Jessica Masino Drass, MA www.jessdrass.com

is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts in the Art & Design Education and Art Therapy Departments. She is an art psychotherapist, an arts-based researcher, author, and a former NJ high school art teacher. Jessica’s research explores the interdisciplinary domains of creativity through an artistic inquiry process of making maps and performing data to capture, develop and expose various types of knowledge, challenge assumptions and create ruptures in thought and routine.

Jessica has a BA in Fine Art from Rutgers University, MA in School Psychology from Rowan University, and MA in Art Therapy from Drexel University. Most recently, Jessica was a PhD candidate and Research Fellow in the Creative Arts Therapy Department at Drexel University. She is trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and her clinical work focuses on treating trauma and dissociation in chronically suicidal individuals. Jessica has developed an approach she calls Punk Rock Art Therapy, which she has published in academic journals and presented nationally. Jessica is co-founder of Wise Mind Creations, a mobile art studio that specializes in using art making to practice mindfulness and build community.

As a research fellow at Drexel University Jessica was involved in the coordination, facilitation, data analysis, writing and publication of multiple government-funded research studies. She was lead author and project manager for a number of concurrent research studies and programs across a variety of sites and systems, such as the National Endowment for the Arts, Department of Defense (through NICoE at the Walter Reed Medical Center) and the University of Pennsylvania Hospital System.

A lifelong NJ resident and a native of Marlton, Jessica currently lives in Haddonfield with her spunky 3^rd grade son, CJ, and her husband, Charlie.