Don McPherson, a College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL and CFL quarterback, has dedicated his life to using sports as a platform for social change. A standout at Syracuse University, he led the undefeated 1987 football team, setting 22 school records and earning multiple national awards, including the Maxwell Award and Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award. In 2008, McPherson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and Syracuse retired his #9 jersey in 2013. Among his many accolades, he received the 2021 William Pearson Tolley Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Lifelong Learning and the 2020 National Football Foundation’s Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football.

Beyond football, McPherson has been a leader in addressing social issues such as gender-based violence, youth mentorship, and substance abuse. Since 1984, he has delivered workshops and lectures for over 375 organizations and institutions, focusing on preventing sexual and domestic violence. He authored You Throw Like a Girl: The Blind Spot of Masculinity (2019), which explores his 36-year career of using sports to confront social challenges. McPherson’s advocacy extends to national media appearances, advisory roles for organizations like the Ms. Foundation for Women and NCAA committees, and board positions with WCNY Syracuse (PBS) and the National Football Foundation.

Dr. Saed Deryck Hill, Ph.D. is a Counseling Psychologist and Consultant, who specializes in the promotion of healthy masculinities and wellness. He provides trainings, 1on1 coaching, and strategic consulting on the topic of expansive and restrictive masculinities and has also been featured on several podcasts and other forms of media addressing the broad topics of men, masculinities, and prevention. Saed works with national organizations, school districts, higher education institutions, nonprofits, and other communities to train staff, facilitate workshops, design curricula, promote bystander intervention, and manage respondent support and alternative resolution processes.

Saed also advises the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse, serves as a member of The Boys and Girls Club of New York City’s Professional Advisory Council, was a board member of the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities for two years, and served as the Director of Prevention & Masculine Engagement at Northwestern University for the previous six years. Prior to joining Northwestern in August of 2018, Saed worked for Planned Parenthood Great Plains (PPGP) as the Senior Education and Outreach Coordinator in charge of delivering comprehensive sexual health programming to K-12 and college students. Saed earned his Ph.D. from The University of Missouri-Kansas City and completed his Doctoral Internship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his spare time, he enjoys psychoanalyzing trashy reality TV, obsessing about fantasy football, and attempting (sometimes successfully) to cook his mother’s best Guyanese food recipes.

Ramon Diaz is a proud child of an immigrant family from Mexico. His parents made significant sacrifices to come to the United States, seeking to provide him with a better life.

He earned a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Adler University. Ramon’s counseling approach emphasizes understanding a client’s worldview, culture, and attachment style. He utilizes an existential and person-centered approach to therapy, aiming to help clients develop meaningful relationships that promote joy, contentment, and overall human flourishing.

Ramon’s areas of interest and expertise include addiction, dissociation, trauma, attachment theory, sport psychology, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, relationship challenges, parent-child conflicts, and issues related to performance anxiety in academics and sports. He also works with self-esteem challenges, dissociation, and individuals with borderline personality disorder.

Eric McGriff is the Prevention Coordinator at the Crime Victims Treatment Center (CVTC), Inc., where he supports community-level efforts to prevent and respond to violence in New York City, and across the globe.

McGriff has an extensive background as a domestic and sexual violence trainer and facilitator engaging, among other populations, K-12 schools, college campuses, men and boys, and men who batter. He has facilitated and trained for several national and international entities including, the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime and The National Centers for Victims of Crime. As a former Spokesperson for U.N. Women and a current Global Peace Ambassador, Eric also has a background supporting various United Nations efforts to address issues at the intersections of youth, gender, and violent extremism.

Inspired by CVTC’s trauma-focused, relational, and affect-centered therapeutic model, McGriff’s work to transform communities bridges the gap between evidence-supported interventions and local community context by folding trauma-informed, participatory principles and practices into public health approaches. Through a framework of cultural humility, and with a focus on system collaboration and psychological safety, Eric seeks to tap into community’s existing expertise and evolutionary potential to learn about, build, and discover structures and practices that better meet the needs of its most vulnerable populations.

Juliana Carlson is an Associate Professor and the BSW Program Director at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. Before joining the KU faculty in 2013, she practiced for more than 10 years in a variety of positions, including domestic violence advocate and community organizer, in Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Paul/Minneapolis. Dr. Carlson’s research focuses on examining and developing system-level responses to end gender-based violence with particular attention to engaging men in prevention and increasing gender equity. Her collaborative implementation focused research has been federally funded by the Children’s Bureau and the Office of Women’s Health, and state funded by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. In addition, she provides expertise and service at the university, local, state, national, and international level for gender-based violence prevention innovations. Dr. Carlson earned a master of arts (AM) from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, School of Social Work.

Joaquin Becerra, a proud Mexican immigrant and first-generation college student three times over, was raised in Brawley, CA. Throughout his career, he has remained dedicated to supporting and uplifting marginalized voices. As a former UCSB student who often had to navigate college independently, Joaquin is deeply committed to improving the college experience for all students, with a strong focus on supporting first-generation and BIPOC students.

Joaquin is deeply committed to social, restorative, and transformational justice. Over the past decade, he has championed restorative justice as both a philosophy and a developmental tool to challenge traditional approaches to punishment, accountability, and education through an anti-oppressive, anti-racist lens. His visionary work led to the creation of UCSB’s Restorative Justice Program, a critical initiative aimed at reimagining and transforming normative systems of justice and improving campus climate for our must vulnerable students.