our minds matter

The Team

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Lauren Anderson is a graduate of Langley HS in 2005 and UVA in 2009, earning a Bachelors of Science degree in Commerce. She then went on to work as a financial analyst at a middle-market investment banking firm in Atlanta, GA for two years. In 2011, she returned home to the DC Metro Area to put her energy into Our Minds Matter, formerly the Josh Anderson Foundation, which is named after her brother Josh, who died by suicide in 2009. Lauren has 10+ years of experience in executive leadership, program development & management and creating strategic partner and funding relationships.  

Lauren currently lives in Washington, DC with her two rescue pitbulls, Rori & Spud, and is a student and teacher of yoga.

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A DC native, Morgan (better known as Mo), is a writer, multimedia artist and postpartum doula who studies and imagines ecosystems centered around care. Her work is amplified through curriculum development, workshop facilitation, digital strategy and creative direction. She holds over ten years of experience in education, specializing in creative writing and youth development.

For three years Morgan worked as a facilitator during SMYAL’s Activist Summer Camp, facilitating social justice workshops and supporting youth as they launched GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) clubs at their schools, before transitioning into education as a teaching artist alum for Split This Rock and the DC Youth Slam Team. She later went on to serve as the Director of Poetry Programming for Words Beats and Life, helping young writers publish (and later on perform) their own manuscripts. She has most recently migrated into public health, with a focus on socio-emotional wellness and family-centered advocacy.

Mo is an internationally-recognized poet and performer, a two-time Harvard Alumni of Color Conference facilitator, TEDx speaker, Loft Literary Center Immersion Fellow, and was recently awarded by the mayor’s office as one of 2020-2021’s 40 Under 40 Queer Women of Washington. When not building new worlds, Mo can be found snuggled up with her Nintendo Switch and shamelessly binging Survivor.

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Rachel is a licensed social worker who proudly obtained her BSW and MSW from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. She is passionate about working toward a world where all people can thrive with dignity, and this drives her work.

Rachel has experience working with teens as a high school counselor in North Philadelphia, where she proudly provided resources around sexual education, healthy relationships, and healthy masculinity. Rachel was also proud to have founded the school’s first GSA with one of her students. Other experience includes providing therapy for folks who were re-entering society after incarceration, and working as a field organizer for the Democratic Party.

Rachel joined Our Minds Matter in May 2021 as a Program Coordinator, and is now honored to serve as the Program Manager. She is passionate about ensuring the teen voice drives everything we do, and does so by acting as liaison with our Teen Advisory Council. Rachel also champions program development to increase the OMM’s program impact, supports OMM’s research and evaluation to ensure we are data-driven and evidence-informed, and creates content for our monthly campaigns. As she works closely on the OMM Middle School pilot, She is eager to adapt the program to benefit younger teens in building key protective factors to prevent suicide.

Rachel lives in DC with her partner and their Frenchie, Bruce. She loves being a dog mom, joyful movement such as indoor cycling and boxing, and trying out new pescetarian recipes in the kitchen. You could also find her lost in a good book, listening to podcasts on walks by the water, and shamelessly bingeing reality TV in the name of self-care.

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Elizabeth Gutting received her BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing from Kenyon College and her MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University. Between college and graduate school, Elizabeth was a Fulbright Fellow in South Korea, where she taught English on the island of Jeju. Her professional experience includes over a decade of work in both the nonprofit sector and higher education. As Program Director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation (2014-2017), she ran literary programming in DC and also fundraised for the 40-year-old organization through grant writing, donor cultivation, and events. From 2017-2020, she was a lecturer and the program coordinator for the creative writing program at Boise State University, where she helped launch the university’s first-ever undergraduate degree in creative writing. She comes to Our Minds Matter from the Cheuse Center for International Writers at George Mason University, where she served as the assistant director. She is thrilled to bring her passion for nonprofit administration, storytelling, and fundraising to OMM.

Elizabeth is also a writer, and her fiction and nonfiction have been published in The New York Times, The Baltimore Review, The Rumpus, Humanities Magazine, and Juked, among others. She lives in Arlington, VA with her family.

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Julia grew up in Syracuse, NY and obtained their Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Ithaca College. During their undergrad years, Julia was selected as a Scholar within the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network, an innovative leadership initiative geared toward leveraging identity, personal strengths, and collective knowledge to positively impact social change and foster inclusive communities on and off campus.

Following their time at IC, Julia’s passion for youth advocacy and mental health promotion led her to a fellowship at Active Minds. She worked collaboratively to grow and increase representation within their national suicide prevention display. Through this, Julia has developed a love for employing programming and events to empower and promote vulnerability and help-seeking behaviors.

Julia lives in Rockville, MD, with her wife and their two kitties – Theo & Flink. She loves bagels, thrift shopping, reading books recommended by BookTok, and going on late-night drives with the windows down.

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Laura Beth obtained her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Virginia Tech. During her undergrad, Laura Beth served as a research assistant in the Center for Applied Behavior Systems (CABS). While in CABS, Laura Beth supported the development and implementation of a school-based training program. Her passion for youth and public service led her to earn a certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University in 2016. She has 10+ years of project management, providing customer/client service, and developing customer/client relationships from previous work as an HR Specialist at the Department of Defense, Service & Volunteer Coordinator at Averett University, and Director of Outreach & Philanthropy at Promote Care Prevent Harm. At Our Minds Matter, Laura Beth uses her educational background and professional experience to continually develop and enhance the OMM program, collect and analyze implementation data, and provide ongoing support to OMM students and partners.

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G Wei Ng, Ph.D. is a licensed counseling psychologist in the state of Maryland and her professional expertise is in the intersection of mental health and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Dr. Ng earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from University of Missouri – Kansas City. She completed an APA-accredited internship and a diversity-focused post-doctoral fellowship at Towson University Counseling Center. 

Prior to joining OMM, Dr. Ng was the Staff Psychologist and the Diversity Coordinator for Towson University Counseling Center where she oversaw a peer education program whose mission is to educate young adults on how the intersection of one’s social identities can influence their mental health, and was widely recognized as a fierce social justice and mental health advocate on-campus and beyond! Dr. Ng is also the owner and founder of G Psychological & Consulting Services, LLC. Her clinical interests include BIPOC and immigrant mental health, intersectionality and identity development, cross-cultural concerns, and decolonizing mental health. On these topics and others, she has served as a manuscript peer-reviewer, panelist, keynote speaker, and workshop presenter in the US and abroad. Throughout her career, Dr. Ng has worked tirelessly to help eradicate the stigma around mental health and help-seeking especially in marginalized communities. 

Dr. Ng lives in Ellicott City, MD with her partner and their son. She loves traveling, spending time in nature, exploring good locally-owned coffee shops and restaurants, and binge watching K-dramas.

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Ramona Plummer, received her B.S. in Biology from the first degree-granting HBCU, Lincoln University of PA and her Master’s in Public Health from Howard University. Although born in Florida, Ramona was raised in Maryland and attended schools throughout Prince George’s County.

Throughout her career, Ramona has done non-profit work and served families in Wilmington and Newark, DE and Southeast DC. She has experience working with teens through her previous role, where she served as the Senior Coordinator for Community and Family Engagement. For her Master’s program capstone project, Ramona focused on the effects social media use has on adolescents as it relates to their mental health, physical health, and beauty standards. Ramona is passionate about advocacy and is excited to implement her skills here at Our Minds Matter.

During her free time, Ramona enjoys music, crafts, and doing community service with her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

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Catherine Royston graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, MD in 2014 and from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. Shortly following graduation, she served in the Peace Corps in the West African nation of Togo. As a community health and malaria prevention volunteer, Catherine largely focused her work on health education at the local clinic, middle school, and in rural surrounding villages. She also helped organize and facilitate the Pathways Togo middle school and high school annual week-long conference which focused on how girls can stay in good health to stay in school. During her service, she was moved by the lack of awareness, dialogue and knowledge surrounding mental illness in her community. At the Josh Anderson Foundation, Catherine will be assisting with the expansion of the Our Minds Matter club to Montgomery County public high schools. Catherine enjoys running, cooking, discovering new music, and listening to the latest podcasts from This American Life and The Daily.

Part-time or contracted team members

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Sanice is a North Carolina Native who proudly graduated from the University of North Carolina in Charlotte in 2014 with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Communication Studies. She is an Operations Coordinator with a background that has spanned from the nonprofit sector to healthcare and financial industries. Sanice leverages her professional experience in operations and project management to provide daily operational support while collaborating with fellow team members to outline frameworks for strengthening internal systems and policies.

Sanice is a North Carolina native who in her free time enjoys completing epoxy resin projects, writing poetry, binging true crime shows and being outdoors whether that’s hiking or playing with her adopted beagle mix pup Rookie. 

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Jordan Booker received his PhD in Developmental Psychology from Virginia Tech and he is currently faculty in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri. Jordan’s research centers on different forms of social development–the importance of emotions, personality, and identity in how young people and adults function day-to-day. His recent projects have addressed the lasting importance of parenting for adolescent and adult behaviors, how connections with family and new friends help with the major transition to college, and the ways college students’ life stories about the COVID pandemic help us anticipate their ongoing resilience. At Our Minds Matter, Jordan is helping with Our Minds Matters’ efforts to understand how students are making sense of their time in OMM clubs and how involvement with OMM may promote student functioning at school, at home, and with their classmates.

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Tara Kwan received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She served one year as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs then worked as a Program Assistant/Program Manager at the nonprofit Program for Torture Victims. During her time at PTV, she saw firsthand how important trauma-informed care is to support asylum seekers’ mental health and their resettlement in the United States. She was inspired to go into social work to further help the community and she is now pursuing her Master of Social Welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles. At Our Minds Matter, she works to support staff with different projects to further their mission of promoting mental health awareness to students.

Tara resides in Monterey Park, California; she enjoys trying out new dessert places, creative writing, and watching Korean dramas in her free time.

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Kaitlin Miller has a Bachelors in Spanish from Hamilton College and a Masters in Public Administration from Cornell University. She has over 15 years of experience streamlining and strengthening internal systems for businesses, nonprofit, and government organizations. She has served as Chief Operating Officer and Director of Operations for numerous organizations and spent 5 years managing the largest federal housing program for homeless veterans under the Obama administration. In addition to her operations experience, Kaitlin brings to OMM a deep commitment to supporting middle and high school youth, building upon her experience as a foster parent for 4 years and as a YMCA teen camp counselor for 3 summers while in college.

Kaitlin lives with her husband, daughter, and golden retriever in upstate New York.