Keynote Speakers
Dr. Stacey Williams
Director of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Professor of Psychology
East Tennessee State University
Dr. Stacey Williams is a Professor of Psychology and Director of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at East Tennessee, where she has been since 2006. For two decades
she and her students have been conducting research on issues central to gender and sexual identity, such stigma, sexual and gender minority stress, health and wellbeing. Most recently, she has applied these areas of expertise to understand the lived experience of individuals diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), calling attention to understudied psychological, social, and gender-diverse PCOS experiences.
In 2023, she published a book as part of the Division 35 book series entitled, The Psychology of PCOS: Building the Science and Breaking the Silence. She teaches courses on topics related to diversity, gender and sexuality, applied psychology, and research methods and statistics. She participated in the Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology (LIWP), and is a member of SPSSI, AWP and APA Divisions 35 and 44.
Dr. Leticia Flores
Clinical Professor, Department of Psychology
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Director, UT Psychological Clinic
Dr. Leticia Flores is Director of the University of Tennessee Psychological Clinic (UTPC), where graduate students in clinical and counseling psychology doctoral programs and social work students at UT Knoxville complete their therapy and assessment training while serving the mental health needs of the broader Knoxville community.
At prior institutions where she served as training clinic director and at the UTPC specifically since 2013, Dr. Flores has provided close, psychodynamically-oriented supervision for therapy cases directly and indirectly involving SOGI issues, consulted on a wide variety of cases involving the intersection of queer mental health, ethical, and legal issues, and delivered occasional direct therapy services to members of the local LGBTQ+ community and their family members. She regularly teaches graduate courses on ethical issues in professional psychology and psychodynamic therapy.
Dr. Flores is an active member of the Tennessee Equality Project and is widely respected for her knowledge about the intersections of ethical, legal, and practice issues related to the LGBTQ+ community, as well as for her activism for the queer communities at the local, state, and national levels. She also serves on the Police Advisory Review Committee for the City of Knoxville.
Dr. Casey Barrio Minton
Professor of Counselor Education
Head, Department of Counseling, Human Development, and Family Science
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Editor, Counselor Education and Supervision
Casey A. Barrio Minton, PhD, NCC, is Professor of Counselor Education and Head of the Department of Counseling, Human Development, and Family Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her scholarly work focuses on crisis intervention, clinical mental health issues, and professionalization through teaching and leadership. She most enjoys teaching doctoral courses in teaching and master’s-level courses in social and cultural diversity in counseling, diagnosis, and crisis intervention.
Dr. Barrio Minton is author or editor of several books including Practical Approaches to Applied Research and Program Evaluation for Helping Professionals, the DSM-5-TR Learning Companion for Counselors (2nd edition), Professional Counseling Excellence through Leadership and Advocacy (now in 2nd edition), and Critical Incidents in Counselor Education. Dr. Barrio Minton was founding editor of the Journal of Counselor Leadership and Advocacy, and she is editor of Counselor Education & Supervision.
Dr. Barrio Minton is a Past-President of Chi Sigma Iota International, the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling, the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, and the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision. She continues to actively serve these organizations through their mentorship programs and committees. She currently serves as a member of the American Counseling Association Governing Council. Dr. Barrio Minton received ACA’s Hitchcock Distinguished
Professional Service award in 2017 and Distinguished Mentor Award in 2020. She is a Fellow of the American Counseling Association.
Dr. Michelle Brown
Co-Director, Appalachian Justice Research Center
Professor, Department of Sociology
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Michelle Brown (Sociology, College of Arts & Sciences) is a criminologist and sociolegal scholar with a joint PhD in Criminal Justice and American Studies. Her research and teaching areas include abolition and emergent forms of justice; carceral studies; law & society; and media, theory, and digital culture. Her work focuses on the rise of the carceral state and attendant social movements directed at ending mass incarceration, building more effective forms of community safety, and shifting media narratives on crime and punishment. Brown is the author of The Culture of Punishment (NYUP); co-editor of The Routledge International Handbook of Visual Criminology, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Crime, Media, and Popular Culture, the Palgrave MacMillan Crime, Media and Culture Book Series, and she is the former editor of the leading journal on crime and media: Crime Media Culture. She was named Critical Criminologist of the Year in 2016 by the Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice of the American Society of Criminology. She is a first generation student: an enrolled citizen of Cherokee Nation (Tahlequah, OK) and of English-Scottish descent, with deep lineages in Appalachia on both sides of her family.
Dr. Patrick Grzanka
Divisional Dean for Social Sciences
Professor of Psychology
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
​Patrick Grzanka, Ph.D., is the Divisional Dean for Social Sciences and Professor of Psychology at The University of Tennessee’s flagship campus in Knoxville. A former associate editor of Journal of Counseling Psychology (2017-2023), Grzanka is affiliate faculty in UTK’s counseling psychology program, the first to be accredited by the American Psychological Association with a scientist-practitioner-advocate training model. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and immediate past-President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (APA Division 9). An award-winning scholar-teacher, Grzanka’s interdisciplinary research explores intersectionality and structural violence, with a focus on how harm is (re)produced in institutional contexts such as health care and science. Terminally undisciplined, he holds a Ph.D. in American studies and B.A. in journalism, both from the University of Maryland.