About the Panelists & Moderator

Nichole Dawsey

Nichole Dawsey is the Executive Director of PreventEd, formerly known as NCADA (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse). Nichole was born in St. Louis. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree from The Catholic University of America, Nichole found her professional passion in the field of education. Nichole earned her Master of Public Health from Saint Louis University. During graduate school Nichole was introduced to NCADA; when she found a part-time position there as a Prevention Educator. After graduating, Nichole sought to grow and expand her professional experience, working on several projects that addressed various public health and social justice challenges. Nichole was eventually welcomed back to PreventEd as a full-time Prevention Educator. After five years, Nichole was promoted to Director of Prevention Education, and served in that role for five years. During that time, Nichole oversaw the signicant expansion of the prevention education program, increasing students served by 15% and department staff capacity by 25%. Under Nichole’s leadership as Executive Director, PreventEd has become the region’s foremost provider of evidence-informed, school-based substance use prevention programming. In addition, she is Co-Chair of Alive and Well’s Steering Committee and a member of their Board. Nichole is also a member of the St. Louis Story Stitchers Board of Directors.

Dr. Rachel Winograd

Dr. Rachel Winograd's research pursuits and intellectual interests have focused on aspects of alcohol and drug misuse, consequences, treatment, and risk mitigation. Throughout the course of her graduate career at the University of Missouri-Columbia, she developed a program of research investigating the existence and characterization of “drunk personality.” Outside of projects examining acute alcohol intoxication and personality, she concurrently examined young adult alcohol misuse from a developmental and clinical perspective, publishing on topics such as maturing out of alcohol misuse, the role of impulsivity in drinking behaviors, and empirically-supported treatments for young adult problematic drinking. During her predoctoral psychology internship with the VA St Louis Health Care System, Dr. Winograd's focus shifted swiftly to opioid use disorder treatment and overdose prevention. She has since devoted the majority of her energy to her clinical, programmatic, and empirical efforts to expand the implementation of evidence-based opioid treatment and harm reduction approaches.

Idris Goodwin

Across two decades Idris Goodwin has forged an impactful career as a multiple award-winning playwright, breakbeat poet, director, educator, and culturist. Idris is the author of over 50 original plays ranging from his Hip Hop inspired breakbeat series to historical dramas to works for young audiences. Titles such as And In This Corner Cassius Clay, How We Got On,  Hype Man: A Break Beat Play, This is Modern Art  and the ground breaking Free Play: open source scripts for an antiracist tomorrow, are widely produced across the country. Goodwin’s work has appeared on HBO Def Poetry, Sesame Street, NPR, BBC Radio, and the Discovery Channel. Passionate about cultivating new audiences in the arts,  Idris is The Director of The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, the first Black man to hold the position in its 100 year history. Prior to this, Goodwin served two seasons as Producing Artistic Director at StageOne Family Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky. He actively serves on both the advisory boards of Theatre for Young Audiences USA and Children's Theatre Foundation Association. Idris is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow, recognized as a culture bearer who celebrates community values and cultivates histories with care. Supported by prestigious institutions like The Kennedy Center, The Eugene O'Neill Conference, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arena Stage, and The Playwrights’ Center, Goodwin uses his full creative powers to galvanize people into the community square to sculpt better tomorrows.

Julia Flood

Julia Flood moved from Florida to St. Louis in January 2014 to become the Artistic Director of Metro Theater Company. She spent 16 years as Artistic Director of Eckerd Theater Company, a Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) company in Florida, after many years as a freelance actor/director/teaching artist/playwright. A graduate of Northwestern University, Julia spent seven years as a resident member of the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, an artist-led ensemble founded under the guidance and artistic direction of legendary acting teacher Alvina Krause, in Pennsylvania. There she first learned the importance of theater for young audiences and began to work on devising and developing new works for the theater. Julia’s 40 years of experience in the professional theater has led her from her native New England to New York, Los Angeles, Florida, Pennsylvania and to many points in between before she landed at her artistic home with MTC here in St. Louis. Julia has a passion for the power of theater to change the course of a young person’s life, and for developing and encouraging new voices in the theater. Julia has commissioned, produced and directed many new plays, including the recent The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus by Broadway playwright Eric Coble, which was developed as part of New Visions/New Voices 2018 at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Julia served on the national board of Theatre for Young Audiences/USA from 2011 until 2019 and continues to work to support the national field of TYA.

Joe Gfaller

Joe Gfaller joined Metro Theater Company as Managing Director in the summer of 2019. Prior to joining the Metro team, Joe served for 8+ years as Director of Marketing and Public Relations for Opera Theater of Saint Louis, where he received national recognition for his work in building young, diverse, and national travel audiences for the company and in expanding OTSL’s civic footprint as producer of the company’s Opera Tastings initiative, through artist community tours, and through the creation and growth of the company’s Engagement + Inclusion Task Force and Young Friends Steering Committee. He has served in combined marketing and development roles for Atlanta’s 7 Stages Theater and in marketing roles at two Tony Award-winning regional theaters (Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre and Cambridge MA’s American Repertory Theater). As a consultant, he has worked with the National Blues Museum, the documentary Flint: The Poisoning of an American City, and the Utah Symphony, among others. As a stage director, he has directed over two dozen professional or university productions, including regional premieres by Caryl Churchill, David Mamet, Peter Sinn Nachtreib, and Addae Moon. He serves as adjunct faculty at Webster University in their Arts Management and Leadership MFA program. He is a member of the Leadership St. Louis Class of 2013, the LEAD Atlanta Class of 2006, and graduated with honors from Harvard University.