconscious and the aware self in service of healing and transformation.

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Eleanor D. Hamilton, PhD, LPC, LMHC brings more than 40 years of dedicated clinical experience to her work as a psychotherapist, with deep specializations in psychological trauma, addiction and recovery, grief and loss, anger management, and meditation and mindfulness. Throughout her career, she has worked with individuals, couples, families, and groups across diverse cultural communities throughout the United States.

Dr. Hamilton holds a B.S. and M.A. from Columbia University and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology. Her doctoral studies included extensive hypnosis training in Switzerland, and her post-doctoral work at the C.G. Jung Institute in Santa Fe deepened her grounding in Archetypal and Developmental Psychology, providing a rich framework for culturally integrative practice.

Her clinical career has taken her across the country, including serving as Clinical Supervisor for the Behavioral Health Department of the Makah Tribe in Neah Bay, Washington, where she worked within an Integrative Medicine Program and collaborated directly with Native Healers. She also served as a Military Life and Family Therapist at Fort Drum, New York, led a groundbreaking Women's Support Group for Soldiers, and has provided counseling services to active-duty military, veterans, and their families throughout her career.

Currently in private practice at Pathways in Temple, Texas, Dr. Hamilton holds certifications in HeartMath Biofeedback, Anger Management Therapy, Brain Spotting, EMDR, and Military Counseling. She is licensed in Texas, Washington, New York, and Washington, D.C.

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Robert M. Schwartz, PhD is a clinical psychologist and one of the pioneers of positive psychology. Together with renowned psychologist John M. Gottman, he developed one of the first scientifically based measures to assess both positive and negative thoughts and emotions. Over a 30-year career as a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh Schools of Medicine, he published 25 scientific papers spanning depression, anxiety, stress, psychotherapy outcome, and the science of well-being. 

His groundbreaking contribution, the States of Mind Model, is the first mathematically based system for identifying whether a person is in an optimal, normal, or dysfunctional psychological state. This model has been applied in clinical research on depression treatment, agoraphobia, and cognitive-affective balance, and has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Therapy and Research, and Clinical Psychology Review.

Dr. Schwartz is the founder and president of Cognitive Dynamic Therapy Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his clinical work integrates cognitive, psychodynamic, and positive psychology approaches. He is also a Certified Diplomate of Sex Therapy through the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, with additional specialties in anxiety, depression, marital therapy, and stress management.

In addition to his research and clinical practice, Dr. Schwartz has led Beyond Positive Thinking seminars with groups and helped hundreds of clients transform their state of mind into a more balanced, optimal zone. He has presented his work at national and international conferences and continues to write and publish on psychology, positive emotion, and human flourishing.

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Jenny Hughes, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of trauma and PTSD. She holds multiple faculty appointments and practices Brainspotting, EMDR, Prolonged Exposure Therapy, and Cognitive Processing Therapy. As the founder of the BRAVE Trauma Therapist Collective, Dr. Hughes helps trauma therapists be human again as they learn how to manage vicarious trauma and enhance vicarious resilience together. She is the author of The PTSD Recovery Workbook and Triggers to Glimmers: A Vicarious Resilience Journal and Workbook.

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Sarah Sudhoff is a Houston-based artist, educator, and nonprofit leader whose work sits at the intersection of visual arts, community engagement, and social practice. She is the Founder and Director of Ramona Residency, the first artist residency in Texas dedicated to artist mothers, and Co-Founder of Throughline Collective, an artist-run space in Houston. With over two decades of experience in photography, arts administration, and higher education, Sarah has held leadership roles at institutions including the Houston Center for Photography and the Texas Photographic Society. Her work has been recognized by the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Houston Arts Alliance, and Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 50, among others. She holds an MFA in Photography from Parsons the New School for Design and a BA from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D., LMFT, CADAC is a multi-award-winning psychotherapist, entertainment journalist, nationally syndicated columnist, executive coach, bestselling author, and radio host with more than 30 years of clinical experience. Recognized by Cosmopolitan Magazine as one of America's top therapists, Dr. Goldsmith has spent his career making psychology accessible, engaging, and genuinely useful to audiences worldwide.

His weekly column Emotional Fitness, syndicated by Tribune News Service, appears in more than 400 publications, including The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Time Magazine. His Psychology Today blog has surpassed 35 million followers. For nearly a decade, "Dr. G" hosted a weekly program on NPR affiliate KCLU, interviewing leading thinkers for nearly 90,000 listeners.

As the creator of Between the Notes, he now interviews artists, performers, filmmakers, and other creative voices to uncover the stories behind their work, going beyond what audiences see onstage and on screen to reveal the human story behind it.

The author of seven books, including the Emotional Fitness series and The Happy Couple, Dr. Goldsmith has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, CBS News, and NBC News. He has served as an on-set therapist in film and television, as a national public health spokesperson, and as an executive coach to entertainment professionals and business leaders.

His honors include the Clark Vincent Award for Writing (CAMFT), the Peter Markin Merit Award (AAMFT), the Giannantonio Award as Outstanding Educator in Addiction Medicine, and induction into the CAADAC Hall of Fame. He received special recognition from the City of Los Angeles for his crisis work following the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Dr. Goldsmith holds a Ph.D. in Human Behavior Psychology and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor. A National Merit Scholar and former Professor of Psychology, he connects with every audience through clinical depth, warmth, and an irrepressible sense of humor. He believes the best interviews, and the best conversations, begin with curiosity, whether interviewing an award-winning performer, helping a client through a difficult transition, or writing a syndicated column. 

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Sheila Pontis, PhD is an interdisciplinary researcher, educator, and practitioner whose work sits at the crossroads of imagination, design, and human flourishing. Originally trained as a graphic designer in Buenos Aires and holding a PhD in Information Design from the University of the Arts London, she has spent over two decades exploring how people think, learn, and create — and how those capacities can be deliberately cultivated.

She has held faculty positions at MIT, Princeton University, and Northeastern University, among others, where she led graduate programs, and designed and taught courses on creativity, imagination, well-being, design, and human-centered research. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the belief that imagination is not a talent reserved for artists — it is a fundamental human capacity that can be nurtured in anyone.

Sheila's recent work bridges positive psychology, behavioral science, and design education. She has completed advanced training at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Yale's Science of Well-Being program. She is also a certified yoga teacher and brings somatic and mindful practices into her work with learners and organizations.

As founder of Imagination for Human Flourishing, she develops workshops, courses, and research that empower individuals and communities to harness their imaginative abilities — to dream, to play, and to address life's challenges more creatively. She is also faculty at the School of Radical Imagination, where she teaches courses on imagination, optimism, and being human. Her work asks a simple but radical question: What becomes possible when we take imagination seriously?

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Dr. Fred Moss, MD is a psychiatrist, author, keynote speaker, and transformational coach who has spent more than four decades challenging the boundaries of conventional mental health care. A graduate of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and a fellowship-trained Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist. Dr. Moss has worked across a wide spectrum of settings from inpatient and outpatient care to homeless shelters, nursing homes, prisons, drug rehabilitation centers, and telepsychiatry, and served thousands of patients throughout his career.

Known as "The Undoctor," Dr. Moss expanded beyond traditional diagnostic and medication driven models to champion a movement built on one essential truth: authentic human connection is the foundation of real healing. He believes that communication, connection, creativity, and self-expression are core to all healing, not just in mental health, but in every aspect of life. 

He is the founder of UnDoctor RESET™, a practical framework for transformation through communication, creativity, and community. Dr. Moss is also the author of Creative 8: Healing Through Creativity & Self-Expression and Find Your True Voice!, and has contributed numerous articles to Psychology Today. His essay "Global Madness, What Must Happen to Unite" earned him an award at the 2019 Conference for Global Transformation. 

Dr. Moss brings both clinical authority and a deeply human perspective to the conversation about creativity, mental health, and what it truly means to heal.

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