Experts & Educators
We are a hub for the country’s most distinguished hospice and grief experts, researchers, and professionals. HFA experts help to inform and educate on a wide range of timely and relevant topics essential to best practice.
Our HFA educators are well known and widely recognized as experts in their fields.
They’re researchers with decades of knowledge backed by evidenced-based studies.
They’re professionals who have honed their skills with years of patient and family care.
HFA has been privileged to include many notable experts in its professional education offerings over the past 30 years, including the late Earl. A Grollman; Nancy Hogan, RN, PhD; Karla Holloway, PhD; the late William M. Lamers, MD; the late Richard E. Payne, MD.
Below is a complete listing of our presenters and authors from 2020 onward. We are grateful for their willingness to share their expertise to advance hospice and bereavement care through HFA.
HFA’s 2025 Living with Grief® program highlights interventive, creative, and adjunct evidence-based strategies used to assist dying patients and their intimate networks find meaning, value, and comfort. End-of-life care providers from across the country will share insights into programs such as pet therapy, art and music therapy, and the use of virtual reality, which improve the dying experience, offering patients and their networks enhanced quality care, an improved perception of care, and the amelioration of grief. Hospice providers, in turn, may benefit from satisfied clients, recognition in their communities, and enhanced staff morale.
Click here to watch a sneak peek!
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Frank Sesno is Director of Strategic Initiatives, The George Washington University School of Media & Public Affairs, a former anchor for CNN, and a longtime moderator of the Living with Grief® program. He is an Emmy-award winning journalist and creator of PlanetForward.org, a user-driven web and television project that highlights innovations in sustainability. Sesno is…
Daniel Shalev is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Shalev completed psychiatry residency at Columbia University followed by fellowship training in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (psychiatric care of individuals with medical and surgical illnesses) and in Hospice and…
M. Katherine Shear is the Marion E. Kenworthy Professor of Psychiatry and the founding Director of the Center for Prolonged Grief at Columbia University School of Social Work. Shear is a clinical researcher who first worked in anxiety and depression. For the past 25 years, she has focused on understanding and treating people who experience…
Hannah Sherebrin is an art therapist, former RN, ATR-BC, OATR, and supervisor. She specializes in trauma, bereavement, losses, and depression with adult and senior populations. She provides palliative care in home hospice situations for her clients.
Simon Shimshon Rubin is Director of the International Laboratory for the Study of Loss, Bereavement and Human Resilience and Chairman of the Zramim Postgraduate Psychotherapy Program at the University of Haifa in Israel. A Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Haifa, he is Professor of Psychology at the Academic College of Emek Jezreel. Rubin maintains an…
Rebecca Shiner is Charles A. Dana Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Colgate University, where she has taught since 1999. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1998 and completed her clinical internship at the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry in 1999. She has published widely on multiple…
Darcia Simpson is an integral member of the transdisciplinary care team at Hospice of the Western Reserve. As a full-time spiritual care coordinator/chaplain, she collaborates with physicians, registered nurses, social workers, and other healthcare professionals to assess patient and family spiritual needs, identify spiritual problems, develop goals of care, and implement appropriate interventions. She is…
Jocelyn Smith Lee is an assistant professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Her research examines the health disparities of violent injury and violent death and works to understand how losing loved ones to homicide shapes the health, well-being, development, and family relationships of Black males and their…
Brad Speaks is the President and CEO of Speaks Family Legacy Chapels. He runs three funeral homes, a cemetery, a crematory, and a pre-need operation in the Kansas City area. He is a past president of the Selected Independent Funeral Homes association, the largest group of family-operated funeral homes in the world. Speaks is a…
Heather Stang is the author of Mindfulness & Grief and is the host of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast. She has a Master’s Degree in Thanatology and is a certified yoga therapist in the Phoenix Rising tradition. Stang is on the board of advisors for Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) and partners with survivor and…
Gary Stein is Professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work – Yeshiva University, NY, where he is a tenured faculty member in the master’s and doctoral programs. He is also the director of the Gerontology and Palliative Care Programs for MSW students and for clergy. He is PI of the study, “Project Respect: Experiences…
David Steinhorn is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Medical School with residency in pediatrics and fellowship training in pediatric hepatology and critical care medicine. He completed post-doctoral training in 1997 in hospice and palliative medicine at Hospice Buffalo in New York and has been continuously board-certified in those specialties. Steinhorn served on the…
Whether you’re a patient, family member, or a friend trying to determine whether hospice is the right choice, HFA is here. We provide guidance before, during, and after the important decisions are made.
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