Dr. Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network and a Professor (Adjunct) at the School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria  Australia.

Over the last thirty years, Dr. Perry has been an active teacher, clinician and researcher in children’s mental health and the neurosciences holding a variety of academic positions. His work on the impact of abuse, neglect and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs and policy across the world. Dr. Perry is the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children and Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered. Dr. Perry’s most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing (2021), co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, has been translated into 26 languages and has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for over 100 weeks after becoming #1 on the list in April of 2021.

Dr. Perry was on the faculty of the Departments of Pharmacology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago School of Medicine from 1988 to 1991. From 1992 to 2001, Dr. Perry served as the Trammell Research Professor of Child Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. During this time, Dr. Perry also was Chief of Psychiatry for Texas Children’s Hospital and Vice-Chairman for Research within the Department of Psychiatry. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Perry served as the Medical Director for Provincial Programs in Children’s Mental Health for the Alberta Mental Health Board. From 2009 to 2024, Dr. Perry was a Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Dr. Perry has conducted both basic neuroscience and clinical research. His neuroscience research examined the impact of prenatal drug exposure, the neurobiology of human neuropsychiatric disorders, the neurophysiology of trauma and adversity, and the development of neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. His clinical research and practice have a focus on the complex impact of developmental adversity. This work has examined the cognitive, behavioral, emotional, social, and physiological effects of developmental adversity such as neglect and trauma as well as the positive and resilience-building effects of healthy relational connections work has been instrumental in describing how childhood experiences, both negative and positive, change the biology of the brain – and, thereby, the health of the child.

Over the last thirty years, Dr. Perry’s clinical work has been focused on integrating emerging principles of developmental neuroscience into clinical practice. This work has resulted in the development of innovative clinical practices and programs. These include the Neurosequential Model©, a developmentally sensitive, neurobiology-informed approach to clinical work (NMT), education (NME), caregiving (NMC) and sport (NM Sport).  The Neurosequential Model© has been integrated into practice and programs at hundreds of public, private and non-profit organizations in every state and in over 26 countries, impacting an estimated 4 million people worldwide.

His experience as a clinician and a researcher with traumatized children has led many community and governmental agencies to consult Dr. Perry following high-profile incidents involving traumatized children and youth including the Branch Davidian siege in Waco (1993), the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the Columbine school shootings (1999), the September 11th terrorist attacks (2001), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the FLDS polygamist sect (2008), the earthquake in Haiti (2010), the tsunami in Tohoku Japan (2011), the Sandy Hook Elementary school shootings (2012), the Camp wildfire in California (2018) and the Turkey-Syria earthquake (2022), among many others.

Dr. Perry has published over 500 journal articles, book chapters and scientific proceedings and is the recipient of numerous professional awards and honors, including the T. Berry Brazelton Infant Mental Health Advocacy Award, the Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare, the Alberta Centennial Medal and the 2014 Kohl Education Prize. In 2024 he was the recipient of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Scientific Research Award and the NAMI Exemplary Psychiatrist Award.  In 2025, Casey Family Programs selected Dr. Perry for the Casey Excellence for Children Award (Leadership). He serves on the Board of Directors of multiple organizations including the National Association for Children of Addiction (NACoA), and the Ana Grace Project. He is a Lifetime Member and Vice-Chairman of the Board at  Prevent Child Abuse America. 

He has presented about child maltreatment, children’s mental health, neurodevelopment and youth violence in a variety of venues including policy-making bodies such as the White House Summit on Violence, the California Assembly and U.S. House Committee on Education and South by Southwest (SXSW). Dr. Perry has been featured in a wide range of media including 60 Minutes, National Public Radio, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Nightline, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS News, the Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah’s Super Soul. His work has been featured in documentaries produced by Dateline NBC, 20/20, the BBC, Nightline, CBC, PBS, as well as dozen international documentaries. Many print media have highlighted the clinical and research activities of Dr. Perry including a Pulitzer-prize winning series in the Chicago Tribune, The Sun Magazine, US News and World Report, Time, Newsweek, Forbes ASAP, Washington Post, the New York Times and Rolling Stone.

Dr. Perry, a native of Bismarck, North Dakota, was an undergraduate at Stanford University and Amherst College. He attended medical and graduate school at Northwestern University, receiving both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Perry completed a residency in general psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The University of Chicago.

For more information on the work of Dr. Perry and the Neurosequential Network see the NMN YouTube Channel @infonmn326 and BDPerry.com.

Presentation Title: But What Do I Do?  Making Trauma-Informed Care Actionable using Collaborative Problem Solving 

Stuart Ablon, Ph.D., is Founder and Director of Think:Kids in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. An award-winning psychologist, Dr. Ablon is Associate Professor and the Thomas G. Stemberg Endowed Chair in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the author of three books, Changeable, hand-picked by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Dan Pink, and Susan Cain for their Next Big Idea Club, The School Discipline Fix, and Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach.

Dr. Ablon received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and completed his training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. One of the world’s top-rated thought-leaders and keynote speakers, Dr. Ablon teaches educators, parents, clinicians, managers, and leaders a very different approach to understanding and addressing challenging behavior of all types and in all people. Dr. Ablon has helped hundreds of organizations throughout the world implement the Collaborative Problem Solving approach.

Presentation title: Dealing with Feeling: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Transform Lives 

Marc Brackett, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University. He is the author of two bestselling books—Permission to Feel, which has been translated into 30 languages, and, most recently, Dealing with Feeling, which also serves as the title of his podcast featuring conversations with leading scientists, authors, musicians, and cultural influencers. Marc is the lead developer of RULER, an evidence-based framework for cultivating emotional intelligence that has been adopted by more than 5,000 schools worldwide. He has authored over 200 scholarly publications, and his research has been featured in The New York Times, Good Morning America, and Today. Marc has headlined more than 700 conferences, advises Fortune 500 companies on building emotionally intelligent workplace cultures, and is the co-creator of the award-winning How We Feel app, a tool helping millions improve their well-being. 

Presentation Title: The Reason

Myles Himmelreich is a published author, researcher, and Divers-abilities Consultant and trainer.  For over two decades, he has presented nationally and internationally to thousands of people.  Drawing from his own experiences as an individual with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), Myles has helped educate and inform researchers, doctors, judges, educators, and families about better understanding brain differences and behaviours. In 2025, he began working as a Service Delivery Advisor for Community Living BC.  He assists provincial agencies and programs in better supporting and understanding the individuals they serve, and he also provides online and in-person mentoring.

Presentation Title: Team Brain: Applying the Neurosequential Model to Coaching 

Megan Bartlett is the Founder of the Center for Healing & Justice Through Sport (CHJS), a national capacity-building organization working to reimagine youth sport as a brain-based environment for healing and development. She partners across the sport ecosystem—from community-based programs and citywide systems to collegiate conferences and professional leagues—to help align coaching practice with how young people actually grow and develop. 

Grounding her work in the Neurosequential Model in Sport, Megan translates neuroscience into practical, accessible strategies that equip coaches to build environments that foster regulation, connection, and resilience. Her approach positions coaches as powerful prevention partners and advances a broader shift in how sport is understood not simply as competition, but as infrastructure for youth mental health and belonging. 

Her work spans local to global contexts, from co-designing the Olympic Refuge Foundation’s Sport Coach+ program for coaches serving forcibly displaced youth worldwide to partnering with Nike and professional teams such as the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Dodgers to elevate standards for quality coaching nationwide. She is the author of A Kids Book About Trauma and co-author of Re-Designing Youth Sports: Change the Game. 

Megan believes that when sport reflects what we know about the brain, it becomes one of the most accessible and powerful forces for healing in young people’s lives. Nothing heals like sport. 

Dr. Kristie Brandt is an internationally known teacher, clinician, and consultant, specializing in infant and early childhood mental health, trauma, reflective supervision, and Touchpoints. She is also an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics VCP at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. 

In 2002, she founded and directs what is now the 15-month University of California CPE Napa Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship that has trained over 700 Fellows from around the world. She was the Chief of Public Health in Napa County, CA and retired after 25 years of public service. While there, she developed the Therapeutic Child Care Center for children 0-5, and in the process became acquainted with Dr. Bruce Perry and his NMT work.

She has studied, clinically implemented, and developed early childhood and reflective practice applications using Perry’s concepts for over 28 years. Dr. Brandt also worked closely with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and taught with him globally for over two decades on Touchpoints and child development.

She is lead editor of the book “Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health: Core Concepts & Clinical Practice”, author of the book “Facilitating the Reflective Process: An Introductory Workbook,” and has authored or co-authored numerous journal articles and chapters.

Brandt earned her Master’s and Doctorate at Case Western Reserve University, and completed a post-doctoral Fellowship in Infant-Parent Mental Health through the Child Development Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is endorsed as an Infant-Family & Early Childhood Mental Health Specialist and Reflective Mentor through the California Center for Infant-Family & Early Childhood Mental Health, and is also endorsed as an Infant Mental Health Specialist & Clinical Mentor through the international Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health and Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. 

She is an active member of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, and is also a licensed and board-certified nurse practitioner and nurse midwife. She is a Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) trainer through Boston Children’s Hospital Division of Developmental Medicine’s Brazelton Institute., on the national training team for Brazelton’s Touchpoints, and the Touchpoints Site Coordinator for Napa, CA. 

In 2019, she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from her Alma Mater, Case Western Reserve University FPB in Cleveland, Ohio. She has also received fourteen awards for her work focused on the mental health, wellbeing and development of infants and children including: The Alicia Lieberman Infant Mental Health Leadership Award from the California Association for Infant Mental Health (2023); Phyllis Rae McGinley Champion for Children Award ChildTrauma Academy Neurosequential Model Network (2017); U.S. House of Representatives Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for Serving the Mental Health Needs of Children (2015); and the Touchpoints Distinguished Leader Award from the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, Boston Children’s Hospital  (2013). 

Presentation Title: Understanding Brains to Build Skills: Applying the Neurosequential Model™ in Education

Co-presenting with Halley Gruber

Halley Gruber is the Co-Founder and Director of On-Site and Educational Support at Educational Access Group and Program Director for the Neurosequential Network’s Neurosequential Model in Education (NME). She holds a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Denver and worked as an elementary school generalist and special educator. In this role, she leads NME implementation efforts with schools and districts across the U.S. and internationally, providing strategic consultation, multi-year implementation support, and large-scale professional learning. Halley is a trainer in both the Neurosequential Model in Education and the Neurosequential Model in Sport and is widely recognized for her ability to translate complex neuroscience into practical, accessible strategies for educators. She is deeply committed to honoring the voices and lived experiences of educators and students, with their well-being at the heart of everything she does. Halley regularly speaks at conferences, leads national and international workshops, and facilitates cohorts of educators and youth-serving professionals completing the NME training. Her current work centers on embedding brain-based, developmentally informed practices into schools, districts, and organizations to strengthen regulation, relationships, and learning. Prior to co-founding Educational Access Group, Halley worked as a Behavioral Skills Interventionist and classroom educator, experiences that deeply inform her approach to supporting systems and leadership teams today. Publications The S.I.T.E. Framework: A Novel Approach for Sustainably Integrating Trauma‐Informed Approaches in Schools Lohmiller, K., Gruber, H., Harpin, S. et al. The S.I.T.E. Framework: A Novel Approach for Sustainably Integrating Trauma-Informed Approaches in Schools. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma (2022).  The Point of Missed Shots: Pursuing Greatness in the Urban Classroom Contributor,  “The Point of Missed Shots: Pursuing Greatness in the Urban Classroom” in Renga, I. P., & Benedetti, C. (2018). Sports and K-12 education: Insights for teachers, coaches, and school leaders.   

Presentation Title: Understanding Brains to Build Skills: Applying the Neurosequential Model™ in Education

Co-presenting with Halley Gruber

Dr. Katie Lohmiller is the Co-Founder and Director of Programming and Evaluation at Educational Access Group and serves as the Co-Program Director for the Neurosequential Network’s Neurosequential Model in Education (NME). Dr. Lohmiller received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in Boston, MA and her master’s (MPH) and doctor of public health (DrPH) degrees from the Colorado School of Public Health.

With a public health background and deep expertise in evaluation, she leads national and international NME implementation with a focus on using data to illuminate the impact of brain-based practices in schools and organizations. Katie specializes in developing practical, low-burden ways for educators and systems to measure progress, capture stories of growth, and make data meaningful without adding to the workload of school staff.
Her work blends neuroscience, behavioral health, and implementation science to help districts build sustainable, developmentally informed systems of support. A trainer in both NME and the Neurosequential Model in Sport, she presents at conferences and facilitates workshops across the U.S. and abroad. Katie’s published research—including the S.I.T.E. Framework for sustainable trauma-informed school implementation — continues to guide how she designs evaluation tools and supports schools in telling the story of their work through data that educators can use.

Presentation Title: An Interactive Walk Through Time with the Neurosequential Model Implementation

Co-presenting with Dr. Emily Wang

Denise Manderson is a Senior Director at Hull Services, providing leadership for Safe Directions, Training and Educational Services. She has worked at Hull Services for over 25 years, dedicating most of her time in a variety of roles in Hull’s therapeutic school setting. Denise has worked directly with the students, families, child care workers, and teachers to support the relational and self-regulatory needs of children and youth impacted by adversity, mental health and trauma. 

Denise’s passion to have a trauma informed treatment approach for students in a unique school setting has been at the forefront of her work over the past 12 years.  She has worked collaboratively with school personnel and closely with her colleagues at Hull Services to infuse the principles of Dr. Perry’s Neurosequential Model (NM) into a school culture as well as a classroom setting. 

Denise has presented the implementation aspects of NM in a therapeutic school setting to various school boards, as well as, various conferences, across Canada and in the US. 

Denise completed her bachelor’s degree with honours in human and social development at University of Victoria, and her Master of counselling with University of Calgary. 

Presentation TItle: Prioritizing Prevention: Centering Families

Melissa T. Merrick, PhD, is President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America), the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect. She has more than 20 years of clinical, research, and leadership experience related to the etiology, course, and prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Previously, Dr. Merrick was a senior epidemiologist at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta. She is recognized as one of the country’s foremost experts on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): in partnership with the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Child Abuse and Neglect, she served for 8 years as the lead scientist for the ACEs study at CDC and is the lead author of CDC’s Vital Signs: ACEs, the most nationally representative report on the topic.

Dr. Merrick successfully leverages her significant clinical and research experiences to communicate and disseminate the critical public health importance of preventing early adversity to key stakeholders with diverse priorities, backgrounds, and knowledge, including legislators, business and civic leaders, and members of the academic and medical communities. She is one of the principal architects of Thriving Families, Safer Children: A National Commitment to Well- being, an effort that aims to reshape child welfare in the United States by focusing explicitly on equity and prevention. Thriving Families unites PCA America, the Children’s Bureau, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Casey Family Programs, among numerous other local partners, to proactively create the conditions and contexts for strong families and communities across the country.

Dr. Merrick received her BA in psychology, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from the San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego, joint doctoral program in clinical psychology, where she served as a program coordinator for the San Diego site of the Longitudinal Studies on Child Abuse and Neglect consortium. Dr. Merrick was a National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral fellow at the University of Miami Child Protection Team (CPT), where she was involved in a multi-site program of research that examined child maltreatment risk and protective factors in families evaluated by CPTs across the state of Florida. 

Dr. Merrick is married and has two teenagers who very much keep her on her parenting toes! 

Presentation title:  Onwards: Leveraging the Sequence of Engagement to sustain capacity for courageous practice 

Habeebah Rasheed Grimes is a visionary, heart-centered leader and nationally recognized voice on trauma-informed care, youth mental health, and human services leadership. With over 25 years of experience advancing healing and equity for marginalized youth and families, she is the founder and principal consultant of Habeebah Rasheed Grimes LLC, where she guides individuals and organizations in adopting trauma-informed, healing-centered, and liberatory practices.

Habeebah previously served as CEO of Positive Education Program (PEP), one of Ohio’s largest mental health agencies for children. There, she led a staff of 400 and championed equitable care, staff well-being, and organizational excellence.

Her contributions have earned her numerous honors, including Crain’s Cleveland Woman of Note (2022), the Urban League of Greater Cleveland Education Champion Award (2023), the Bruce D. Perry Spirit of the Child Award (2024), and the NAACP Cleveland Community Leadership Award (2025). She is also an alumna of Leadership Cleveland and a graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Ladder to Leadership program.

Habeebah is the creator and host of No Crystal Stair Podcast, a platform that uplifts the voices of Black mothers raising sons, affirming the power of storytelling in the pursuit of healing and justice. 

Presentation title: Moving with Loss: A Movement-Based, Community-Centered Model for Grief as Prevention 

Myra Sack is the author of award-winning memoir, "Fifty-Seven Fridays: Losing Our Daughter Finding Our Way," and Founder and Executive Director of E-Motion, Inc. a nonprofit organization created to support community, movement and ritual to enhance coping and resilience. Myra's life changed when her older daughter, Havi, died in January 2021. Myra holds an MBA in Social Impact from Boston University, and graduated with a B.A. cum laude from Dartmouth College, where she captained the women's soccer team and earned All-America honors. Myra serves on the Board of the Courageous Parents Network and lives in Boston, MA with her family. 

Presentation Title: An Interactive Walk Through Time with the Neurosequential Model Implementation

Co-presenting with Denise Manderson

Dr. Wang has worked in mental health for over 30 years, starting as a front-line worker at the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Wang holds a Master’s of Science in Educational Psychology, a Master’s of Art, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology. She is trained as an NMT Mentor in Mentor-Led NMT Training Certification, NM Reflective Practice and Supervision and the Brazelton Touchpoints approach. Dr. Wang has been an invited speaker both internationally and nationally, speaking most frequently about the impact of trauma on development to professional groups like educators, clinicians, Indigenous populations, ministries in Alberta and British Columbia, and caregivers. She was responsible for the provincial training of the Neurosequential Model (NM) concepts and implementation in Alberta from April 2017-October 2018. She currently works as a Senior Director of Clinical Advancement and trauma-informed practice at Hull Services. Dr. Wang is an appointed Fellow of the Neurosequential Model Network and a specialist in Infant-Parent Mental Health. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at Cumming School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, and an Associate Member at Hotchkiss Brain Institute and the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education at the University of Calgary. She is involved in several research projects related to child maltreatment and mental health. Dr. Wang is the 2020 recipient of the University of California, Davis Continuing and Professional Education- Parent-Infant and Child Institute “Bruce D. Perry, Spirit of the Child Award”. Her training in the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics and the Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship has significantly impacted both her professional life and her personal life as a mother of two. Recently, Emily was awarded the 2023 Psychologist’s Association of Alberta (PAA) Psychologist of the Year Award for her exceptional dedication in advancing trauma-informed care and infant mental health.

Presentation title: Disseminating the Neurosequential Model Throughout a Region: The Northwest Indiana Experiment 

Dr. Amanda Zelechoski (zell-uh-husky) is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist and attorney, specializing in trauma. She is a Clinical Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame and Director of Clinical Services at the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic. Her research interests lie at the intersection of psychology, law, and trauma, particularly for underserved populations. This includes evaluating psychological and forensic assessment methods, as well as working across systems to make evidence-based, trauma-informed practices more accessible. Dr. Zelechoski is board-certified in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and is currently the principal investigator or co-investigator on several trauma-informed capacity-building and implementation grant-funded projects for child-serving systems (e.g., juvenile justice, pediatric primary care, outpatient mental health, and K-12 education). She is passionate about “giving psychology away” through knowledge translation and dissemination initiatives, such as the digital resource hub, Pandemic Parenting, and Roadmap to Resilience and Roadmap for Change podcast projects.