Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is an award-winning physician, researcher and public health leader who has spent her career on the front lines of some of our world’s most pressing public health challenges. As California’s first-ever Surgeon General, she helped guide the state’s COVID response, co-chairing the committee to recommend vaccine allocation and helping California achieve the lowest cumulative mortality of any large state. Amid the throes of the COVID pandemic, Dr. Burke Harris successfully launched a first-in-the-nation statewide effort to train over 20,000 primary care providers on how to screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and respond with trauma-informed care.

Dr. Burke Harris’ career has been dedicated to serving vulnerable communities and combating the root causes of health disparities. After completing her MPH at Harvard and residency at Stanford, she founded a clinic in one of San Francisco’s most underserved communities, Bayview Hunters Point. It was there that Burke Harris identified Adverse Childhood Experiences as a major risk factor affecting the health of her patients and applied research from the CDC and Kaiser Permanente to develop a novel clinical screening protocol.

In 2011, she founded the Center for Youth Wellness to advance pediatric medicine, raise public awareness, and transform the way society responds to children exposed to ACEs and toxic stress. In this role she founded the Bay Area Research Consortium on Toxic Stress and Health and led the first-ever randomized-controlled trial to validate ACE screening and assess treatment of toxic stress.

Dr. Burke Harris served as a committee member and co-author for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine for the consensus report Vibrant and Health Kids: Aligning Science, Practice and Policy to Advance Health Equity, published in 2019; and as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ National Advisory Board for Screening.

Her work has been profiled in best-selling books including How Children Succeed by Paul Tough and Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance as well as in Jamie Redford’s feature film, Resilience. She has also been featured on NPR, CNN, and Fox News as well as in USA Today and the New York Times. Dr. Burke Harris’ TED Talk, “How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across the Lifetime” has been viewed more than 10 million times. Her book The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity was called “indispensable” by The New York Times.

Dr. Burke Harris is the recipient of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award presented by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Heinz Award for the Human Condition. She was named one of 2018’s Most Influential Women in Business by the San Francisco Business Times and as one of Capitol Weekly’s Top 100 most influential people in 2020.

Topics:

• All Care Must Be Trauma-Informed Care
• We Are the Light! Transforming Systems of Care for Prevention & Healing
• Thriving: The State of Mental Health, The Impact of Trauma & How to Heal
• The Impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) on Individual Mental Health & The Preventative Childhood Experiences that Can Build Resilience
• The Determinants of Health in Children
• Trauma Informed Care
• Youth & Adolescent Recovery from Trauma, Mental Health and/or Substance Use
• Toxic Childhood Stress: The Legacy of Early Trauma and How to Heal
• “The Deepest Well” Conversation with Nadine Harris Burke

Rachel C. Thomas, M. Ed is a graduate of UCLA, a presidential appointee to the United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, and a personal survivor of human trafficking. She has extensive experience teaching, training, curriculum writing, public speaking and mentoring. As Director of Sowers Education Group since 2012, Rachel has reached over 150,000 live audience members and millions more through numerous media outlets including CNN, HLN, The T.D. Jakes Show, The New York Times Upfront Magazine, and ABC’s Newsmakers. Rachel is the lead author of the nation’s most widely used Human Trafficking Intervention Curriculum– Ending The Game (Journal Of Women and Criminal Justice, 2021) as well as The Cool Aunt Series, a sex trafficking prevention course for teens.

Dr. Patricia Eaton is a clinical psychologist with over 12 years of experience, known for her commitment to empowering women and her expertise in cross-cultural mental health. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of São Paulo in Brazil and completed her doctorate at Alliant International University in California.
Dr. Eaton began her career in community mental health, serving underserved populations in Contra Costa and Solano Counties through publicly funded substance abuse programs and providing mental health support to incarcerated and unhoused individuals. She then joined Kaiser Permanente’s outpatient psychiatry team in Vallejo, where she dedicated 10 years to patient care and advanced to become the Director of the Psychology Post-Doctoral Residency. In this role, Dr. Eaton designed and led a robust training program that has shaped the careers of dozens of doctoral candidates, fostering the next generation of psychologists.
A true global citizen, Dr. Eaton has lived and worked in various countries, bringing an international and multifaceted perspective to her practice. Fluent in English, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese, she connects deeply with multilingual and multicultural patients, understanding the nuances of cross-cultural mental health.
Throughout her career, Dr. Eaton has guided hundreds of patients in group and individual settings, with special focus areas in Women’s Empowerment and Positive Psychology. Now in private practice and licensed in California and Florida, she works with individual patients from major California tech companies, while simultaneously serving as a powerful role model, helping her patients build confidence and resilience by inspiring them to embrace their independence, pursue their passions, and thrive.

Megan B. Escoto is a former first responder working in Child Abuse Prevention. She holds degrees in Social Justice, Criminal Justice, and Behavioral Science. Megan decided to work in public service after experiencing abuse as a child, being part of the foster care system, and experiencing labor trafficking in the black market cannabis industry for five and a half years as a young adult. She saw how she fell through the cracks in the system after multiple visits to hospitals and various interactions with healthcare workers and law enforcement that did not result in the identification of human trafficking. So she decided to become a part of improving the system to help other victims and educate those who serve the public. She works to educate the community on human trafficking and child abuse prevention with a trauma-informed approach. In 2022, Megan received a recognition award from the Archdiocese of San Francisco for her work in restorative justice and was featured in a documentary in 2022 about surviving sexual assault. In 2023, Megan received a scholarship from the Buress Law firm in Texas for her work in the criminal justice system, sits on a legislative panel reviewing California legislation as it relates to sex crimes and other gender-based violence, and is a published author in an anthology about surviving human trafficking.

Taryn Hunter is a Chief Deputy District Attorney at the Napa County District Attorney’s Office. As a prosecutor in Napa for over a decade, she has handled a wide-range of cases including human trafficking, homicide, family violence, and crimes against children. Ms. Hunter is one of the founders of the Napa County Human Trafficking Taskforce, which she has co-chaired since 2022. She was born and raised in Napa. Ms. Hunter earned an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California Berkeley and a law degree from the University of California Law, San Francisco (Hastings). Ms. Hunter and her husband live in Napa County where they are raising their six-year-old twins.