Behavioral Health

April Wilson Smith, MPH, is a PhD student in Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Her research focuses on harm reduction approaches to people who use substances when they enter the healthcare system.

April's other interest in healthcare is interprofessional education and teamwork. Her work with the Jefferson Center for InterProfessional Education won the 2016 James B. Erdmann PhD award for Excellence in Interprofessional Education. She is currently building a large, multidisciplinary coalition to create an interprofessional education module for healthcare professionals in best practices for the care of people who use drugs when they present in the acute care setting.

April is a Certified SMART Recovery facilitator and founded the first SMART Recovery meeting in the Philadelphia city limits. She is also co-founder of the only Harm Reduction, Abstinence and Moderation Support meeting in Philadelphia.

April recently accepted a position as Harm Reduction Epidemiologist with Families for Sensible Drug Policy, which is a non-profit dedicated to helping families advocate for drug policies that save drug users' lives and keep families together and healthy.  Co-founder and President, Barry Lessin, is also a Pro Talk columnist . 

April graduated from Yale University in 1996. She was a union organizer for healthcare workers for 18 years before going back to school for her Master of Public Health, and spent ten years as Director of Organizing for Pennsylvania's largest nurses' union. She lives in West Philadelphia with her beautiful black cat, Loviefluffy.

Located in Portland, OR, Olivia Pennelle (Liv) is an experienced writer, journalist, and coach. She is the founder of the popular site Liv’s Recovery Kitchen, a site dedicated to helping people flourish in their recovery.

Liv is passionate about challenging limiting mentalities and empowering others to direct their own lives, health, and recovery. You can find her articles across the web on podcasts and addiction recovery websites, including The Fix, Recovery.org, Workit Health, and Ravishly. Liv was recently featured in VICE.

If you're interested in connecting with Liv, you can find her on Instagram. She also created a new Facebook group called Life After 12 Steps, where she proudly sees members thriving, rather than forcing themselves to do something that doesn’t work.

Additionally, Liv offers free resources on her website, including the e-book entitled Nourishing You, which is designed to give you the tools to achieve your health goals in straightforward language.

Founder of Music 4 Life® Center, Judith Pinkerton’s hospital experience in the 1980’s activated her passion when her solo violin music replaced routine post-surgical medication.

Judith works weekly with over 100 clients at American Addiction Centers in Las Vegas, Nevada, receiving the first music therapy license in the USA.

As TEDx speaker, author, trainer, radio show host, and recording artist for accredited workshops, books and healing CDs, Judith’s Music Medicine Protocol is published in the Music and Medicine Journal (Wellman & Pinkerton, 2015).

Everything she does supports healthy lifestyles, practicing healing heart, mind, body and spirit. She believes in thinking differently to save lives and transform lifestyles. The way she practices healing is by using music from all genres in a simple formula that regulates moods. She makes music work through therapy like medicine.

Judith’s leadership has resulted in significant funding to support teams of music therapists, wellness and rhythm facilitators, including her previous role during 20 years as nonprofit music therapy clinic and internship director serving all ages.

As violinist, she has performed with symphonies from Switzerland to Alaska including dozens of stars on the Las Vegas strip, such as Andrea Bocelli and Metallica. Judith inspires clients and audiences to practice healthy life skills infusing music experiences differently.

Connect with Judith by visiting www.judithpinkerton.com.

Jay Westbrook is a multiple award-winning clinician & speaker, Visiting Faculty Scholar at Harvard Medical School, and a specialist in End-of-Life care & education. He holds an MS in Gerontology, is a Grief Recovery Specialist, an R.N., & a Certified Hospice & Palliative Nurse. Saddened by the number of mature adults dying with diseases related to their substance abuse, he now also works with the recovery community to guide the mature adult alcoholic/addict to find & maintain sobriety & recovery. He can be reached at CompassionateJourney@hotmail.com

Tori Utley is an entrepreneur working jointly in technology innovation and addiction recovery, holding an M.B.A. and an addictions counseling license in Minnesota. By day, she works as a mobile Product Manager at Mayo Clinic and is working with the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology on a new mobile application for mood monitoring and mental health.

Outside of Mayo Clinic, she is the Founder and CEO of an early‐stage tech and social venture startup company, Tinua, with the goal of reducing monetary waste by reallocating for social impact. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of More Than An Addict, an organization committed to the reduction of addiction stigma through promoting education, employment, and entrepreneurship for individuals in long‐term recovery, as well as the Co‐Founder of an upcoming innovation to addiction treatment and sober housing, with the goal of keeping recovering individuals “safe, sober, now.”

In addition to her work with addiction recovery, she is a Contributing Writer with Forbes, maintains participation with the Forbes Under 30 Network, and serves as the Director of Strategic Engagement at Mission 21, an anti‐trafficking organization in Minnesota.

Jenifer Talley, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of trauma and substance misuse from an integrative harm reduction framework. Dr. Talley has expertise in providing mindfulness-based interventions and has conducted several trainings on the integration of mind-body practices in treating substance use and trauma. She is an Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of the Concentration in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling at the New School for Social Research where she participates in the training and supervision of graduate students in psychology. Dr. Talley is also the Assistant Director of The Center for Optimal Living where she coordinates mindfulness and trauma-based services in addition to providing individual and group therapy. Dr. Talley received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Virginia Tech and previously worked as a Supervising Psychologist at the Women's Health Project of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital.