The Speakers

Malik Muhammad joins us as the Associate Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s (Penn) LGBT Center. A Philadelphia native, Malik holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology as well a Master’s in Higher Education Counseling and Student Affairs from West Chester University (WCU) of Pennsylvania. A proud brother of the Pennsylvania Tau Chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, Malik’s passion for social justice began at an early age as he is the son and grandson of phenomenal agents of change in the Philadelphia African American Muslim community. That passion was reignited and truly started to flourish throughout his six-year academic and para-professional career at WCU. There he came to realize the deep significance of LGBTQ+ advocacy, education, and working with an intersectional lens at the higher education level and in all walks of life. Now, years later, Malik is an agent of change himself. Within his role at Penn, he diligently works to support students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members. He spearheads the Center’s educational outreach programs, advises a multitude of LGBTQ+ student groups, and fosters a true sense of collaboration across the University with various other roles. Malik also works to serve the Philadelphia community at large as a member of the Penn Center for AIDS Research Community Advisory Board, the Colours Organization Board, and as a talented local artist/entertainer. From the moment you meet him, Malik’s genuine, energetic, and optimistic nature is undeniable and often, quite contagious. If you haven’t already, find out for yourself!

Dr. Dickinson has taught in higher education for over 15 years. She is a certified school counselor with over 20 years of experience in K-12 schools as a counselor and elementary and special education teacher. Dr. Dickinson has advocated for inclusion throughout her career and created a course for school counselors to work with diverse learners. Her research and service have focused on her passions for equity and social justice and have included work on bullying, students with disabilities, and advocacy in school counseling.

Dr. Elizabeth Grillo earned a B.M. in vocal performance from Indiana University, an M.S. in speech-language pathology from Teacher's College Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in communication science and disorders from the University of Pittsburgh. Her clinical expertise is in the prevention, assessment, and treatment of voice disorders and gender affirming voice care for the LGBTQ+ community. In 2019, Dr. Grillo presented a one-hour seminar, Trans Voice Care, with Lena Queen and Tess Kohlmorgen at the Trans Wellness Conference in Philadelphia, PA. She is a professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at West Chester University (WCU) where she helps train future speech-language pathologists in the undergraduate and graduate programs. Due to Dr. Grillo’s mentorship, the WCU Speech and Hearing Clinic offers gender affirming voice care to the LGBTQ+ community through in-person and telehealth services free of charge. Currently, her research related to voice is addressing aerodynamic measures, the Global Voice Prevention and Therapy Model, the VoiceEvalU8 app, and telehealth. Her research has been supported by grants at WCU and an R15 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health. Her work has been disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and presentations at local, state, and national conferences. She holds the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is licensed to practice in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She is also a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE) by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. Recently, she became an Estill Master Trainer Candidate (EMT-C) of the Estill Voice Training model.

Nellie Riendeau Lazar, MSN, MPH, CRNP-BC, AAHIVS, is a family nurse practitioner with the Adolescent Initiative Program in the Craig-Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine and the Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Stacie Metz, PhD, MPH, MSW, MA serves in the Department of Health at West Chester University as a Professor and MPH Program Director and Graduate Coordinator. Previously, she served as Assistant Chair and Graduate Coordinator within the Department of Graduate Social Work. Dr. Metz earned her doctorate in Public Health Studies - Health Services Research from Saint Louis University in 2006 where she worked as a program evaluator and analyst for a variety of chronic disease and community health projects. Her primary MPH teaching responsibilities lie in community health practice and program evaluation. She is a strong proponent of interprofessional community engagement and collaborates on a range of projects, presentations, and publications with colleagues, community partners, students, and alumni. Her research interests include adolescent mental health and social-emotional learning, health promotion in young adult populations, program evaluation, and curricular design to include interprofessional education, service learning, and a human rights lens. She trains graduate students on community-based program evaluation techniques and has successfully collaborated with several students in critical data management activities and in the development of grant funder evaluation reports such as for the Brandywine Health Foundation and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Actively engaged in both her personal and professional healing practices, Mx. Lena Queen, LCSW, M.Ed.(Queen/they/she) is a private practice clinical somatic sexologist, cannabis & plant medicine advocate, and transformational life & erotic coach. Their healing approach is intersectional healing-centered that is kink-aware and pleasuring affirming. She believes we all experience our own unique set of events that affect our physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and sexual well-being- our WHOLE-Self. With their mental and sexual health agency, Journey Wellness & Consulting Group, LLC., her sex education teaching institute, The WHOLE-Self Healing Institute, Inc., and her signature life & erotic coaching program, SHIFT Coaching System & the Healing The Erotic Self, their team and her have a multitude of innovated ways of supporting one's sexual healing journey.