Tembi Locke is a New York Times bestselling author, screenwriter, TV producer, podcast host, and speaker known for her powerful storytelling on love, loss, and resilience. She is the co-creator and executive producer of From Scratch, the Netflix hit based on her memoir, which garnered six NAACP Image Award nominations and global acclaim. Tembi’s memoir, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home, was a Reese’s Book Club pick and a finalist for the Audie Awards and Goodreads Best Books. As a writer and producer, Tembi and her sister, Attica Locke, have an overall deal with Universal Television. This partnership includes projects like co-writing and executive producing the adaptation of Attica’s Edgar Award-winning Highway 59 trilogy, as well as developing new character-driven stories for film and television.

A nationally recognized speaker, Tembi has delivered keynotes on resilience, loss, and motherhood, including her popular TEDx talk, What Forty Steps Taught Me About Love and Grief. Her podcast, Lifted, highlights the inspiring stories of women who have embraced life’s pivots and lifted their lives. With a deep commitment to creativity and advocacy, Tembi’s work continues to inspire others to embrace resilience, community, and the transformative power of storytelling. She lives in Los Angeles and Sicily.

J.J. Duncan is an award-winning television producer, writer, advocate, and co-founder of the nonprofit, “Not Today Cancer,” which raises funds for childhood cancer research. She is widely known in the entertainment industry as an Executive Producer and Showrunner of such hits as Project Runway, and The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, among others.

After losing her eleven-year-old son to leukemia, J.J. began using her influence as a top television producer to open up discussions of grief, mental health, and end-of-life care through story-telling. J.J. was a speaker at the EndWell conference in November of 2023, and shared about healing through personal storytelling.

She has partnered with Hollywood, Health, & Society at the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, in discussing and studying the effects of media’s responsibility for telling authentic stories involving death and dying. She has written for Variety Magazine for World Mental Health Day, disclosing her own healing journey through grief by way of storytelling on television. J.J. has visited Washington D.C. on multiple occasions, to advocate for laws affecting cancer patients, young and old.

She has multiple projects in the works to continue the conversation not only for parents who have lost children, but for anyone looking to explore their own stories of loss.

With all her focus on death, dying, and grief, it may be surprising to learn that J.J. risks delight at every turn, always looking for the funny and striving to take the story to an unexpected place of joy. 

Emma Heming Willis is a British and Indian/West Indian model, entrepreneur, advocate, wife, and mother of two and stepmother of three. She is the co-founder and Chief Impact Officer for Make Time Wellness, a brand dedicated to promoting women’s brain health. Emma hosts the Make Time Podcast, along with co-host and co-founder, Helen Christoni and the Make Time to Connect YouTube program, which is committed to bringing important information on cognitive wellness and dementia to those in need.

In 2022, Emma’s husband, Bruce Willis, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Since then, she has become a passionate advocate for caregivers, tirelessly raising awareness about dementia and emphasizing the importance of brain health. Emma’s backing includes pushing for government action to formally recognize FTD’s unique impact on families, patients, and healthcare systems. Her ultimate mission is to see an end to FTD and all neurodegenerative diseases.

Emma’s work has garnered widespread recognition from renowned media outlets and organizations. She was featured on this year’s cover of Town & Country’s Philanthropy Issue and named one of People Magazine’s “Women Changing the World.” Among her upcoming honors, she will receive the Honorary Clio Health Award.

Emma’s first book, The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path is available now. 

Yvette Nicole Brown is an Emmy-nominated actress, writer, producer and host best known for her roles on the television shows: Community, The Mayor, Drake and Josh, The Odd Couple, Disney Plus’s Big Shot, and Act Your Age and films including Dreamgirls, Tropic Thunder, Avengers: Endgame, and Disney’s Disenchanted. She is also a 2020 NAACP Image Award Nominated writer for Always A Bridesmaid – the Romantic Comedy she penned and Executive Produced that is streaming on Netflix and BET+. Yvette sits on the National Boards of Donors Choose, EMILY’s List, MPTF Next Gen and SAG-AFTRA and is a caregiver and advocate.

With a foundation in movement and a career marked by versatility, LaNasa continues to deliver performances defined by honesty, intelligence, and emotional clarity—now led by her acclaimed work on The Pitt.

After a happy 30-year career as a palliative physician in the UK, Kathryn took early retirement in 2015 to figure out how to ‘do something’ about the widespread and woeful public misunderstanding of dying she encountered daily in her work. She wondered how we might recapture public understanding by using stories. Fortunately, an unanticipated invitation to describe ‘ordinary dying’ on national radio led to a huge and positive audience response, resulting in opportunities for more media work, an approach by a literary agent who brokered a book deal… and her book of stories about the lives of her patients With The End In Mind became an international best-seller, now translated into 18 languages. 

It’s all been a little bit unexpected. With a second best-selling book (Listen – how to find the words for tender conversations) under her belt and a third book on its way, Kathryn has been invited to speak at conferences, on radio and TV, and at ideas festivals across the UK and around the world. She’s on a mission to change the public conversation about dying, and her method is an age-old device for passing wisdom between generations: storytelling.

Kathryn is delighted to be invited to End Well 2025, to gather with fellow storytellers and celebrate our shared determination to re-claim dying as an important phase in all our lives.

Learn more about Kathryn’s work here.

(Photo by Darren Irwin)

Atlanta-based storyteller and Pastor with a doctorate from Emory focused on grief, storytelling, and virtues. Founder of Portrait Coffee and curator of We Go On, an immersive tour extending his book We Go On: Finding Life’s Purpose in Life’s Sorrows and Joys. He builds hopeful narratives, especially for Black and Brown communities. Married to Shawndra; dad to Ava.

Practicing internal medicine physician, journalist, End Well founder, and leading voice for values-aligned care, Shoshana produces and hosts the podcasts Before We Go and TED Health and appears regularly as a medical expert on major television networks. As executive producer of Netflix’s Oscar-nominated End Game and Robin’s Wish, her work focuses on transforming how we live, care, and connect in the face of life’s most profound moments.

Learn more about Shoshana’s work here.

Founder, podcast host, philanthropist, and former policy advisor. After a year-long grief sabbatical, Rebecca built Grieve Leave into a global community offering practical tools, resources, and humor for intentional grieving. Host of Grief’d Up, she’s been featured in TIME, Fortune, LA Times, and more. She helped secure bereavement leave for North Carolina state employees and continues pushing policy forward.

Licensed funeral director/embalmer, educator, and host of The Death & Grief Talk Podcast, Joél equips professionals to deliver culturally inclusive end-of-life, death, and grief care rooted in the belief that “culture is the medicine for grief.” Founder of the Multicultural Death & Grief Care Academy, she helps teams build trust, honor traditions, and create protocols that serve diverse communities. 

The Multicultural Death & Grief Care Academy’s work believes that honoring culture is the medicine that helps the world heal through grief. The organization equips and empowers professionals with the tools to create authentic, culturally inclusive experiences that honor diversity and inclusion at the end of life, after death, and throughout grief support. Its trademarked methodology empowers death and grief care professionals to earn lasting trust and build connections that reflect the needs of all communities.

Dr. Sasha Hamdani is a board-certified psychiatrist and ADHD clinical expert. She is an author, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate. Dr. Hamdani has worked closely with the White House and Surgeon General’s team to speak out about mental health awareness and was recognized by Harvard as a public health leader. She also has a robust social media following on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube (@thepsychdoctormd) where she provides evidence-backed information and dispels stigma around all facets of wellness. Her book Self-Care for People with ADHD was released through Simon and Schuster in 2023 and her comprehensive ADHD management app FocusGenie launched in Fall of 2023.

Teun Toebes (26) is an international healthcare innovator and humanitarian activist whose mission is to improve the quality of life of people with dementia worldwide. For over 3.5 years, he has been living on the closed ward of a nursing home. He has experienced why looking differently at dementia is so badly needed, which is why Teun decided to take his mission to the next level by looking beyond Dutch borders.

To find answers about how we can make the future more beautiful and inclusive, he travelled the world together with filmmaker Jonathan de Jong over the past few years for the global documentary ‘Human Forever‘ to see what we can learn from other countries. The film premiered at a G20 summit on dementia, was awarded with a Golden Calf and is now being screened in 22 countries.

Teun Toebes has more than 200 thousand followers on social media and can be seen in the international media. He’s an international speaker and previously published the #1 international bestseller ‘The Housemates’.

Dr. Adjoa Boateng Evans is an intensive care physician, anesthesiologist, mother, and sought-after speaker who is dedicated to restoring humanism in healthcare. She earned her undergraduate degree in the History of Science and Medicine from Yale University and later returned to Yale New Haven Hospital to complete her residency in anesthesiology. She went on to pursue fellowship training in critical care medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine.

Following her fellowship, Dr. Boateng Evans joined the faculty at Stanford, where she worked in both the intensive care units and operating rooms. She also served as a course director for Reflections and Contextual Medicine, a humanities course for medical students. In addition, she facilitated writing workshops for students and clinicians, using prose and poetry to shed light on the human experience we navigate in medicine.

In 2023, Dr. Boateng Evans returned to the East Coast to join the faculty at Duke University School of Medicine. She continues her clinical work as a critical care physician and anesthesiologist while also serving as a faculty associate with Duke’s Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine while also teaching in the School of Medicine.

Overall, her work in critical care medicine has facilitated a deep understanding of the vulnerability inherent at the end of life. She uses this lens to explore notions around how we live and die. Her medical humanities work centers around the “Prophesy of Pain,” as she seeks to reconcile moments of joy and suffering novel to the human condition experienced by patients and providers.

Watch her TED Talk here.

Nikki Boyer is an Emmy-nominated Executive Producer of the FX/Hulu and Disney+ limited series Dying for Sex, which is currently nominated for nine Primetime Emmy awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. She co-created, starred in, and Executive Produced the original Wondery podcast Dying for Sex, which won the Ambies Award for Podcast of the Year and was named one of Apple’s Favorite Podcasts of the Year.

The television adaptation stars Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate (as Nikki) and was created by Emmy-nominated Kim Rosenstock (New Girl, Only Murders) and Emmy Award-winner Elizabeth Meriwether (The Dropout, New Girl). The series was also recently nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Limited Series, with Jenny Slate winning Best Supporting Performance for her portrayal of Nikki.

The deeply personal story follows Nikki’s real-life journey with her best friend, Molly, who was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and chose to embark on a bold, transformative adventure of sexual and emotional healing.

A three-time Emmy® Award-winning host, Nikki has recorded over 600 podcast episodes and hosted several acclaimed series for Wondery, including Call Me Curious, The Daily Smile, and Straight Talk with Ross Mathews. She’s brought her signature warmth and humor to daytime television as a guest co-host on The Drew Barrymore Show, Access Hollywood Live, and The Talk, and spent eight seasons as a correspondent on The Wendy Williams Show. She became a digital media favorite as the Webby Award-winning host of Yahoo!’s Daytime in No Time, which drew nearly a billion views over five years.

As an actress, Nikki has appeared in Gilmore Girls, 90210, and The L Word, and will also appear in FX’s Dying for Sex. She served as Co-Executive Producer on Step Girlfriends, a scripted comedy based on her life, developed by CBS Studios.

Off-camera, Nikki is a certified life coach, a passionate dog rescue advocate, and a longtime volunteer for the Suicide Prevention Hotline. Whether behind the mic, on screen, or in conversation, her work is fueled by vulnerability, humor, and a profound belief in the healing power of storytelling.

Tamatha Thomas-Haase, MPA, was wife to a remarkable partner; mom to a quixotic creative; and a fierce public health practitioner, living with metastatic breast cancer. She knew the comfort provided to others by a warm, homemade meal, a note scribbled on a card or a sit on the front porch. She was told on more than one occasion that her emotions were too big and thus, she was unsupervisable. 

In that legacy snapshot, can you feel how Tamatha lived? 

Here’s the thing: Tamatha is still (very much) alive, joining End Well 2025 from within her radical mission to be remembered for the whole damn thing: her pretty parts and her ugly bits, so that her legacy is really hers. 

Professionally, Tamatha brings 30 years of public health experience facilitating communities of practice; writing tools & curricula; and leading meetings & conferences for state and federal agencies, as well as national nonprofits.

Tamatha roots her work in connection—linking people to each other and to knowledge, in service of collective wellbeing. She also brings this spirit to Grand Exit, the life-affirming death wellness podcast she co-hosts with dear friend Chelsea Leader Gold, sharing the scenic route through the life-death-legacy continuum from ever-shifting vantage points.

Seven years after being diagnosed with Stage III-C triple negative inflammatory breast cancer, Tamatha is living, now metastatically, in a beautiful pile of juxtapositions. (Maybe so are you and yours?). She is thrilled – and humbled – to share musings at End Well.

And you should know: she is still unsupervisable.

Michael Erard is a linguist and non-fiction writer. He is the author of three books about language, the most recent of which is Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words, which The Economist called “beautiful” and “strangely comforting.” Other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Science, The Atlantic, Aeon, Texas Observer, and elsewhere. He graduated from Williams College and has an MA and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. His work has been recognised with awards and fellowships from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Linguistics Society of America, the Max Planck Society, and the US National Endowment for the Humanities. Originally from the US, he now makes his home in the Netherlands, where he is a researcher at the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University. He is also training to become an end of life doula. 

As a Palliative Care physician leader and visionary (AAHPM awards); Pediatric Oncologist; and Phase I and Palliative and End– of– Life Care Clinical Investigator, Dr Baker is intimately aware of the distress experienced by children with advanced illnesses and the ethical and end–of–life/bereavement issues surrounding their disease progression. He currently serves as the Inaugural Chief of the Division of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care here at Stanford, as well as the Director of the Quality of Life for All (QoLA) Program. Additionally, he serves as the Associate Chief Quality Officer for Patient Experience and Holistic Care. In his past career at St Jude Children’s Research Center, he started the St Jude palliative care program, created two home-based pediatric palliative care teams and served as the director of the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program for more than a decade.

His research expertise is in the study of innovative models of palliative care, grief and bereavement, patient-reported outcomes, and pain and symptom control. He has received significant extramural funding for his research and has participated in >100 studies related to pediatric palliative care. He is also deeply committed to training up the next generation and to mentorship. He has mentored/co-mentored more than 60 post-docs, fellows, and junior faculty members. He has authored >300 academic works on palliative care subjects.

He has received many awards for his work including the prestigious Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Award. He was also named an American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Inspirational Leader in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Most recently Dr Baker was named an AAHPM Visionary in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. 

He is a recognized international expert and leader in the field of Pediatric Palliative Care as well as a highly sought-after speaker (see TEDxMemphis talk) and mentor with a track record of success.

Melissa Reader is a social entrepreneur who leads with both head and heart. Her background in adaptive leadership and human-centered design has shaped a distinctive approach: she doesn’t just drive change, she brings people along on the journey, helping them see they’re not just supporting the solution – they are the solution.

Melissa understands that lasting transformation happens when people feel genuinely connected to both the problem and how they can solve it. Her approach builds genuine resilience because people aren’t being managed through change –  they’re actively shaping it.

This leadership philosophy, combined with her own family’s journey through love, life and loss, led Melissa to create Violet, a virtual care platform transforming how we navigate life’s final chapters. Violet addresses the practical, emotional, and clinical aspects of this critical life stage, improving outcomes for people and their families while reducing massive system costs.

The platform balances humanity with technology, creating cultural and behavioural change that proves innovation and compassion can coexist at scale. Violet is setting new benchmarks across caretech, agetech, and healthtech. This isn’t just about building better systems – it’s about fundamentally changing how society approaches the last stages of life.

Melissa is a Harvard Kennedy School and INSEAD AVIRA program alumna, recipient of the Chief Executive Women’s Entrepreneurs Scholarship and Westpac Social Change Fellowship. In 2023, she secured a coveted Techstars Accelerator spot, taking Violet’s transformative potential to the global stage.

Dr. Anao Zhang, PhD, LCSW, OSW-C, ACBT is a leading voice in adolescent and young adult (AYA) palliative and psychosocial oncology. As an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan and Research Director for Clinical Services in its AYA Oncology Program, Dr. Zhang sits at the powerful intersection of science, care, and humanity. He is known for developing innovative, evidence-based mental health solutions that honor the complexity of living—and dying—young with cancer.

Trained in both clinical social work and advanced statistical modeling, Dr. Zhang leads nationally recognized research that translates cutting-edge mental health science into real-world tools: from AI-powered distress screening apps to hope-based therapies like solution-focused brief therapy and digital cognitive behavioral treatments. His work is grounded in equity, dignity, and the belief that healing isn’t only about curing—it’s about caring, deeply and creatively.

Dr. Zhang has secured nearly $3 million in research funding and published over 90 peer-reviewed studies. But what matters most to him is this: making space for the emotional truths of young people navigating serious illness. He believes that palliative care is not just an endpoint, but a radical act of presence and partnership.

Fernando Murillo is a proud father to a 4-year-old son and a resident of the most beautiful city in the world—San Francisco, California. He spent five years working in the only licensed hospice within the California prison system, providing compassionate care to patients at the end of life.

At the age of 16, Fernando was sentenced to 41 years to life and ultimately served 24 years in prison. During his incarceration, he was featured in The New York Times Magazine article “Where Patients and Caregivers are Prisoners” and was recently included in The Book of Alchemy, a New York Times bestseller by Suleika Jaouad.

Today, Fernando is the Program Manager for the Humane Prison Hospice Project, where he is part of a dedicated team that trains incarcerated people to become peer caregivers for patients with serious illnesses.

MindTravel is an immersive experience where music and mindfulness meet. Through music, the language of emotion, creator and composer Murray Hidary seeks to open the heart to healing and transformation with his evocative and expansive live-piano compositions.

Hidary has brought MindTravel to iconic theaters and spectacular outdoor venues in over 100 cities the world over. From the deserts of the Middle East to the first-ever piano concert on the continent of Antarctica, Hidary seeks to bridge gaps in understanding through the universal language of music.

Murray Hidary is also an entrepreneur and tech pioneer and in the early days of the Internet co-founded and built companies including EarthWeb, Dice Inc, Vista Research and eBillity. Today, he is focused on the human experience and, through the MindTravel Foundation, helps people better connect with themselves and one another.

Felicia Marie Knaul is internationally recognized for her transformative research in global health, health systems, and health economics. At UCLA, she is the associate of the chancellor, a distinguished professor of medicine, senior advisor to both the dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine and the president of UCLA Health, and director of global health at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. She co-chaired the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief.  The Commission’s final report, “Alleviating the access abyss in palliative care and pain relief – an imperative of universal health coverage,” for which she was a lead author, was dubbed a “landmark report” by The Lancet.  The Commission’s work spawned a highly productive global research hub under Knaul’s leadership. Knaul is also president of Tómatelo a Pecho, the Mexico-based non-profit agency she founded in 2008 that originally focused on breast cancer but has since expanded its mandate to include women’s health and health system strengthening.

Chaplain Clark has a Master of Divinity degree from the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley California. She has worked as a Hospice Chaplain for 16 years and a Palliative Care Chaplain at Alameda Health system for 15 years. She has certificates in Palliative Care Chaplaincy, Managing Spiritual Care and Grief Counseling.

Chaplain Clark is the founder of the Church Without Walls where she pastored together with Rev. Eugene Williams for 26 years. She is the founder of The East Bay Community End of Life Coalition. Chaplain Clark is the first woman to be the president of The Saint Lukes Society, and the first woman President of the Board of the ARC of the East Bay. She loves her work with the patients and staff at Alameda Health System. 

She believes that we are all wounded healers traveling this path together that leads to wholeness. That no one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care, and that everyone has a story. Chaplain Clark feels that it’s not what is wrong with you, but what happened to you?

Jessica Zitter is a documentary filmmaker, writer, physician, and founder of Reel Medicine Media, a non-profit devoted to using story to transform and humanize medical culture. Dr. Zitter is the primary featured subject and a member of the team that created the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary “Extremis (2016).” She went on to direct and produce the award-winning documentary “Caregiver: A Love Story (2020),” which examines the growing crisis of family caregiver burden in the United States. Her third documentary, “The Chaplain & The Doctor (2025)” explores the transformative relationship between a hospital chaplain and a physician challenging the fragmented clinical approach to patient care. Dr. Zitter’s book, “Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life” (2017), describes her evolution from a doctor focused on extending life at all costs to one more patient-centered and humanistic.

Her essays and articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Time Magazine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, among others. She has also been featured on “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, “The Doctors,” “Doctor Oz,” CBS Sunday Morning, and others. Recently named one of Next Avenue’s “Influencers in Aging,” Dr. Zitter practices the unusual combination of critical care and palliative care in Oakland, California.

Meghan Riordan Jarvis is a trauma therapist, grief educator, and the founder of The Grief Mentor Method™, a framework that helps individuals and organizations navigate loss and change with clarity, compassion, and embodied resilience. Her work is deeply personal. As a child, Meghan experienced a community tragedy that shaped her lifelong commitment to understanding grief. Decades later, the deaths of both of her parents—her father after a yearlong battle with cancer, and her mother unexpectedly two years later—propelled her into an even more intimate relationship with loss.

Drawing from her personal experience and professional expertise as a therapist, Meghan created The Grief Mentor Method™ to help people name and understand the many forms of loss and learn to regulate their bodies and systems in the face of profound change. Her method has guided C-suite leaders, educators, clinicians, and communities toward building grief literacy and collective resilience.

Silvia Perez-Protto, MD, MS, MBA is a staff member at the Intensive Care and Resuscitation Department at the Cleveland Clinic, and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at the Cleveland Clinic Learner College of Medicine. She is the medical director of the End of Life Center at the Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Perez-Protto earned her medical degree, post-graduate intensive care medicine and organ donation specialist degrees from Universidad de la República, Montevideo-Uruguay.

She worked as an intensivist and transplant coordinator, conducting more than 100 organ donation interviews before relocating to the US in 2006. She was a Fundación Carolina scholar in 2005 at the Transplant Services Foundation, Clinic Hospital Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. She earned the ECFMG certificate and completed her post-graduate training including anesthesiology residency and critical care fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Perez-Protto served as the president of the Ohio Chapter of the Society of Critical Care Medicine from 2018-2020 and was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine in 2021.

Dr. Perez-Protto has published multiple research articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as having contributed abstracts and presentations at several professional association meetings. She served on the Cleveland Clinic Bioethics Committee for 5 years and as teaching faculty at the Center for Excellence in Healthcare Communication for 4 years. She led the opening of the Intensive Care Unit at the Cleveland Clinic Lutheran Hospital and served as the medical director until 2023. She served as the president of the Women Professional Staff Association 2023-2025.

As the medical director of the End of Life Center, Dr. Perez-Protto has designed and implemented the Advance Care Planning program at the Cleveland Clinic, with the aim of delivering goal-concordant care. She has co-led the implementation of “The Pause” to honor the person who dies at the hospital and the care provided by the healthcare team. She has co-created “The Pause” App and Death over Dinner for Healthcare to foster caregiver resilience related to end of life care.

Dr. Perez-Protto has designed and co-implemented an innovative program providing critical care services to Lifebanc Organ Procurement Organization, to optimize the detection and management of organ donors from 2024 to 2025.

Cultural Anthropologist, Death Educator, Author

Anita Hannig is a cultural anthropologist, death educator, and author of The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America. A finalist for the Oregon Book Awards, The Day I Die combines vividly intimate narratives of individuals pursuing a medically assisted death with hard-hitting reporting on the roadblocks many terminally ill people face in their quest for a self-determined end. In recent years, Anita has emerged as a leading voice on death literacy in America, speaking about her work in hospitals, medical schools, and community spaces across the country. She has written for PBS, Newsweek, the British Medical Journal, Cognoscenti, The Conversation, Undark, and The Seattle Times, among others. In 2024, she came out with a new death education tool, My Death Diary: A Guided Journal for Mortals. 

Anita earned her B.A. in Anthropology from Reed College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. She has received an array of fellowships and grants, including from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. Her first book, Beyond Surgery: Injury, Healing, and Religion at an Ethiopian Hospital (2017), won the Eileen Basker Memorial Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology in 2018. Anita previously worked as Associate Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University, where she taught classes on medicine, religion, and death and dying.

Filmmaker, Death Doula, Co-Founder 

Heather Hogan is a New York-based filmmaker and death doula whose personal experiences with loss led to a holistic study of life and death. She is the director of the feature documentary, Other Side (2025), which follows activist Lynda Bluestein’s journey, an attempt to access Medical Aid in Dying in Vermont as a non-resident. The documentary premiered at the SXSW film festival in Austin earlier this year. Her films and counseling services investigate the social, emotional, and spiritual impacts of living and dying within a death-denying culture, and highlights where we all have agency to create meaningful change for ourselves and others. She believes that the more curious we are, and the more we collectively think about, talk about, and embrace our mortality, the less we have to fear.

As a student of social work, Heather centers the exploration of mortality and end-of-life care as a form of social activism. She is the co-founder of Death Differently, a short-film series and educational platform focused on unusual stories related to death and dying. She established her coaching practice, Wisdom and Sage in 2016, where her coaching and counseling services blend traditional and nontraditional practices to aid clients in accessing higher levels of fulfillment and connectedness. Hogan’s doula work is often done remotely, and primarily supports and guides family members in how to care for their loved ones at the end of their lives. Her future clinical practice will incorporate the therapeutic use of psychedelics in the treatment of trauma and grief.

Filmmaker, Co-Founder

Carter Oakley is an award-winning filmmaker, co-founder of the online educational platform Death Differently, creative director of Entertainment to Affect Change, and he runs the production company Redins. Carter’s work has predominately focused on terminal illness and end-of-life advocacy.

Jacob Shannon is the son of Lynda Shannon Bluestein, who was a pioneering advocate for medical aid in dying before making that choice for herself in 2024. Picking up where his mother left off Jacob has put himself out front in this cause in his home state of ColoRADo, and elsewhere, regularly speaking to the media, testifying before state legislatures, and volunteers time helping terminally ill patients fulfill the needed paperwork to qualify for medical aid in dying. Jacob lives in Denver with his dog Kiwi and twin daughters and recently has jumped feet first into the nonprofit he started with his mom, Lynda’s Phones, promoting good grief through wind phones.

Dr. Bob Uslander is a palliative and end of life care physician with over 37 years of experience, including 25 years as an Emergency Medicine Physician. His journey into Palliative and End-of-Life Care began after supporting a close friend through a deeply human and transformative dying process—an experience that illuminated how meaningful and beautiful the end of life can be when thoughtfully and holistically supported.

In 2013, driven by a passion for supporting dignity, autonomy, and quality of life in every chapter, Dr. Uslander transitioned his career to focus on caring for people living with complex and terminal illnesses. Alongside his wife and partner Elizabeth, a social worker and spiritual counselor, he co-founded Empowered Endings Medical Group, a Southern California-based medical practice delivering holistic, compassionate in-home medical care and counseling. Together, they also launched the Empowered Endings Foundation, a nonprofit committed to bridging healthcare gaps and ensuring that no one is denied care due to financial limitations.

Dr. Uslander is widely recognized as a national expert in Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) and Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED). He regularly provides education to both healthcare professionals and the public, helping people understand not only the legal and clinical processes, but also the emotional and relational complexities that arise when these options are considered.

At the heart of his work is a belief that with the right support, the end of life can be one of the most connected and empowered times in the journey of being human.

Jackie is a renowned sound musician, meditation guide, multi-disciplinary artist, and 1:1 coach, known for her facilitation at some of the largest meditations in the world.

As the Director of Sound for the mass meditation movement The Big Quiet, Jackie  worked on tour with Oprah Winfrey facilitating sound meditation experience for audiences of 15k+.

She has also been resident sound practitioner for Chopra Global & Sage + Sound in NYC, Co-Founder of Sounds Nice and former Director of Medi Club. Most recently, Jackie was officially signed by Nike as a NYC Wellness Trainer.

With a wealth of experience, Jackie has held residencies at Marriott, Hotel June/Proper Hotels, The Surf Lodge, Papaya Playa, Auberge, Public Hotel NYC, Four Seasons, and Civana Wellness Resort, offering her expertise in sound meditation.

Specializing in crystal singing bowls and weaving resonant instruments, Jackie creates immersive sound meditation experiences for both group and 1:1 settings. She is a partner to & distributor for Crystal Tones + offers group sound practitioner mentorship focused on embodied leadership through her sound practitioner training program, Bowl Club.

Author of BRIEFLY PERFECTLY HUMAN: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End, Alua Arthur is the most visible death doula in America today. She is a recovering attorney and the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization. Her TED Talk titled, “Why Thinking About Death Helps You Live a Better Life,” went online in July 2023 and has already received over 1.5 million views. A frequent guest on TV and radio, Arthur has been featured on CBS’s The Doctors and in Disney’s Limitless docu-series with Chris Hemsworth, as well as other national media outlets, such as Vogue, InStyle, the Los Angeles Times, The Cut, The New Yorker, New York Times, Marie Claire, and CNN. She has appeared on dozens of podcasts, and a Refinery29 video feature on Arthur and her work received ten million views across social platforms. She travels the country and world as a keynote speaker, addressing audiences at medical and end-of-life conferences, universities, seminaries, senior citizens’ communities, and more, and is perpetually in the quest for donuts.

Barbara Karnes is an award-winning hospice pioneer, nurse, and end-of-life educator whose work has shaped how millions understand the dying process. Honored with the NHPCO Hospice Innovator Award and named International Humanitarian Woman of the Year, she is best known for her booklet Gone From My Sight—“the Little Blue Book”—which has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide since 1985.

Recognized as one of today’s foremost experts on grief, Claire Bidwell Smith is a licensed therapist, international speaker, and the best-selling author of five books published in 22 countries. Claire has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, Scientific American, Goop, Oprah and many more outlets. Led by her own experience in grief and fueled by her work in hospice and private practice, Claire strives to provide support for all kinds of people experiencing all kinds of loss.

www.clairebidwellsmith.com

Ira Bedzow, PhD is a leading voice on purpose-driven leadership, ethical decision-making, and the role of values in shaping lives, organizations, and society. As the Executive Director of the Emory Purpose Project at Emory University, he helps students—and audiences of all kinds—reflect on meaning, align their choices with their core values, and live with greater intentionality.

Dr. Bedzow brings a unique perspective that bridges higher education, healthcare, business and organizational culture, and moral leadership. He is an Associate Professor in the Practice of Organization & Management at Goizueta Business School, an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Emory School of Medicine, and a core faculty member at Emory’s Center for Ethics. He also serves as a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

His work focuses on how individuals and institutions can cultivate ethical cultures, especially in the face of complexity. Whether unpacking the ethical implications of biotechnology and healthcare policy or helping leaders move from asking “What should I do?” to “How can I act on my values effectively?”—he offers practical insights grounded in deep philosophical thought.

Dr. Bedzow is also a Senior Scholar at the Aspen Center for Social Values and co-director of the Ferencz Institute for Ethics, Human Rights and the Holocaust. He brings the depth of a philosopher, the clarity of a communicator, and the heart of a teacher—and, as an Orthodox rabbi, he speaks fluently across traditions, sectors, and audiences.