Healthcare · Nonprofits · Schools · Community Organizations

Designed for healthcare organizations, nonprofits, schools, and community groups, these interactive workshops use therapeutic arts and evidence-informed creative practices to support reflection, emotional processing, stress reduction, resilience, and meaningful connection.

No artistic experience is needed—only a willingness to engage in the creative process. Through accessible, thoughtfully guided exercises, participants use creative expression to slow down, notice what they are carrying, explore new perspectives, and reconnect with themselves and others.

Workshops can be tailored to the specific needs, objectives, and audience of your organization, including programs focused on cancer and survivorship, caregiving, grief and loss, life transitions, resilience, and emotional well-being.

Complete the Let’s Connect section below to discuss a customized workshop or program.

Keynotes · Panels · Conferences · Community & Healthcare Events

Nerissa speaks about the intersection of creativity, resilience, identity, and what happens after life-changing experiences. Drawing from lived experience, creativity research, therapeutic arts, and her work as an artist and author, she combines personal storytelling with practical creative tools to inspire reflection, meaningful connection, and new perspectives.

Speaking topics include creativity as a tool for processing and resilience, identity after adversity, the science of creativity, emotional well-being, and navigating change. Each presentation is thoughtfully tailored to the audience and goals of the event.

Complete the Let’s Connect section below to discuss a speaking engagement.

Explore the psychology and neuroscience behind how we think, feel, perceive, and create. This short educational video series offers accessible insights into creativity, curiosity, memory, and emotional well-being. Brief Insights. Big Ideas.

Explore the Series

Podcasts · Author Interviews · Media Conversations · Expert Commentary

Available for podcast interviews, media conversations, and expert commentary on creativity, resilience, identity after adversity, therapeutic arts, and emotional well-being. Drawing from lived experience, creativity research, and my work as an artist, author, and therapeutic arts practitioner, I bring a thoughtful and accessible perspective to conversations about how people process difficult experiences, reconnect with themselves, and use creativity as a tool for reflection and discovery.

Additional topics include cancer and survivorship, motherhood during illness, creativity and the brain, art and healing, personal growth, and the ideas explored in Canvas of Courage and The Curious Curator.

Conversations can be tailored to your audience, from healthcare and wellness to creativity, personal development, cancer support, and the arts.

Complete the Let’s Connect section below to discuss a podcast interview or media collaboration.

If you’re a high school student planning to apply to a college or university visual arts or design program, your portfolio is one of the most important components of your application—and knowing how to present your work, ideas, and artistic voice can make a meaningful difference.

Traditional college guidance counselors are not always equipped to navigate the specific portfolio expectations of competitive art and design programs. As a former AP and high school Visual Arts educator and Pratt Institute alumna, I bring both an educator’s perspective and firsthand understanding of the college art portfolio process.

I work individually with students on college art portfolio preparation and review, helping them thoughtfully curate and strengthen their portfolios, identify gaps, develop their artistic voice, articulate a cohesive creative narrative, and present themselves and their work with clarity and intention.

Guidance can include portfolio development, individual artwork critique, portfolio selection and sequencing, artist statements, application-specific portfolio requirements, and preparation for competitive art and design programs.

Interested in college art portfolio guidance? Complete the Let’s Connect section below to learn more.