About

Dr. Lisa Yvetta Collins is a professional with over 30 years of experience as an educational professional. She holds degrees in psychology and education and works as a business and education consultant. Dr. Collins brings a gender, equity, and healing lens to her working environments and communities as a person of color. Lisa can see multiple perspectives, creates community, and works to bring community well-being to the organization in her consultations.

She grew up as a military dependent, living most of her life on military bases. Her family lived in the Orient for three years, two years in the Philippines, and one year in Okinawa, Japan. Lisa frequently moved in her upbringing, which gave her the attribute of adaptability and making friends quickly. Lisa played sports, acted in theater, and played trumpet in the band in school; she became active in the theater at a young age. Lisa was involved in high school leadership, band, thespian club, and sports. She was voted mostly to succeed in her senior year by her peers and accepted into the summer gifted and talented state program in theater in high school.

Lisa attended El Camino Junior College in Torrence, California, where she was active in the theater program and student government and was a homecoming queen during her years at the college. She transferred and graduated from California State University at Long Beach with a Bachelor of Arts in General Psychology. Lisa worked as a social worker in rural Arkansas when Lisa married and began her family. She was a homemaker and a substitute teacher during her family’s early years.

In the years to follow, Lisa’s marriage dissolved due to addiction and dysfunction, and in her late twenties, Lisa began her life as a single mom with three small children. To restore herself and provide a healthy family structure for her children, the family participated in faith services and local sports, and she chose a career education.

Lisa attended classes at night to achieve a Masters in Special Education with general and special education teaching licenses from National University in Los Angeles, California, in 2001. Lisa has taught in two school districts in Southern California and three in Oregon in her 30 years of education service. After receiving her doctorate in educational leadership from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, she taught graduate students at Lewis and Clark College.

Lisa works as a business consultant to provide organizational change. In addition, Lisa utilizes her skills as a Life Coach with the Conscious Freedom framework, doctoral scholarship in racial healing, organizational learning, and wellness and trauma healing. Organizations look to Lisa to help solve workforce challenges.

Her TEDx Talk chronicles the healing modalities that resulted for herself and others from her research in racial healing. Her newly released book, Love of Light: A Guide to Peace and Oneness, guides consciousness, boosts self-awareness and provides tools for living in peace, and her podcast focuses on positive examples of healing practices in the world.

As a playwright, she has produced works in New York and Portland, and her short film, Be Careful What You Ask For, serves as a platform for racial healing discussions. Also an advocate for environmental justice, Lisa serves as a guide assistant for Love Is King. Love Is King provides opportunities and support for BIPOC leaders to explore the outdoors, learn about nature conservancy and use their voice to protect natural resources. Additionally, Lisa has served on the Oregon Assembly of Black Affairs and the advisory board for Strategies of Trauma Awareness and Resilience with the Eastern Mennonite University, Oregon School Employee Wellness Conference Committee, and Portland City Club Friday Forum Board.

Today she lives in Portland, Oregon, with a wife of 20 years, the youngest of her four children, and their cat, Hunter.