Tuesday
June 10th
Speakers Programme: Activating Kindness
“Activating Kindness” begins with neurological and psychological underpinnings, then ladders up to demonstrate the practice of Activating Kindness in context.
Tickets are free but capacity is limited. To ensure your place, please book well in advance.
09.45-10.15am
The Neuroscience of Activating Kindness
What do neuroscientists consider when they think about Activating Kindness?
An informal, whistle-stop conversation spanning neural transmitters to transgressive activity, from chemical changes in empathy circuitry, to the behaviouralism of in and out groups, Creative Brain Week brings the best of current understanding and neural engineering to ask why do people:
- Expend energy to help others?
- Walk themselves into danger through Kindness?
- Can you activate kindness?
The panel includes
- Ian Robertson, Chair
- Agustín Ibáñez
- Temitope Farombi
- Alejandro López Valdés
Contributors
Temitope’s current focus is on leveraging telemedicine for dementia care and other neurological disorders, and implementing community engagement strategies to raise awareness and support for people living with dementia in Nigeria.
https://x.com/drtfarombi
https://www.linkedin.com/in/temitope-farombi-md/
Agustín Ibáñez is a neuroscientist interested in global approaches to dementia and social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience. He is the Director of Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI) in Chile. He also holds international positions from the USA/Ireland [Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) at the University of California San Francisco and Trinity College Dublin)] and Argentina [Cognitive Neuroscience Center]. Agustín holds a track record of +300 publications (+120 in the last five years), including top-ten journals (e.g., Lancet Neurology, World Psychiatry, Nature Reviews Neurology, Nature Human Behavior, JAMA Neurology, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Brain, Neuron). He has received funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), ANID (Chile), COLCIENCIAS (Colombia), DAAD (Germany), MRC (United Kingdom), CONICET (Argentina) and Alzheimer’s Association, Tau Consortium, GBHI, Takeda, and NIH/NIA (USA). He is the founder of critical regional initiatives, such as the multi-partner consortium to expand dementia research in Latin America (ReDLat) and the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium on Dementia (LAC-CD). His work has been highlighted in the BBC, Nature, Nature News, Discovery Channel, Popular Science, Daily Mail, Newsweek, Le Monde, and Oxford University Press, among others.
Websites:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6758-5101
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/agustin-ibanez-0
Social:
https://twitter.com/AgustinMIbanez
https://www.instagram.com/dr.agustinibanez/
Ian Robertson is a Founding Director of the Global Brain Health Institute and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. He is co-leader of the BrainHealth Project (Center for BrainHealth UTDallas) and is a Member of Academia Europaea and of the Royal Irish Academy. He is widely known for his research on neuropsychology and his science writing has included books aimed at the general reader: Mind Sculpture (2000), The Mind’s Eye (2003), Stay Sharp (2005), The Winner Effect (2012) and The Stress Test (2016), all of which have been widely translated. His most recent book How Confidence Works was published by Penguin in 2022.
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/ian-robertson
Social:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-robertson-4480502/
Currently, an Assistant Professor in Neural Engineering and Brain Health affiliated to the School of Engineering and The Global Brain Health Institute. He strives to contribute to the creation of applicable and scalable methods and solutions to support brain health throughout the lifespan. His research focuses on applied neural engineering supporting, aging, sensory dysfunction and cognition.
Born in Mexico in 1987, he has a background in biomedical engineering, and specialized in neural engineering. He has industry experience in the fields of ophthalmology surgery medical device service and management, medical device design, and auditory assistive devices research and development.
He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico. Completed his Master’s of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Groningen and Trinity College Dublin through the CEMACUBE programme funded by the European Union. He holds a PhD in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, specialized in neural engineering, from Trinity College Dublin.
Before joining Trinity College Dublin as faculty, he carried out research in the area of cognitive hearing sciences and brain hearing technologies at Eriksholm Research Centre in Denmark.
Websites:
https://www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=alopezva
Social:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alopezvaldes/
X: @lovalab_tcd and @alopevas
10.30-11.30am
Kindness in unkind zones? How environments impact brain health
Human beings are sense making beings. Affected by words and the weather, being listened to or ignored, by a sense of belonging or stigmatising behaviour. Over time what we sense may evolve into illness.
Speakers reflect on a range of Brain Health impacting issues.
Presenters include:
- Dominic Campbell, Chair
- Brian Lawlor – what is the stigma on living with a diagnosis of Dementia?
- Joaquín Migeot – exposome research – a range of environmental and contextual data suggests we look again at what makes Brain Health
- Ganzamungu Zihindula – research and experience of displacement in Congo and Ireland suggests we reconsider Brain Health
Contributors
Dominic Campbell is leading the Creative Brain Week initiative. As Bealtaine Festival Director he steered its celebration of creativity and aging’s development over eight years. Formerly an Artistic Director of Ireland’s national celebration he transformed St Patrick’s Festival’s three shows into ninety growing production, managerial teams, financial support, engagement and impact.
Dominic went on to design and produce national celebrations marking the expansion of European Union in 2004 and Centenary celebrations for James Joyce. For “The Day Of Welcomes” delivering 12 simultaneous festivals pairing EU expansion countries with Irish towns and cities engaging 2,500 artists from 32 countries.
He mentored “celebration of ageing” festivals in Wales (Gwanwynn), Scotland (Luminate), and developed projects with partners in Australia and The Netherlands. In 2012 he established the first global conference on Creativity In Older Age opened by Irish President Michael D Higgins, replicating it in San Francisco (2018) and Kentucky (2019).
Recognized as a key cultural influencer in Ireland by The Irish Times and by First Avenue as a Key Influencer in Aging in the US, in 2016 he became an inaugural Atlantic Fellow for Equity and Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute a project between Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco an ambitious worldwide program seeking social and public health solutions to reduce the scale and adverse impact of dementia. Currently developing an arts programme for the Irish Hospice Foundation as response to the pandemic and the Ageing Voices programme with Sing Ireland.
Website:
www.creativeaginginternational.com
www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-campbell
Social:
X: @CreativeAgeIntl and @CreativeBrainWk and @IrelandChorus
Professor Brian Lawlor (MD, FRCPI, FRCPsych, FTCD (Hon), DABPN) is Conolly Norman Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, and a Founding Director of the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College. He is a geriatric psychiatrist with an interest in dementia, late-life depression, loneliness and brain health. Brian has worked for over 30 years on developing services and delivering care to people with dementia. His research interests range from early detection and prevention to evaluating new treatments for dementia.
Websites:
https://www.understandtogether.ie
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/brian-lawlor
Social Media:
Neuroscientist passionate about studying brain health disparities in diverse populations from Latin America.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaqu%C3%ADn-migeot-8106b9352/
Dr Zihindula holds a PhD in Public Health (health promotion) which explored the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers’ accessing healthcare services in South Africa. His M.Sc in Medical Demography explored the reproductive health issues of internally displaced (IDPs) women who have been victims of rape. He has published over 26 scientific papers, presented at different conferences both locally and internationally, and has written four book chapters on a range of subjects, including gender-based violence amongst IDPs, reproductive health rights for refugees and lately the impacts of COVID-19 on forcibly displaced people in informal trading. Ganzamungu is currently an Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity. He works on a postdoctoral equivalent research Fellowship which aims at co-developing, piloting and evaluating a translational simulation (TS) delivery model for the promotion of psychological trauma – informed care (TIC) to improve service delivery within acute hospital settings, and where majority of socially excluded people (SEPs) seek care. Ganzamungu and another Global Atlantic fellows are also working on a refugee mental health awareness advocacy project stretched between South Africa and Uganda.
Website: https://tekano.org.za/tekano-fellow/ganzamungu-zihindula/
Social Media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-ganzamungu-zihindula-6719bba0/
11.45am - 1.00pm
The value of activating kindness
Where is the academic evidence for kindness?
What type of strategies does it suggest?
The panel includes:
- Brian Lawlor, Chair
- Niamh Flynn, the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, University of Galway, presents findings from empathy research with young people.
- Gillian Sandstrom of the Centre For Kindness Research Sussex University on illuminating the nature of kindness and its impacts on people and communities
Contributors
Niamh Flynn is an Educational Psychologist and lecturer in Educational Psychology at the School of Education. Her research and practitioner interests centre on inclusive education, empath and socio-emotional learning, student and teacher mental health and well-being, and student self-efficacy and self-regulated learning. She contributes to undergraduate and postgraduate initial teacher education and continuous professional development courses in the areas of psychology of education, inclusive teaching, and research methods. She is the Director of Year 2 of the Professional Master of Education (PME). Prior to joining the team at University of Galway School of Education, Niamh lectured in the School of Education at UCD, and worked as a psychologist with both the HSE (Early Intervention) and the National Educational Psychological Service.
Websites:
https://www.universityofgalway.ie/cfrc/
Professor Brian Lawlor (MD, FRCPI, FRCPsych, FTCD (Hon), DABPN) is Conolly Norman Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, and a Founding Director of the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College. He is a geriatric psychiatrist with an interest in dementia, late-life depression, loneliness and brain health. Brian has worked for over 30 years on developing services and delivering care to people with dementia. His research interests range from early detection and prevention to evaluating new treatments for dementia.
Websites:
https://www.understandtogether.ie
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/brian-lawlor
Social Media:
Clíona Murray is an assistant professor at the School of Education, University of Galway. She teaches sociology of education and research methods and is coordinator of practitioner research on the Máistir Gairmiúil san Oideachas. Her research interests include education policy studies, social inclusion, empathy education, minority languages in education, and narrative research. A graduate of University of Galway, UCL Institute of Education and Maynooth University, her doctoral research examined the interplay of education policy and teacher identity. Clíona worked as a post-primary teacher of French and German prior to taking up her current position.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cl%C3%ADona-murray-aa41b22b5/
Gillian worked in industry for 10 years as a computer programmer before discovering positive psychology. This led to her pursuing a Masters in Psychology at Ryerson University, where she developed a smile-and-wave relationship with a lady who worked at a hot dog stand. During her PhD studies at the University of British Columbia, inspired by the relationship with the hot dog lady, she started studying interactions with weak ties. Her work since then has focused on the benefits of minimal social interactions with weak ties and strangers, and the barriers that prevent people from connecting.
After completing her PhD, she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge before taking on a lectureship at the University of Essex. She started my role as Senior Lecturer in the Psychology of Kindness at the University of Sussex in 2022.
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/kindness/
Twitter/X: @GillianSocial
2.00 - 3.15pm
Kindness in Action
World leading minds share extraordinary creative initiatives to transform healthcare.
The panel includes
- Dominic Campbell, Chair
- Professor Vikram Patel on revolutionising mental health care in India
- Tim Charles reflects on 40 years leading health care in USA
- Mike Wamaya on Project Elimu working creatively for health in Kenya’s informal settlements
Contributors
Dominic Campbell is leading the Creative Brain Week initiative. As Bealtaine Festival Director he steered its celebration of creativity and aging’s development over eight years. Formerly an Artistic Director of Ireland’s national celebration he transformed St Patrick’s Festival’s three shows into ninety growing production, managerial teams, financial support, engagement and impact.
Dominic went on to design and produce national celebrations marking the expansion of European Union in 2004 and Centenary celebrations for James Joyce. For “The Day Of Welcomes” delivering 12 simultaneous festivals pairing EU expansion countries with Irish towns and cities engaging 2,500 artists from 32 countries.
He mentored “celebration of ageing” festivals in Wales (Gwanwynn), Scotland (Luminate), and developed projects with partners in Australia and The Netherlands. In 2012 he established the first global conference on Creativity In Older Age opened by Irish President Michael D Higgins, replicating it in San Francisco (2018) and Kentucky (2019).
Recognized as a key cultural influencer in Ireland by The Irish Times and by First Avenue as a Key Influencer in Aging in the US, in 2016 he became an inaugural Atlantic Fellow for Equity and Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute a project between Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco an ambitious worldwide program seeking social and public health solutions to reduce the scale and adverse impact of dementia. Currently developing an arts programme for the Irish Hospice Foundation as response to the pandemic and the Ageing Voices programme with Sing Ireland.
Website:
www.creativeaginginternational.com
www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-campbell
Social:
X: @CreativeAgeIntl and @CreativeBrainWk and @IrelandChorus
Tim Charles led healthcare organizations for 40 plus years guided the development and opening of cancer centres, heart centres, and innovation in aging and dementia. He led institutions through a devastating flood and an unimaginable pandemic. His work focused on breakthrough thinking, leadership development, team building, personal transformation; optimization of the well-being of the individuals he worked with and the patients they cared for. Now he’s learning how to reconceive my own life approaching the unique opportunity of “retirement” as a life design-laboratory, reframing ‘retirement’ as most dynamic and creative phase of our life. As John Schaar, American political theorist and professor, wrote: “The future is not a place we are going to, but a place we are creating.”
Paul Farmer Professor and Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, has focused on the burden of mental health problems across the life course, their association with social disadvantage, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment. He is co-founder of Mental Health Innovations Network, and Sangath, an Indian NGO which won the WHO Public Health Champion of India prize and the MacArthur Foundation’s International Prize
https://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/faculty-staff/vikram-patel
Michael Wamaya teaches ballet in Kenya’s Kibera and Mathare slums for Project Elimu.
Project Elimu is a community-driven non-profit organization offering after-school arts education and a safe space to children living in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Activities are centred on young people aged 3 to 22, with a focus on playful learning. This enables them to make sense of their surroundings by identifying, comprehending, and designing solutions to the various challenges they face.
Mike writes, “we explore the individual human potential and creativity in a much broader sense: who they are, what they think and believe, what they want for their futures, which has brought them a lot of confidence and self-esteem. Attending the classes has also turned around dropout rates and teenage pregnancy rates for his students. At the same time, needy children within the programme have gained scholarships, enabling them to finish their studies, and the programme has created a platform where children can engage in creative activities while developing their artistic careers.
3.30 - 4.30pm
Problem solving in process, making and measuring knowledge
Panellists from across healthcare, mental health advocacy and the arts explore kindness as an activator of creativity in health care.
The panel includes:
- Claire Howlin, Chair
- Barry McMahon
- Ann Quinn
- Noelle McAlinden
- Sara Boyce and Lisa Morrison
Contributors
Claire is a psychology researcher interested in identifying the long-term impact of music and visual arts engagement on lifelong health and wellbeing using controlled experimental designs and evidence synthesis from large international datasets. Central to Claire’s research is understanding how music and arts engagement can facilitate personal agency, identity development, and self-efficacy, which are key determinants of mental health and psychological wellbeing. Before coming to Trinity Claire held a Junior Research Fellowship with the University of Cambridge focussed on music therapy for autistic children, and a Creative Health Fellowship from University College London. Previously, her research has been supported by the Irish Research Council, Nurofen, the Society for Music Psychology and Education Research, and University College Dublin. She enjoys collaborating directly with artists and creative people and the findings of her previous research have been featured in a range of international academic journals (BMC Psychiatry, PLOS One, Journal of Music Therapy) and mainstream press outlets (e.g. Forbes Magazine, BBC Radio). She is currently in the special interest group for arts and health in the Royal Society of Public health.
https://www.tcd.ie/psychology/people/academic-staff/howlincl/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire-Howlin
https://www.autismresearchcentre.com/people/dr-claire-howlin/
Dr. McMahon has a national and international reputation as an Academic Medical Physicist in the fields of novel physiological measurement and medical device innovation and design. He has won a number of prestigious awards for his research and has successfully fostered a number of commercial offshoot companies. He has published a substantial body of work in several high impact journals related to his field of interest. He has secured significant funding from industry and grants to support his work and has funded several PhD and MSc projects both at TCD and ITT Tallaght. Dr. McMahon has established many links in Ireland and internationally and is central to several multidisciplinary projects, in particular he has demonstrated an ability to support translational research programmes. Currently he is Chief Physicist/Clinical Engineer at Tallaght Hospital and a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Medical Physics and Bioengineering in the School of Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin. He is Vice-President and Governor of the Irish College of Medical Physicists. He is a co-founder of TAGG and is driving the development of a strategic medical device innovation centre within the group.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Barry-Mcmahon
https://www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=mcmahob
https://www.childrenshealthireland.ie/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/annlquinn
Social:
https://bsky.app/profile/annlquinn.bsky.social
https://x.com/annlquinn
Promoting Creativity & Self expression, Positive Mental Health and Well being, Suicide Prevention.
Founder Member of Hope ,Healing & Growth in aid of The Aisling Centre, Enniskillen.
Member of Team Ohana ZERO suicide.
High Sheriff Fermanagh 2023
Founder of Moving Canvas Initiative
Chair NI Mental Health Arts Festival
https://www.linkedin.com/in/noelle-mc-alinden-746387b9/?originalSubdomain=uk
https://www.instagram.com/noellemcalinden/
Sara Boyce works as an organiser with the #123GP mental health rights campaign. She has worked with PPR since 2016, both as an organiser and also as a policy worker across a range of campaigns supported by PPR. Prior to joining PPR Sara worked on both sides of the Irish border with a range of community and human rights organisations, including with Traveller groups and children and young people’s organisations.
She also worked for over a decade from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s as a Speech and Language Therapist, before undertaking a Masters in Equality Studies in UCD in 2006. Sara is passionate about promoting the power of poetry and other forms of creativity in challenging oppression and inequality at all levels.
https://www.nlb.ie/campaigns/mental-health
Lisa is a lived experience consultant, mental health campaigner and post graduate student. She also works for Participation and Practice of Rights (PPR), a human rights organisation campaigning for a “New Script” for mental health. Lisa runs her own Training and Consultancy, bringing her lived and learned experiences to educate about the value and importance of trauma informed values and principles, both for people needing, and those working across a range of services. After being in psychiatric services for over 30 years with multiple diagnoses, medications and hospitalisations, she is reclaiming who she is without the many labels imposed on her. She also works for Participation and Practice of Rights (PPR), a human rights organisation campaigning for a “New Script” for mental health which recognises the impact of trauma, social injustice and inequality on people’s mental and emotional health and well-being.
At the heart of her work are relationships and the belief that every interaction matters. She loves learning and values research and theories but believes we need to remember, value and reclaim our innate wisdom. To get back to basics, nurture and celebrate heart work, and honour our common humanity. In creating spaces and building relationships where people’s inherent worth, gifts, strengths and skills can be harnessed, learning deepens where change that is meaningful and sustainable can happen.
It was reconnection with nature that led to Lisa’s path of healing and growth (a lifetime’s work), and she is grateful for the people over her life who have made this possible. She has learnt that multiple versions of reality exist and the different ways we come to understand ourselves, others and the world around us, are influenced by many factors. She recognises ‘difference’ can be challenging and also integral to the beautiful, sometimes tattered tapestry that is life. People should have choices about how they make sense and meaning of their experiences with more embodied, creative forms of expression, integral to our lives. PPR New Script campaign’s values of connection, compassion, community and choice, sum it up.
Lisa is in her second year at Ulster University, Belfast, of a Post Graduate Research Methods Programme for Social Workers, The Development and Co-production of Social Care Research having secured a ‘service user’ place. Her research is asking the question ‘What are the factors that impact the emotional health and well-being of Approved Social Workers’.
Lisa is part of a campaign group calling for an audit of Electroconvulsive Therapy. She has co-authored a paper with Prof John Read and Dr Chris Harrop, 2023 ‘An independent audit of Electroconvulsive Therapy patient information leaflets in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice 96 (4) 885-901.
https://www.lisamorrison.co.uk/
https://www.nlb.ie/campaigns/mental-health
4.45 - 5.45pm
Activate Kindness: Introduction to Threads
Examining how we can activate kindness in different spheres.
Nine Creative Brain Weeks in six countries in three years generated community, conversation, content and complexity. Tuesday’s final session brings reflection on these developing Threads, that will be explored in depth for the remainder of this week.
- Dominic Campbell – Creative Brain Week and chair of panel
- Oana Deac – The Healthcare Space – The Bleeping Interns Choir
- Brian Kennedy – The Cultural Space – US Museums and Health
- Darryl Williams – Partsol and the power of cognitive AI technology including collaboration with Royal Irish Academy of Music: Cognitive AI, Music, and the Application to Address Cognitive Decline
Contributors
Dominic Campbell is leading the Creative Brain Week initiative. As Bealtaine Festival Director he steered its celebration of creativity and aging’s development over eight years. Formerly an Artistic Director of Ireland’s national celebration he transformed St Patrick’s Festival’s three shows into ninety growing production, managerial teams, financial support, engagement and impact.
Dominic went on to design and produce national celebrations marking the expansion of European Union in 2004 and Centenary celebrations for James Joyce. For “The Day Of Welcomes” delivering 12 simultaneous festivals pairing EU expansion countries with Irish towns and cities engaging 2,500 artists from 32 countries.
He mentored “celebration of ageing” festivals in Wales (Gwanwynn), Scotland (Luminate), and developed projects with partners in Australia and The Netherlands. In 2012 he established the first global conference on Creativity In Older Age opened by Irish President Michael D Higgins, replicating it in San Francisco (2018) and Kentucky (2019).
Recognized as a key cultural influencer in Ireland by The Irish Times and by First Avenue as a Key Influencer in Aging in the US, in 2016 he became an inaugural Atlantic Fellow for Equity and Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute a project between Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco an ambitious worldwide program seeking social and public health solutions to reduce the scale and adverse impact of dementia. Currently developing an arts programme for the Irish Hospice Foundation as response to the pandemic and the Ageing Voices programme with Sing Ireland.
Website:
www.creativeaginginternational.com
www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-campbell
Social:
X: @CreativeAgeIntl and @CreativeBrainWk and @IrelandChorus
Dr Oana Deac graduated from Medical School in Trinity College Dublin in 2018. Prior to that she undertook a Bachelor’s Degree in Molecular Medicine in Trinity (2008-2012) and a Research Master Degree (MSc, 2012-2013). As a first year SPR in Oncology Oana is passionate about improving patient outcomes and her main area of interest in Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy. As an ICAT fellow she hopes to better understand the immune processes involved in the tumour microenvironment with the aim to elucidate the best timing to introduce new therapies in gastrointestinal malignancy.
Brian Kennedy is a leadership consultant and adviser to philanthropists and arts organizations. He has enjoyed extensive experience in directorship positions at art museums in Ireland, Australia and the United States of America. He is an accomplished community leader, communicator, educator, author, curator, fundraiser, mentor and thought leader in visual literacy and creative aging.
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/brian-kennedy
https://camd.org.au/brian-kennedy-andras-szanto-on-ageism/
https://eamichelsonphilanthropy.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-p-kennedy-05ab2136/
Dr. Darryl R. Williams is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientist of Partsol, a Tampa-based software company specializing in Cognitive AI solutions. With over 30 years of experience, he has led initiatives addressing complex challenges for government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. A retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, Dr. Williams holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and an MBA in International Finance from Auburn University. His expertise encompasses supply chain risk assessments, infrastructure vulnerability analysis, and cybersecurity initiatives. Dr. Williams has also contributed to academia as the Director of the Supply Chain Security and Risk Lab at the University of Alabama.