Executive Board

Eleanor C. Irwin

Ellie Irwin, PhD, RDT, TEP, began her career as a drama therapist at the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center. Currently in private practice, she teaches, supervises, and consults with play and arts therapists as well as residents in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, where she is a Clinical Assistant Professor. A registered drama therapist, licensed psychologist, and certified as a Trainer, Educator and Practitioner in Psychodrama, Ellie is a recipient of the Schattner Award from the National Association for Drama Therapy (now the North American Drama Therapy Association), which she helped to co-found in 1979. She is also a certified Child and Adult Training and Supervising Analyst at the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center, where she served as a Past-President. Ellie has taught numerous clinical courses, made films about the creative arts, and has written extensively about aspects of theory and practice in treatment. With Judy Rubin, she co-founded Expressive Media in 1985.

Jacqui Johnson

Jacqui Johnson

Jacqui Johnson, LPC, NCC, ATR-BC, CCMHC, PMH-C, is the Founder and Clinical Director of Sankofa Healing Studio in Philadelphia. She is a Social-Justice Art Therapist who specializes in trauma-specific treatment within marginalized communities, using a holistic approach. As a trained art therapist and play therapist, Jacqui integrates art, story-telling, hip-hop therapy, parts of self, and body awareness, using EMDR, Brainspotting, and energy-based practices (e.g. Sound & Energy Healing, Reiki) to create holistic healing-centered spaces. Jacqui provides consultation to newly trained EMDR and Brainspotting clinicians seeking certification and is a training facilitator for EMDR in Color. Jacqui teaches in the Community and Trauma Counseling program at Thomas Jefferson University, and lectures widely around the country. Her clinical work and research center around working with people in the Black community who have been impacted by childhood, racial, and generational traumas, as well as mass incarceration and systemic trauma.

Judith A. Rubin

Judy Rubin, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM, began her career as an art teacher and has done art therapy for over 50 years. A licensed psychologist and board-certified art therapist, she is on the faculties of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center. An Art major at Wellesley College, Judy earned a Master’s degree at Harvard, a PhD at the University of Pittsburgh, and completed training in Adult and Child Analysis at the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute. A past President and Honorary Life Member of the American Art Therapy Association. Judy was also the Art Lady for the first three years of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on public television. Author of six books and creator of thirteen films, she co-founded Expressive Media with Ellie Irwin in 1985. View Judy’s books on Routledge.

Reina Lombardi

Reina Lombardi, ATR-BC, ATCS, LMHC-QS is a Registered Board Certified Art Therapist, Art Therapy Certified Supervisor, and Licensed Mental Health Counselor Qualified Supervisor practicing in Fort Myers, Florida. She is the owner of Florida Art Therapy Services, LLC where she and her small team of therapists provide in-person and technology facilitated individual and group art therapy and counseling services, contracted art therapy groups at various community agencies, supervision and continuing education programming for counselors and art therapists. She has contributed to several academic texts on the topics of art therapy and clinical supervision, and is a frequent presenter/speaker at local and national professional conferences. She is the owner of Creative Clinician’s Corner, LLC, where she hosts and produces the Podcast The Creative Psychotherapist and offers practice building resources and consultation services for creative arts therapists with a desire to build and scale their own private practice. As the host of The Creative Psychotherapist, she interviews successful creative therapists about the tools and strategies they use to grow their dream practices, as well as how they have hustled to create additional streams of income using their knowledge and creativity by developing products and services that enhance their therapy practices and their therapeutic reach.

Team

Gussie Klorer

Gussie Klorer

Gussie Klorer, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM, is a Professor Emeritus at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She is an Honorary Lifetime Member of the American Art Therapy Association (AATA) and the 2001 recipient of the AATA Clinician’s Award for her work with children and families. Dr. Klorer is author of Expressive Therapy with Troubled Children (2000, Jason Aronson Inc.), Expressive Therapy with Traumatized Children, 2nd Edition (2017, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers), as well as numerous articles and book chapters focused on art therapy with children in foster care with severe trauma and attachment issues. View Gussie’s Books

Kim Cox

Kim Cox

Kim Cox, MA, is a Professional Organizer who specializes in Residential Organizing, including an added specialty of working with those who struggle with hoarding and Hoarding Disorder. She has a bachelor’s in psychology from High Point College and a master’s in community counseling from The George Washington University. Kim also has many hours of training in psychodrama from the Hudson Valley Psychodrama Institute in Highland, NY, as well as the Association of Group Psychotherapy & Psychodrama (ASGPP). Kim is currently continuing her education in chronic disorganization and organizing as a subscriber with the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD) and the National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals (NAPO).

Mickie McGraw

Mickie McGraw co-founded the Art Therapy Studio (ATS) at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio in association with Dr. George Streeter in 1967. The Art Therapy Studio provides comprehensive art therapy services to a wide range of persons with special needs, including traumatic brain and spinal cord injured, pediatric, geriatric, oncology, burn, dialysis, chemically dependent, and psychiatric, at MetroHealth Medical Center, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Fairhill Center and numerous other institutions throughout northeast Ohio. The ATS is the oldest art therapy program of its kind in the country. Mickie is an Honorary Member of the ATS Board of Trustees and is a past Adjunct Faculty member of Ursuline College’s counseling and art therapy program. She is currently a consultant for the Cleveland Clinic on the development of their “Arts and Medicine Program.” Mickie has served on many state and national art therapy boards and committees, and contributed a chapter to “Medical Art Therapy with Adults.” She has written and presented extensively about art therapy with neurologically impaired individuals, studio-based art therapy and art therapy education. Mickie has an MA in Counseling from John Carroll University and a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art, where she majored in graphic design.

Yael Fischer

Yael Fischer

Yael Fischer, B.Sc., M.Sc., MPS, is a graduate of Pratt Institute in NY, where she received a MPS in Arts Therapy and Creativity Development. Throughout her studies, she has completed her internships in art therapy at the GNETS program, serving children ages 6 – 21, and has co-facilitated art therapy workshops in the metro Atlanta area. Yael is Israeli and American. She worked for the Center for Children’s Health and Safety of Israel (Beterem), creating and delivering educational programs for injury prevention, focused on children ages 1-4. In the US since 2000, Yael has studied visual arts, psychology, and education at the Open University of Israel and at Georgia State University. Today, she is pursuing her dream to become an art therapist and combine her fascination with mind and behavior with an innate tendency to express herself through visual images. She is interested in the use of art and creativity to explore the conscious and unconscious mind, aiming towards integration of the self through unique visual expression. Yael is bicultural and fluent in four languages – English, Hebrew, French and Spanish.

Zak Van Den Berg

Zachary Van Den Berg

Zachary D. Van Den Berg, MA, LPC-A, ATR-P (he/they) is a recent graduate of Adler University, in Chicago, IL with a Master of Arts in Counseling: Art Therapy, and received his BFA at the School of the Art Institute (SAIC). He is Past-President of the Adler Art Therapy Student Association, founder of the international online forums Art Therapy Students Associated and Queer Creative Arts Therapies, the in-coming Chairperson of the American Art Therapy Association’s Multicultural Committee, and a member on the Membership Committee, and Creative Director of Expressive Media’s Film Library. He is currently working at Community Arts, LLC and is supervised under Wanda Montemayor, LPC-S ATCS ATR-BC RPT-S (she/her) in Austin, TX. Clinically, he utilizes queer, social justice, anti-oppressive approaches to art therapy, working primarily with adults in kink, queer and trans communities in Central Texas.