Lectures & Appearances

Click the links below for more information on each topic.

“CHILDHOOD DISRUPTED: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, And How We Can Heal”
Helping groups become trauma-informed.
In this talk, award-winning science journalist and author Donna Jackson Nakazawa educates audiences on how the emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall well-being. She examines the latest science showing how chronic, unpredictable stressors in childhood and in the teen years leave permanent “fingerprints” on the brain, creating biophysical changes in the immune system and brain architecture, leading to longterm physical health problems in adulthood, including heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, and depression. Donna also lays the groundwork for understanding how early adversity affects how well we will relate to others throughout our lives, how successful our relationships will be, and how well we will nurture our own children. In this talk audiences will also learn why some individuals may be more affected, on a biophysical level, by early trauma than others; why girls and women are particularly vulnerable to the effects of adverse childhood experiences; and how parents, teachers and others can prevent the harmful effects of chronic adversity in children. Most importantly, Donna lays out a path for healing, teaching audiences what we can do to reverse the epigenetic effects of adversity and reset our biology, how we can remove those early “fingerprints” from body and brain, embrace resiliency, and find post-traumatic growth — as well as help loved ones find ways to heal.

Donna has spoken to hundreds of groups on this topic, including hospitals, scientific conferences, corporate groups, pediatric associations, social workers and therapists, educators and teachers, lawyers, clergy and nurses. She carefully helps each audience understand how this detailed science applies to their field or occupation, and how they can best use this information to be trauma-informed and support those they help on a daily basis — whether they are physicians, therapists, teachers, or advocates — as well as examine how this research may give them surprising new insights and tools for their own healing.

“THE AUTOIMMUNE EPIDEMIC: What You Need to Know”
Donna Jackson Nakazawa investigates the reasons behind today’s alarming rise in rates of autoimmune diseases in industrialized countries around the world and lays out for audiences the mounting evidence showing how our modern lifestyles, stress levels, today’s diet, and our chemical-laden environment have created a “perfect storm” — the ripest possible conditions — for today’s autoimmune epidemic to take hold.