PACEs Conference Speakers
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Welcome & Introduction: What are PACEs?
Amanda Morris, PhD
Dr. Amanda Sheffield Morris is a Regents Professor and the George Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Applied Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Morris is a developmental scientist with research interests in parenting, socio-emotional development, early life adversity, and risk and resilience, with over 150 scholarly publications. With Dr. Jennifer Hays-Grudo she is co-author of Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences: A Developmental Perspective and Raising a Resilient Child in a World of Adversity: Effective Parenting for Every Family, both published by the American Psychological Association. She is past editor in chief for the Journal of Research on Adolescence and is a founding editor and on the editorial board of Adversity and Resilience Science: Research and Practice published by Springer/Nature. She is an MPI for the Oklahoma site of the NIH-funded HEALlthy Brain Child Development (HBCD) national study, and was a Co-Investigator for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study for seven years.
SPEAKER & PANELIST
Regents Professor at OSU
"Culture as a Protective Factor: Indigenous PACEs, Native Identity and Pathways to Resilience"
Lana Beasley, PhD
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Dr. Lana Beasley is a licensed Clinical Child Psychologist and the Director of Resilience, Adversity, and Interventions at CIRCA. Dr. Beasley’s research has included working on randomized clinical trials and program evaluation all in the area of supporting children and families experiencing high-risk factors. She holds expertise in qualitative research and has been a co-investigator on many grants involving a program of research developing, implementing, evaluating, and expanding evidence-based home visiting programs serving populations facing adversity. Dr. Beasley also conducts mixed-methods research in the area of adaptation of treatments for diverse populations and examining engagement and attrition of families experiencing high-risk factors.
Director of Resiliency, Adversity and Interventions at OSU
SPEAKER
Misty Boyd, PhD
Director of Community Health, Chickasaw Nation
SPEAKER
"Patterns of Childhood PACEs in US Adults Relate to Current Functioning for Parents and Children"
Jenny Watrous, M.S.
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Jennifer N.H. Watrous, M.S., is a 5th-year doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Oklahoma State University under Dr. Amanda Morris. Her previous work has examined the association of Protective and Compensatory Experiences (PACEs) in adolescent mental health, executive function, and prosocial behavior. Her dissertation examines childhood experiences that shape the biological stress response system and mental health symptoms.
Doctoral Candidate at OSU
SPEAKER & PANELIST
Ashley Acheson, PhD
Professor and Vice Chair for Research at University of Arkansas
Ashley Acheson, Ph.D., is a Professor and Vice Chair for Research and the Wilbur D. Mills Distinguished Chair in Drug Abuse Prevention in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He has been awarded more than $20 million in NIH funding for research examining the behavioral and biological mechanisms contributing to risk for substance use disorders and related psychopathology. His ongoing research includes the Family Health Patterns Project, a long-running study examining behavioral and biological factors underlying risk for addiction. He is also a principal investigator on the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, the largest ever study of early brain and child development. Through this work, he seeks to advance the understanding of addiction risk and contribute to improved strategies for addiction prevention and early intervention.
SPEAKER
"Early Life Experiences and Familial Risk for Alcohol and Other Substance Use Disorders"
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Jaely Deleon, M.S.
Doctoral Student at OSU
Jaely Deleon is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology at Oklahoma State University. She earned her Master of Arts in Psychology from the University of Central Oklahoma and her Master of Science in Psychology from Oklahoma State University. Her research examines how childhood adversity and parental experiences shape child development, with a focus on marginalized and underserved families. Her current research applies network method analyses to capture the day-to-day patterns of family life through a person-specific lens.
SPEAKER
"Linking Daily Parental Experiences, Parenting Behaviors, and Child Self-Regulation: A Person Specific Approach Using Dynamic Networks"
Dian Yu, PhD
Dr. Dian Yu is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Oklahoma State University. She got her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Science. Her research focuses on self-regulation development in early childhood to adolescence among low-income racial-ethnical minority families using intensive longitudinal methods.
Assistant Professor at OSU
"PACEs in Action Panel"
Jennifer Hays-Grudo
Jennifer is a Regents Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Center for Health Sciences at Oklahoma State University. She is the Director and Principal Investigator of the Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Adversity (CIRCA), an $11.3M, five-year, NIH-funded center grant that coordinates studies on the effects of trauma and poverty on children’s health and development and builds research capacity in northeast Oklahoma. From 2008 to 2013, she was a George Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Community Medicine at OU-Tulsa, where she led the Tulsa Children’s Project, a highly integrated set of interventions to reduce the effects of intergenerational poverty and adversity. With Dr. Amanda Sheffield-Morris, she is the co-author of "Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences: A Developmental Perspective", published in 2019 by APA Press, and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Adversity and Resilience Science (Springer).
Yuriko Yanagi, PhD
Yuriko Yanagi, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, affiliated with the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry in Japan. Her research focuses on ACEs and PACEs, parent–child relationships, posttraumatic stress, and child and adolescent mental health, with particular interest in cross-cultural comparisons and multilevel and network approaches. She is also a nationally certified psychologist in Japan.
FACILITATOR
PANELIST
Jyotsana Sharma, PhD
Jyotsana Sharma, Ph.D., LCMHC, is an Associate Professor at Oklahoma State University in the department of Counseling and Counseling Psychology. Her research is focused on exploring socio-cultural contexts and their effect on trauma recovery and posttraumatic growth, specifically in the context of interpersonal violence. She is also involved in research in counselor education and supervision and is passionate about developing and applying innovative educational practices that help develop culturally sensitive counselors.
Her research group, the Trauma Recovery and Growth Research Group mainly conducts qualitative and mixed methods studies. We are interested in exploring patterns of trauma, trauma recovery, and posttraumatic growth in the context of socio-cultural intersectionalities. Our hope is to use what we learn from our current projects and extend our research agenda towards other intersectionalities related to the realm of trauma, trauma recovery, and posttraumatic growth.
PANELIST
Regents Professor at OSU
Visiting Scholar from Tokyo, Japan
Associate Professor at OSU
"Implementing the PACEs Plan to Build Resilience in an Intensive Outpatient Program: Highlights from a DNP Capstone Project"
Jill Rathburn, BSN, RN, PMH-BC, BCC, CPRC
Jill Rathburn, BSN, RN, PMH-BC, BCC, CPRC, is a psychiatric-mental health (PMH) nurse and recovery coach completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice–Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (DNP-PMHNP) degree at Maryville University in St. Louis, MO. Jill brings a long career in healthcare clinical practice, sales, and advocacy and currently serves as Director of Growth for a digital health company advocating for behavioral health services for substance use disorders (SUDs). Jill coached women in early recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD), with an emphasis on recovery strategies, healthy lifestyle practices, and strengthening protective factors. This focus led to Jill’s DNP Capstone project, which evaluates the use of protective and compensatory experiences (PACEs) within an intensive outpatient program (IOP) and their potential to strengthen PACEs and resilience as part of the recovery process.
Doctor of Nursing Student at Maryville University
SPEAKER & PANELIST
"PACEs in Practice: Supporting Child Care Providers"
Melissa Dobson, M.S.
Melissa Dobson is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Experimental Psychology program at Oklahoma State University and serves as the PACEs Lab Manager under Dr. Amanda Morris. Her research focuses on protective experiences and the relationships and environments that support positive development across childhood. Her previous professional experience as an elementary teacher continues to guide her research interests in strengths-based approaches supporting socioemotional development and resilience among children from marginalized communities, child-adult relationships, and supportive environments for children.
Doctoral Student at OSU
SPEAKER
"PACEs in Practice: Resilience in High-Risk Care"
Nathan Osborn, M.S.
Nathan Osborn is a second-year PhD student working in the PACEs lab under Amanda Morris. His 10 years of clinical mental health experience informs his research interests in protective factors, resilience, and burnout in mental health practitioners. He aims to bridge clinical practice and research to strengthen systems of care for both clients and providers.
Doctoral Student at OSU
SPEAKER
"Wholehearted"
AJ FOX
AJ is a producer, director, and founder of Wholehearted Publishing & Wholehearted.org. He is fascinated by the stories, wisdom, and experiences of those who bring understanding, awareness, and change. Wholehearted.org is the platform by which AJ and the Wholehearted team make and share programs with Thought Leaders.
CEO of Wholehearted.org
SPEAKER
"PACEs App"
Daniel Contreras
Daniel is an OSU MIS alumnus whose career spans data analysis, software development and product management. He works where people, code and data meet, and he likes data visualization most of all. He enjoys helping teams turn unclear problems into software that gets used.
Data & Product Management Professional
SPEAKER
"PACEs in Action Panel"
Intimate Partner Violence Community Advocate
PANELIST
Brooke Tuttle, PhD
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Brooke McQuerrey Tuttle, Ph.D., serves as Director of the Oklahoma State University Center for Family Resilience and Coordinator of the Human Development and Family Science Child and Family Services Internship Program. In these roles, she leads community-engaged research and translational science initiatives focused on strengthening resilience and improving outcomes for children, families, and communities, while supporting students in connecting academic learning to meaningful field experiences.
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Dr. Tuttle’s work focuses on translating research into sustainable, community-based strategies that address risk, strengthen protective factors, and build individual, family, and community resilience. Her research and applied work span prevention science, implementation and evaluation, workforce development, and cross-sector collaboration, with particular attention to populations experiencing heightened risk, including justice-involved youth and families, first responders, rural communities, and mother-infant dyads navigating recovery. She earned her M.S. in Criminal Justice from the University of Central Missouri and her Ph.D. in Human Sciences from Oklahoma State University.
Heather Simon
PANELIST
Elizabeth Woods, MD
As a compassionate physician and life coach for women, Dr. Elizabeth Woods is the expert for transforming burnout into bold, authentic leadership. She’s spent over a decade mentoring high-achieving women, combining trauma-informed care with evidence-based coaching to help them reclaim their confidence, rebuild their careers, and lead with purpose.
PANELIST
Chief Medical Officer at CREOKS
Director of OSU Center for Family Resilience & Human Development and Family Science Child and Family Services Internship Program Coordinator
EVENING KEYNOTE SPEAKER
"Cultivating Resilience During Adolescence: The Role of Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, and PACEs"
Reagan Miller-Chagnon, PhD
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Dr. Reagan Miller-Chagnon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Colorado State University (CSU). She received her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and PhD in applied human development from CSU. Her research focuses on clarifying the core components of stress and resilience that contribute to mental and physical health, and understanding to what extent contemplative practice interventions, such as mindfulness and yoga, are effective for preventing and alleviating health disparities among adolescents exposed to disproportionate chronic and traumatic stressors.
Assistant Professor at Colorado State University