Speaker Bios

Red House Arts Center, Music and Lyrics

Ashley Davis is a Cultural Competency Specialist at the Q Center. She provides presentations on creating affirming environments for LGBTQ folks. The Q Center at ACR Health is a safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth, their families, and allies to gather, share, and receive support. Q Center programming promotes equality, celebrates diversity, provides resources that cultivate pride and leadership skills, and strives to create a safe and inclusive community for all. 

Amy Fahey has been the Prevention Services Coordinator at Herkimer County Community College since November 2018. Her primary responsibilities include providing brief intervention services to college students and prevention education regarding alcohol and other drugs. She presents on various topics in the field of prevention including drug trends and addiction. 

Dr. Leonard Grant is Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Syracuse University, where he teaches courses in technical writing and the Health Humanities. His research on the social, political, and medical discourses of psychological trauma focuses on finding local solutions to systemic problems, such as mitigating distress in health care professionals. He is committed to applying insights from literature and the art of writing to promote human flourishing in clinical and community settings. He is a co-leader of the Onondaga Community Trauma Task Force and helped launch the Post Trauma Response Teams, a volunteer organization that offers survivors of community-based traumas mental health support. In 2021, he founded the Resilience Writing Project to help healthcare professionals and community members use writing as a means of processing the traumas and adversities experienced while providing care to others. Since then, he has facilitated more than fifty Resilience Writing Project workshops for medical students, social workers, nurses, psychologists, physicians, and surgeons.

Red House Arts Center, Writer and Director

Dr. Jason Kilmer is an Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine and an Adjunct Associate Professor in Psychology at UW. Dr. Kilmer serves as an investigator on several studies evaluating prevention and intervention efforts for alcohol, cannabis, and other drug use by college students. In addition to research and teaching, he has worked extensively with college students and student groups around alcohol and other drug prevention programming and presentations throughout his career (including student-athletes, fraternity and sorority members, residence life, and first-year students), both at UW and on over 125 campuses across the nation. As faculty in the School of Medicine, Dr. Kilmer continues his direct work with students through presentations for intercollegiate athletics and residence life. He also serves as the chairperson of Washington State's College Coalition on Substance Misuse, Advocacy, and Prevention (CCSAP).

Early in his career, Dr. Kilmer worked for 10 years as an Addictive Behaviors Specialist in the Counseling Center at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, then worked for 10 years as the LiveWell Assistant Director for Alcohol and Other Drug Education in LiveWell: Center for Student Advocacy, Training, & Education at UW (formerly Health & Wellness).  

Dr. Kilmer has been project faculty for several national learning collaboratives in the US, including NYU’s National College Depression Partnership, Dartmouth’s National College Health Improvement Program, and the NCAA’s 360 Proof project. He was one of the six members of the development team for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s College Alcohol Intervention Matrix (CollegeAIM). He was also the 2014 recipient of the National Prevention Network’s Award of Excellence for outstanding contributions to the field of prevention and was also the 2017 recipient of the Washington State Prevention Professional Award of Excellence. 

Kristen Knutson is a seasoned masters-level counselor at Contact Community Services. She has more than 15 years of experience providing workshops and training, curriculum development, facilitation, and evaluation. She is certified to provide a number of suicide prevention trainings including ASIST and QPR. 

Red House Arts Center, Project Manager

Marguerite Mitchell holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and English education from Temple University, British literature at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and English and arts administration at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She began her career as an English Language arts teacher and took her talents and interests in the arts to the theater. She is currently the Director of Education at the Red House Arts Center in Syracuse New York. Throughout her career she has provided many presentations and workshops, Some of her past conference titles include; The Answer to the ‘A’ in STEAM Education, The Importance of Arts Education in Central New York, Supporting Middle Level Teachers and Leaders and Connecting Multiple Literacies.

Lynn Riemer is the president of ACT on Drugs Inc., a non-profit organization with a mission to educate parents, teens, and professionals about addictive and psychoactive substances, both legal and illegal, which are available in their community. She is an internationally recognized speaker, trainer and advocate on issues related to substance abuse. Lynn earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Biology. She has a robust depth of knowledge of the chemistry of drugs which she infuses into her presentations. She is an internationally recognized speaker, trainer and advocate on issues relating to substance abuse. Lynn served on the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the North Metro Drug Task Force in Adams County, Colorado. Her engaging style offers a real, personal, and vivid face to the issues presented by illicit drug use. Over the past 20 years, Lynn has spoken regularly with students, school staff, parents, communities, medical personnel, law enforcement, organizations, and governmental agencies about drug awareness, recognition, and prevention. 

Eric Stranak has over a decade of experience working with diverse populations in a variety of treatment settings. He is currently an Addictions Program Specialist II with NYS OASAS. Before this role, he served as the Recovery Resources Coordinator with Farnham Family Services, overseeing the Farnham Training Institute and a team of professional peer advocates. In addition, Eric's work experience includes serving in a withdrawal and stabilization unit, an inpatient rehabilitation unit, an outpatient clinic, and as a school-based prevention provider. Eric has had the pleasure of working with people from different backgrounds and identities. His values represent an unbiased approach to his work, and he’s dedicated to breaking down stigma wherever it exists.

Ms. Weber is a school counselor with 25 years of experience and a Certified and Accredited Emotional Freedom Technique Practitioner. She is an active EFT practitioner. She has presented to educators and prevention professionals on the use of EFT for self-care and as a tool for supporting students in schools. As a school counselor, she was fortunate to use EFT with her students and found it to be the most effective tool for managing stress and addressing stored survival physiology.  In her practice, she has found that without the proper tools to address stress, there is often a rise in risky behaviors. When young people are supported with tools like EFT, they have access to immediate help right at their fingertips as these tools can be self-applied.  Both adults and young people respond very quickly to these techniques and learn them easily.

Ms. Zuber-Wilson oversees policy for a continuum of substance use prevention services and problem gambling prevention, treatment and recovery supports. The mission of the division is to reach youth, families and communities across the state through educational programs, environmental prevention strategies and public awareness. The work is grounded in prevention services that are data-driven and evidence-based, while at the same time culturally responsive and community-focused to reach people of all ages.    

Ms. Zuber-Wilson has over 30 years’ of experience working in various capacities in the executive and legislative branches of government. She joined OASAS in 2007 as the Director of Government Affairs and Federal Policy. In this position, she oversaw the agency’s efforts to monitor state and federal legislation, regulations and policy issues. Responsibilities also included working with local, state and federal elected officials and government agencies. Ms. Zuber-Wilson worked closely with the federally recognized Native American nations in the state and other key constituency groups.    

Ms. Zuber-Wilson graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with a BA in Organizational Behavior and Management and did graduate level coursework at the State University of New York at Albany.