Speakers

  • Jennifer T. D’Andrea

    has served as director of Wesleyan’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) since 2011. A licensed clinical psychologist, she earned her BA from College of the Holy Cross, her MEd from Boston College, and her PhD from Fordham University. After specializing in the treatment of individuals struggling with serious mental illness, she completed her postdoctoral studies in the early identification and prevention of psychotic spectrum disorders at Yale University Medical School. Read More
    Prior to joining CAPS in 2009, D’Andrea served as the clinical director of a residential treatment facility for adolescent girls and managed two inpatient units in a long-term psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents. As director of Wesleyan CAPS, D’Andrea initiated and directs the WESupport workshop series, a suicide prevention initiative that helps students to build empathy skills and to connect their struggling peers to campus and community resources.

  • Carla Fine

    is an author, lecturer, and workshop leader who has presented to suicide survivors’ groups and professional organizations throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and India. Her book, the international best-seller No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One, describes the different stages of grieving after the suicide of a loved one and helps survivors to see that they are not alone in their confusion and grief. It is a personal story—Fine’s husband, a prominent New York physician, killed himself at the age of 43—that also incorporates research from interviews of more than 60 people who lost loved ones to suicide. Read More
    Fine is also the author or coauthor of eight other books, including Touched by Suicide: Hope and Healing After Loss, which offers compassionate guidance from the dual perspectives of both a survivor and a mental health professional for anyone affected by suicide. Learn more about her at www.carlafine.com.

  • Ann P. Haas

    is professor emerita of health sciences at The City University of New York and an independent consultant specializing in suicide research and prevention. From 1999 to 2016, she worked with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, initially as director of research, and subsequently as senior director of education and prevention, and senior consultant. In those capacities, her research and prevention activities focused on suicide risk in vulnerable populations, in particular, sexual and gender minorities, teens and college students, and military veterans. Read More
    She has served on the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and has published widely on topics related to mental health and suicide.

  • Kathy Leichter

    is an award-winning documentary and development and impact producer and director with more than 25 years of experience using media for social change. Her most recent film, Here One Day, about mental illness and suicide in her own family, premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and won Best Documentary and the Jury Prize at the Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival. Here One Day is now the centerpiece of a six-year national screening initiative, directed by Leichter, to reduce stigma, create a safe space for others to share their stories, link audiences to support, teach how mental illness and suicide impacts families, and influence behavioral health care policy.

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    She has consulted on, and/or raised funds for, over 35 documentaries in all stages of production and impact, and is currently working on films by Julie Winokur, Victoria Mills, and Charlotte Mangin.

  • Eric Marcus

    lost both his father, a WWII Navy veteran, and his sister-in-law to suicide, which inspired his decades-long advocacy for suicide loss survivors. His work has included serving on the national board for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and helping rebuild the organization’s programs for suicide loss survivors in the United States and around the world. Marcus has produced documentaries on the suicide loss experience and is the author of several books, including Why Suicide? Questions and Answers about Suicide, Suicide Prevention, and Coping with the Suicide of Someone You Know. He is also the creator and host of the award-winning Making Gay History podcast (and book) about the LGBTQ civil rights movement. 

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    He is also the creator and host of the award-winning Making Gay History podcast (and book) about the LGBTQ civil rights movement.

  • Alexis May

    received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of British Columbia, completed a clinical internship at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah. Her research uses observational, experimental, and meta-analytic methods to understand the etiology and trajectory of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in the service of improving suicide prevention and intervention. Specifically, her work focuses on differentiating those who act on suicidal thoughts from those who do not and on understanding motivations for suicidal behavior.

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    She is currently working on improving suicide screening in primary care settings, developing novel suicide interventions for use in romantic relationships, and identifying objective measures of the capacity to act on suicidal thoughts. May is newly appointed as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Wesleyan.  

     

  • Alex Millner

    is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, where he also received his PhD in psychology. Millner’s research focuses on characterizing suicidal thoughts and behaviors and examining behavioral risk factors associated with suicidal outcomes. His long-term goal is to identify ways to accurately predict and prevent suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Read More

  • Karl E. Scheibe

    is professor emeritus of psychology at Wesleyan University, where he taught from 1963 to 2005 and where he also served as director of the Wasch Center for Retired Faculty. He received his PhD in psychology from the University of California and was twice a Fulbright Professor at the Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil. A social psychologist and licensed clinician, Scheibe is the former director of the Saybrook Counseling Center and the author or editor of numerous books and journal articles. 

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    His most recent books include Self-Studies, The Drama of Everyday Life, Deep Drama: Explorations in Psychology and Theater, and The Storied Nature of Human Life: The Life and Work of Theodore R. Sarbin.

  • Leslie Shasha

    Clinical psychologist, New York City. Leslie completed her BA in psychology at Wesleyan and her PhD in clinical psychology at the Derner Institute at Adelphi University. She has been working in private practice in Brooklyn Heights for over 18 years and, as a result of her own life experiences, has become active in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention organization and also in the Jed Foundation. She is committed to working on suicide prevention as well as with the stigma surrounding the topic of suicide. Read More
    Her father, Jim Shasha ’50, conceived these seminars as a way to address issues of human concern and to maintain a connection with the academic world and the University.