Staff

Jackie Zimmermann is the Manager of Public Education Partnerships and E-Learning at Mental Health America (MHA). In her role, she coordinates MHA webinars, assists in the development of materials for various public education campaigns, and updates online content.

Jackie graduated from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse with a B.S. in Public and Community Health Education and a minor in Healthcare Analytics Management. Jackie’s own lived experience has influenced her passion for increased mental health education, awareness, and early intervention.

Jennifer Molina is the Individual Giving Manager at Mental Health America (MHA). She works to manage, cultivate and steward relationships with major donors as part of MHA’s signature major giving program, Clifford Beers Society. As part of the development team, she works with all aspects of online giving—including Giving Tuesday & Annual appeals.

Jennifer has over 13 years of experience in the non-profit sector, specifically working in fundraising & development.  Jennifer has a deep passion for giving back and has contributed many hours in her spare time to volunteer for causes dear to her heart.

Email Jennifer: jmolina@mhanational.org

Dr. Jessica Jackson (she/her) is MHA’s Vice President of Alliance Development. She leads relationship-building and information exchange with external health-related partner. She is a licensed psychologist with over a decade of experience spanning startups, hospitals, nonprofits, and the United Nations. A former assistant professor of psychiatry, Dr. Jackson brings academic rigor to real-world challenges, her research focus has been on dismantling barriers to treatment for underserved populations through inclusive, tech-enabled solutions.

Dr. Jackson holds a B.A. in Psychology from North Carolina A&T State University, an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. With over ten years as a licensed clinician, she frequently speaks on topics related to mental health and equity, reflecting her enduring commitment to improving population health and improving access to quality mental healthcare for all.

Jessica Kennedy is the Chief Strategy and Finance Officer at Mental Health America, where she has worked for over a decade. An expert in nonprofit management, she began her career in operations before expanding her focus to screening, workplace mental health, public education, digital marketing, mental health policy, and program management. Jessica developed and launched Mental Health America’s online screening program in 2014; the program has since collected nearly five million mental health screens and is recognized as the largest database of mental health screens in the world. She later managed the launch of a major expansion to the screening program that drew over five million web hits in its first year. She has authored content on substance use, trauma, bipolar disorder, and anxiety for the launch of the site. She helped develop Mental Health America’s Bell Seal for Workplace Mental Health. She led the redesign of the Mental Health America website in 2013, increasing visitors from one million per year to six million per year during her time as webmaster. Jessica has published content on topics addressing caregiver issues, mental health and substance use conditions, and recovery. She speaks at conferences and meetings, often addressing mental health in the workplace or representing Mental Health America on topics ranging from policy to programs. She lives in Alexandria, VA, and loves the Washington Capitals, traveling to new places, and spending time with friends and family.

Email Jessica: jkennedy@mhanational.org

John Marion is the Data Scientist for MHA’s Center for Research and Innovation (CRI) team. In this role, he helps provide quantitative analysis of MHA’s website and screenings, and he helps the CRI team in both research and understanding the needs of the site’s users. Prior to joining MHA, John studied economics at The Ohio State University, served two terms in AmeriCorps NCCC, and graduated from Columbia University’s quantitative methods in the social sciences program.

Kelly Davis is the Vice President of Peer and Youth Advocacy at Mental Health America, where she works on the expansion of peer support and young adult leadership. She is passionate about lived experience-driven programs, policies, organizations, and research. Kelly has been awarded the Disruptive Innovator Award by the National Association of Peer Supporters and the National Peer Leader of the Year Award by Peerpocalypse. She is a certified yoga teacher and holds a certificate in Applied Positive Psychology from The Flourishing Center.

Kelly and her work have appeared in the New York Times, Teen Vogue, NBC Nightly News, NPR, and the White House. She recently earned her master’s degree in Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania where she served as a research assistant in the Perelman School of Medicine studying lived experience perspectives of inpatient psychiatric units. She is currently pursuing a certificate of specialization in mental health leadership from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Email Kelly: kdavis@mhanational.org

Kevin Rushton designs online experiences and platforms to help people understand and take charge of their own mental health. He manages the MHA Screening website, which includes screening tools, interactive self-help tools, and psychoeducational articles. His goal is to reach people early in their mental health journey, creating tools that fit into their lives and empower them to make positive changes in their lives.

Previously, Kevin has worked in a variety of mental health-related settings. Most prominently, he worked as a case manager at House of Hope, a women’s substance abuse treatment facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition to working with clients individually to address behavioral issues, he directed the facility’s psychoeducation program, developing and implementing curriculum on a wide variety of topics related to mental health and substance abuse.

Kristen Abell (she/her) is the Director of Website and Digital Projects at Mental Health America, where she provides oversight, strategy, and updates for the website, as well as managing digital tools/projects for the organization.

Prior to joining MHA in 2022, Kristen worked in higher education as everything from a communications director to a director of residential life, as well as working in women’s centers and academic advising along the way. The majority of her communications experience has been as a web developer and content strategist providing oversight for a university websites.

Kristen has a master’s in social work from the University of Kansas, and has been a long-time advocate for individuals experiencing mental health conditions. She has been writing and speaking about her own experiences with depression and anxiety for the past ten years, specifically addressing the needs of staff and faculty in higher education when it comes to mental health. Kristen lives in Utah with her partner and teenage son, as well as their dogs Margot “Tenney” Tenenbark and Alice “Ali” Cullen and her son’s cat Eliza.

Lanee Higgins creates content for Mental Health America’s MHA Screening Platform. She writes articles that help readers at the start of their mental health journeys understand what they are going through and empower them to move forward.

Previously, Lanee was a freelance writer for Blavity and The Educator’s Room and an English teacher in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area for seven years. Her background and lived experience make her a passionate mental health advocate.

Maddy Reinert joined Mental Health America (MHA) in 2018, and serves as Senior Director of Population Health. In her role at MHA, Maddy manages the MHA online mental health screening program, which has served over 5 million individuals who have come to take a mental health screen and are seeking additional support. She is responsible for the collection, cleaning, analyzing, interpretation and reporting of qualitative and quantitative data for use across MHA programming, and provides regular data support to over 80 partners nationally. Maddy also supports the Research and Innovation and Policy teams with researching, writing and disseminating public health and policy findings.

Prior to working at MHA, Maddy received her Master’s in Public Health (MPH) with a concentration in Law, Policy and Ethics from the University of Virginia. She also holds a B.A. in Psychology and Global Public Health from UVA.

Mark J. Heyrman recently retired after forty-one years as a Clinical Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.  The primary focus of his work at the Law School was to teach law students to be effective advocates through their supervised litigation on behalf of indigent clients with mental illnesses and legislative advocacy on behalf of mental health organizations. In addition to providing legal assistance to thousands of persons with mental illnesses, Mr. Heyrman and his students drafted and helped to enact more than one hundred bills designed to improve mental health services in Illinois.  In 1988 he served as Executive Director of the Governor’s Commission to Revise the Mental Health Code of Illinois.

Mr. Heyrman is currently of counsel to the Monahan Law Group.  He also serves as General Counsel to Mental Health America.  He continues to work on public policy and legislative advocacy as:

• a member of the Public Policy Committee of Mental Health America
• a Board member and chair of the Public Policy Committee of Mental Health America of Illinois
• Facilitator of the Mental Health Summit, a coalition of mental health service providers and advocates for persons with mental illness
• a member of the Chicago Bar Association’s Mental Health and Disability Law Committee
• a member and legislative liaison of the Section on Mental Health Law of the Illinois State Bar Association.

Mary Giliberti is the Interim President and CEO of Mental Health America. Prior to this role, she served as the Chief Public Policy Officer, focused on federal policy to promote prevention, early intervention, integration, and recovery.

Prior to joining MHA in 2019, she was the Chief Executive Officer of The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She also has worked in the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Serves and as disability counsel to the United States Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee.  After graduating from Yale Law School, she clerked for Judge Phyllis Kravitch on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and received a Skadden Fellowship to work at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

Mary lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband and three children. Her career has been very influenced by Rick Warren’s book, A Purpose Driven Life, and she is so grateful to work at an organization with such a powerful and important purpose.