Meet the WELLS Collective
We are a community of healers, educators, and learners coming from a wide range of backgrounds who all share the goal of facilitating the collective liberation of all. We draw on Black feminism as our guiding light and understand wellness as multi-faceted, intersectional, and holistic and therefore value diversity in our healers' approaches. Learn more about us and you might find what resonates the most with your soul.
Our Team
Brittany L. Bridges, M.S.
Graduate Research Assistant and Collective Member
Hi! I'm Brittany, my pronouns are she/her, and I am a WELLS graduate research assistant. As a Black queer woman in research, I was called to this work to bring light to the experiences of misogynoir and other oppressions marginalized people face every day. I wanted to find a space that centered my own healing, as well as the healing of my collective communities. My work centers on the embodiment of Black feminism as it relates to the healing that marginalized people deserve to experience. I strongly believe that my liberation is tied to the liberation of all BIPOC and otherwise marginalized folx around me. With my M.S. in psychology, I have facilitated a breadth of dialogue series for folx with differing social identities to build critical consciousness around our collective liberation. I have also published work related to the liberation of Black queer people in the US.
Chandler Golden
Intern and Collective Member
Hey, y’all! My name is Chandler Golden and I use she/they pronouns. I have a lot of interests but at the core of it all, I am committed to work that centers on what Dr. Kevin Quashie called “Black aliveness” by centering our capacity for joy and life. I am in my second year of pursuing my Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. At VCU I work with Dr. Shawn Jones in the AYA research team where we focus on Black adolescents and their families. Before VCU I received my bachelor's in Psychology and African American Diaspora Studies from THEE Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. I also received my Masters in clinical mental health counseling at the University of Denver. In both my clinical work and research I use a Black feminist, liberation, and radical healing lens. I was drawn to WELLS and Blafemme as I wanted a space to collaborate with other Black feminist scholars who are equally committed to this work and our collective liberation.
Della V. Mosley, PhD
President and Collective Member
Hey good people! I’m Della (she/her) and I am a healer, scholar-activist, and spacemaker who uses Black feminist approaches to facilitate holistic wellness for people of the global majority, particularly those who share my identities (Black, queer, femme, recovering academic, trauma survivor, or others). I founded WELLS in 2018 after completing my Ph.D.in Counseling Psychology at the University of Kentucky and a doctoral internship in professional psychology at Duke University Counseling and Psychological Services. Prior to this, I obtained my master’s in school counseling from The Johns Hopkins University. While these institutions provided the formal training and credentialing critical to my advancement as a counseling psychologist, I have been formally and informally educated by countless community organizers and activists, Black feminists, young people, and community members in ways that have also greatly expanded my personal and professional development. Learn more about me here.
Frances Y. Adomako
Vice President and Collective Member
Dr. Frances Y. Adomako (She, Her) is an American Psychological Association Mental Health and Substance Abuse Fellow. She completed her doctoral internship and postdoctoral training at the Washington DC VA Medical Center where she developed individual and group treatments for addressing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Race-based Stress and Trauma (PTSD+RBST). Dr. Admako holds a Ph.D. from Howard University and Ed.M. from Teachers College of Columbia University in Counseling Psychology. She earned her B.A. in Sociology from St. John's University. Dr. Adomako has a deep commitment to bridging the divide between the academy and the community; working with community organizations, individuals, and groups through consultation, research, and social activism.
Gabe Lockett
Collective Member
Greetings, beautiful people! My name is Gabe and my pronouns are He/Him. I am a Black, African American, queer, trans man/masc person from the south. My work focuses on the mental, emotional, and spiritual healing, liberation, and well-being of QTBIPOC. I believe our love ethic is essential to thriving, healing, becoming, and being with self and others. I hope folx in this group find an oasis to be in community, love, heal, and grow. Additionally, I love everything outer space and I am a dog dad to the cutest fur baby, Nami.
Jeannette Mejia
Graduate Research Assistant and Collective Member
Jeannette (or J) Mejia, she/her, WELLS graduate research assistant. I’m a Black Dominican-American fat femme from Lawrence, MA who arrived at this work as someone who has been caring for my family, myself and those around me for most of my life. In that position, I bore witness to how violently systems of oppression as they’re enacted through people and institutions fail and harm us. I have always yearned and tried to fight for more (more care, love, tenderness, gentleness, resources) for my people & myself and upon learning more critically about how systems of oppression shape our lives, I committed to co-creating a world that is free from all oppressions. In my work, I often pull from Black feminist-womanist frameworks, my embodied & collective knowledge and the value that all marginalized folks, especially multiply marginalized folks, deserve a better, free world where they are valued, cared for, loved, able to be authentic, experience softness and gentleness and ease. My work ranges in providing workshops that seek to destroy systems of oppression, holding emotionally supportive space with folks (esp. folks who are marginalized), talk therapy, writing, teaching, and more.
Jess Trochez
She/Ella/They/Elle
Graduate Healing Research Assistant and Collective Member
Black and Latinx Queer Feminisms, Poetry, & Cultural Studies
I am a Queer/Honduran-American/Central American femme of the Honduran diaspora, with chronic disabilities; a survivor of violence; a first-generation student; a poet. In my ongoing graduate work, I center Queer and Transgender sex workers of Color and the creative, collective ways they promote their wellness and liberation such as through poetry, performance, and grassroots organizations.
Keonna Knight
Clinical Intern and Collective Member
My name is Keonna Knight (she/her) and I am a WELLS Counseling Intern and collective member, liberation coach, and wellness educator. I journeyed deeper into embodying and sharing liberation and wellness offerings when my Granny transitioned from this world and became an ancestor. She gave me permission to no longer live and work within the margins and instead, design a life for myself that centers deep healing, play and liberation. Through intentional life design and daily un-learning, I tap into the tools, insights, and wisdom needed to hold space for Black folx to breathe deeply and break generational cycles as a collective. My background in education, counseling, mindfulness, and nature-based healing further supports my capacity to offer creative, liberation-centered workshops, courses, and coaching. I am a gardener and nurturer. I plant seeds of healing that supports Black folx in tapping into their inner wisdom and creating their own path to wellness and liberation. When I am not holding space for collective healing and liberation, I am dreaming audaciously, acting a fool with my family, and savoring being in sacred solitude. I am really looking forward to breathing, healing and breaking free with you.
Dr. Kimberly Burdine
Collective Member
Dr. Kimberly Burdine (she/her) is a licensed psychologist and owner of Kimberly Burdine Psychological Services and Consulting, which offers counseling for Black, Indigenous People of Color and consultation and training for equity in social services and education programs. She has worked with organizations and solo practitioners in developing equity- and justice-based policies and procedures, and her training and continuing education offerings center around critical examination of self and group dynamics in the sociopolitical context. Dr. Burdine’s primary professional interests are alleviating and addressing cultural identity-based stress and trauma and promoting affirmation, healing, and liberation in teaching, training and supervision. She feels most “at home” professionally when providing consultation, equity-based prevention and outreach programming, group healing, training and supervision.
Dr. Burdine has been a group therapist for over a decade and has taught multiple graduate courses in clinical group theory and practice. In addition to interpersonal process groups, she has led and co-led dozens of identity-based support groups and psychoeducational facilitative dialogues. She has served as faculty at the American Group Psychotherapy Association Conference four times, co-presenting on identity-based group services. Dr. Burdine’s group therapy lens focuses the complexity of connection, courageous conversation, interpersonal process, vulnerability, authenticity, identity development, healing, liberation, and affirmation.
Maria Saldana
Collective Member
Hello! My name is Maria Saldana (she/her/ella) or “Maria pero no Santa” as some know me. I am a bisexual Indigenous Charapa Peruana scholar-activist-puta and healer-facilitator. Born in Iquitos, Peru and raised in South Florida, my work is largely inspired by the Queer and Trans, Black, Indigenous, Latinx women and femmes that I grew up with.
My formal and informal education comes from my mentors of color at the University of Florida who trained me in Black Feminist Methods, Queer Latin American Theory, and testimonio work. My work broadly centers the healing and wellness for Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, with a focus on the Queer Peruvian Diaspora. Utilizing Black, Latinx/Chicanx, and Native Feminist theories, I explore culturally mindful interventions and sacred storytelling.
In 2021, I was awarded the Charles T. Woods grant for my oral history project titled, “Testimonios from the Queer Peruvian Diaspora.” And I’m the guest speaker for California State University Polytech Pomona’s Women’s History Month, discussing Queer Indigeneity from the Peruvian Amazon, perreo and puteria. For the past few years, I have been part of the WELLS Healing and Research Collective, the Academics for Black Survival and Wellness team, and the PUMAS Collective.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting and learning from countless community organizers and activists, healers, Black and Indigenous women and femmes, spiritual/lightworkers, Putis and Sex Workers. I strongly believe that I am not self-made, but community-made and aim to work with my community on our path towards collective liberation. My heart continues to be in Iquitos, where my family resides.
My Specialties:
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Culturally mindful consulting for graduate students
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Facilitating healing spaces for QTBIPOC
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Public speaking
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Event planning and hosting
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Oral histories/testimonios
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Centering a healing and wellness approach in teaching
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Embodiment practices
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Group facilitation
Marquel Norton
Collective Member
Hey all, I’m Marquel (they/any), a Black queer scholar, educator, and practitioner from the south. I’m deeply committed to developing critical communities spaces for Black queer and trans folx to commune, heal, and organize. Drawing from critical discourses around Blackness, queerness, transness, and feeling & affect, I hope to feel and sense towards a radical imagining of spaces and world for Black trans and queer folx. My scholarship thinks about the intersections of emotional well-being and critical consciousness in Black trans and queer youth organizing spaces. Additionally, I love movement (dancing, yoga, hiking, biking) and being held and holding my loved ones.
Pearis Bellamy
Secretary and Collective Member
Pearis (she/her) is a Black woman who is passionate about culturally mindful healing interventions for survivors of trauma. She has always been passionate about working with survivors and decided to pursue her PhD in Counseling Psychology to develop skills in counseling, research, and teaching to help survivors on their healing journey. Pearis received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a concentration in Marriage and Families and a minor in Leadership Studies from Hampton University. Currently, she is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Counseling Psychology at the University of Florida. Pearis approaches her work using a Black feminist, africentric, and radical healing lens. She co-founded Academics for Black Survival and Wellness with her mentor, Dr. Della Mosley, in 2020. The initiative has garnered over 15,000 participants from across the world who participate in anti-racism trainings centered on accountability and action (non-Black participants) and wellness workshops and experiences (Black participants). Pearis enjoys developing creative and community-based programs to address social justice issues. She is passionate about working with individuals and groups at all stages to use their positionality and power to address the issues they are most passionate about.
Pearis is available for invited keynotes, workshops, and events for organizations on topics including (a) promoting and supporting Black liberation and healing and (b) scholar-activism as a graduate student.
Ollie Trac
Collective Member
Ollie Trac (they/them) is a queer and nonbinary Southeast Asian American psychiatric survivor and scholar-activist. They were initially drawn to this line of liberation work when they became involved as an undergraduate research assistant in Dr. Della V. Mosley’s research lab at the University of Florida, and since graduating with a Bachelor’s in Psychology, Ollie continues to work towards the survival and wellness of those living at the intersections of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ identities. They are learning to hold/embody/model principles of Black feminism, critical race theory, the MAD liberation and psychiatric survivor movements, and the multiple truths of our complex experiences that we hold as a collective. Ollie has led and facilitated workshops on basic LGBTQ+ cultural competency, domestic violence advocacy in marginalized communities, and anti-Blackness in crisis interventions within the mental health industrial complex. They have worked with various organizations to foster cultural competency and anti-racist practices, and are most drawn to work that allows them to bring their embodied knowledge, principles, and qualitative research to the table.
Teiona Laster
Collective Member
Hi guys! I’m Teiona Laster, a senior at Georgia State University majoring in Psychology with a minor in Sociology, and I’m set to graduate in Spring 2025. I’m deeply passionate about studying trauma and its impacts on marginalized communities. My current research focuses on how social determinants of health influence treatment outcomes in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and this is the basis of my thesis. I plan to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology to contribute to the field through both research and clinical practice. In my free time, I enjoy practicing yoga and hiking, finding balance and inspiration in nature.
Victoria McNeil-Young
Mentor for Training Program and Collective Member
Dr. Victoria McNeil-Young (she/her/hers) is a therapist, scholar, and professor with a passion for empowering individuals and communities. She identifies as a Black, cis, straight, woman. In all roles, personally and professionally, she operates using the values of equity, diversity, and intersectionality and strongly believes that social justice and an understanding of culture are integral components of wellness and liberation. Further, Dr. V is committed to enhancing the wellness of Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and has a specific interest in providing psychological services to BIPOC individuals and communities as well as organizations servicing these communities. Her research interests include understanding experiences of oppression and hate as well as justice and liberation among BIPOC groups and and Dr. V regularly provides consultation, workshops and trainings on these topics.
