Rhonda Kennedy

Rhonda Kennedy is a filmmaker, podcast host and content creator best known as “Rhonda’s Real Talk” on YouTube. In the summer of 2019, she made her directorial debut with Medicated Dawn, a short film loosely based on her coming out story. The film screened at the Oakland International Film Festival, L.A. International Film Festival and California’s Women’s Film Festival.

The love of storytelling aligned Rhonda with her most recent project: Still Waters Never Crash, a documentary about one woman’s resilient journey from foster care to PhD. As the producer and director of the film, Rhonda was tasked with managing production during the pandemic and creating thoughtful questions that unlocked compelling details.

Community and representation are at the heart of who she is. Rhonda’s career is dedicated to telling stories that belong to black, masculine presenting women — a group that’s often overlooked in mainstream media.

Kourtney Hicks

Kourtney is an educator and filmmaker. As a self-taught cinematographer and editor, she has a fire lit inside to tell stories that evoke emotion and spark meaning conversation by any means necessary.

Dr. Sharrica Miller

Sharrica Miller is a doctorally prepared, board certified pediatric nurse practitioner with over 16 years of experience in nursing and nursing education. After spending 12 years of her childhood in foster care, Dr. Miller went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree from Howard University and worked as a nurse in multiple specialties, before going back to school to become a pediatric nurse practitioner. She earned her PhD from UCLA in2017 and was named one of five Johnson and Johnson’s Minority Nurse FacultyScholars two years in a row.

Dr. Miller is a foster youth mentor, advocate, and researcher who recently won the 2019 Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity award at California State University, Fullerton for her work as Director of the Diversity Support Team. She is also active in the community and her advocacy work earned her the 2021 Casey Family Foundation Alumni award. As a former foster youth and HBCU graduate, she utilizes both a professional and personal lens to create and sustain diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in various organizations including universities and child welfare agencies. Her research focuses on the health services utilization and transition readiness in transitional age foster youth.

She is a nationally renowned speaker that utilizes personal stories to facilitate personal transformation in individuals overcoming adversity.