EDUARDO VEGA, M.Psy.

Project Director
CEO/Principal at Humannovations

Eduardo Vega has worked as a leader in advocacy and transformative behavioral health programs and practices including national, state and regional technical assistance, research and training projects and major policy initiatives in suicide prevention, stigma and discrimination reduction, consumer rights and empowerment, community integration, self-help and peer support services. From 2010- 2016 he served as President/CEO of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco as well as the founder and Principal Investigator of the Center for Dignity, Recovery & Empowerment. Eduardo has been invited expert to the Obama White House, the US State Department and the World Health Organization.He serves on the Steering Committee of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the Global Anti- Stigma Alliance and the Executive Committee of the US National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, through which he founded the first national Suicide Attempt Survivor Task Force. For his work in culturally focused programs, stigma reduction, empowerment and systems change he’s been recognized by the United States Senate, the US Surgeon General and others. A wielypublished author, poet and playwright, he holds an M.A. in Psychology from New School for Social Research.

DEQUINCY LEZINE, PhD

Director, Research and Evaluation
CEO Prevention Communities

Dr. DeQuincy Lezine, President & CEO of Prevention Communities, started working on student mental health issues as a sophomore at Brown University. An internationally known suicide researcher and speaker he is the author of Eight Stories Up, 13 Answers to 13 Reason Why and primary author of The Way Forward: Pathways to hope, recovery, and wellness with insights from lived experience of suicide (from the US Suicide Attempt Survivor Task Force). DeQuincy is the founding Chair of the Attempt Survivor Lived Experience Division of American Association of Suicidology and Co-Chair of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Consumer Survivor Committee. He earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UCLA and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in suicide prevention research at the University of Rochester. Throughout his career, he has maintained a passion for mental health promotion and suicide prevention with college students.

SALLY SPENCER-THOMAS, Psy.D.

Associate Faculty,
Workplace Suicide Prevention, Bereaved and Post-vention 

Sally is a clinical psychologist, inspirational international speaker and an impact entrepreneur. Dr. Spencer-Thomas was moved to work in suicide prevention after her younger brother, a Denver entrepreneur, died of suicide after a difficult battle with bipolar condition. Known nationally and internationally as an innovator in social change, Spencer-Thomas has helped start up multiple large-scale, gap filling efforts in mental health including the award-winning campaign Man Therapy and the nation’s first initiative for suicide prevention in the workplace, Working Minds. Spencer-Thomas has also held leadership positions for the International Association for Suicide Prevention, the American Association for Suicidology, and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. She has won multiple awards for her advocacy including the 2014 Survivor of the Year from the American Association of Suicidology, and the 2016 Career Achievement Alumni Award from the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology. In 2016 she was an invited speaker at the White House where she presented on men’s mental health. In her recent TEDx Talk she shares her goal to elevate the conversation to make mental health promotion and suicide prevention a health and safety priority in our schools, workplaces and communities. She has a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver. She has written four books on mental health and violence prevention. She lives with her partner and three sons in Conifer, Colorado.