Board of Directors & Leadership.
Board Member & CEO
Lamia El-Sadek, Ph.D.
Dr. Lamia El-Sadek is an experienced strategist, financial executive, international activist, and movement leader, with a background in Corporate Business Development and Finance, and a passion for human rights. Dr. El-Sadek’s humanitarian work has taken her throughout Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and Europe on issues ranging from economic development, forcibly displaced & refugee rights, gender equity, and youth empowerment.
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Previously, as Executive Director of Dignity & Power Now, a Los Angeles-based grassroots prison abolition and community justice organization, she drastically increased the organization’s operating budget and was part of a coalition that successfully stopped a $3.5 billion jail plan for the city. Dr. El-Sadek began her career as a Developer at IBM. Over the next several years, she gained extensive international business and finance experience in multinational corporations, including as the Regional Associate Finance Director for PepsiCoInternational, based in Dubai, UAE.
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Following the Arab Spring, Dr. El-Sadek received an invitation to be one of the advisors of the President of Egypt on women’s issues, particularly social and economic empowerment of women and, in collaboration with various human rights organizations, Dr. El-Sadek worked on a proposed rights-based new constitution for Egypt. In 2010, she was among an international humanitarian delegation to Gaza. In 2016 and 2017, Dr. El-Sadek was a speaker at the United Nations CSW on ‘Economic Empowerment and Equity of Marginalized Groups’ globally.
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Dr.Lamia El-Sadek studied business management and information technology and has a Masters in Training and Development from North Carolina State University.
She holds a Ph.D. in Global Leadership from Indiana Institute of Technology, and has served on the Boards of Aythos, Dignity and PowerNow, NFCC International, and Casa Milagro Foundation. She co-authored a book on Global and Cross-Cultural Leadership and is currently working on a book outlining the parallels between recent global revolutions, such as the Arab Spring, and social movements within the U.S.
Dr.El-Sadek most recently held the position of Executive Director of both the March For Our Lives Action Fund and the March For Our Lives Foundation.
President & SAB Chair
John Piacentini, Ph.D., ABPP
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Chief of Child Psychology, Department of Psychiatry
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Director, Center for Child Anxiety, Resilience, Education and Support (CARES)
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Director, Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program
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UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
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Dr. John Piacentini is Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Chief of Child Psychology (in Medical Psychology) in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Semel Institute where he directs the Child OCD, Anxiety and Tic Disorders Program, the Center for Child Anxiety, Resilience, Education and Support (CARES), and Tourette Association of America Center of Excellence. He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Georgia and completed post-doctoral training and was a faculty member at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University. A board-certified clinical child and adolescent psychologist, his work focuses on the development and dissemination of science-based individual- and family-based treatments for youth with BFRBs, OCD, tic, and anxiety disorders. Through the UCLA CARES Center, Dr. Piacentini and his team have developed a number of community-based programs aimed at preventing childhood anxiety disorders. He has authored over 300 scientific publications, including seven books, and his research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, International OCD Foundation, Tourette Association of America, TLC Foundation for BFRBs, and other leading foundations and philanthropic organizations. Dr. Piacentini is also a past-president of the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) and the Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, and a founding fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. He is a frequent lecturer and with his team, has trained hundreds of mental health clinicians in cognitive-behavior therapy and other evidence-based treatments and provided care to over 1000 children, adolescents, and their families.
Vice President & SAB Vice Chair
Suzanne Mouton-Odum, Ph.D.
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Psychology Houston, PC
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Suzanne Mouton-Odum, Ph.D., is a psychologist in private practice in Houston, Texas. She obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Houston in Counseling Psychology and completed her residency in Clinical Psychology at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston.
She has treated people with hair pulling and other body-focused repetitive behaviors since 1993, and has been a member of TLC's Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board since 2001.
Dr. Mouton-Odum has published several books on trichotillomania, including A Parent Guide to Hair Pulling Disorder: Effective Strategies for Parents of Children with Trichotillomania. She presents at national conferences on body-focused repetitive behaviors and their treatment. She is the co-owner and lead developer of the only interactive, online website for trichotillomania, StopPulling.com, and for skin picking disorder, StopPicking.com.
Secretary & SAB Secretary
Fred Penzel, Ph.D.
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Western Suffolk Psychological Services
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Dr. Fred Penzel is a licensed psychologist who has specialized in the treatment of trichotillomania and obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD) since 1982. He is the executive director of Western Suffolk Psychological Services in Huntington, Long Island, New York, a private treatment group specializing in trichotillomania and OCD-related problems,
Dr. Penzel is a founding member of TLC's Scientific Advisory Board and a senior faculty member of TLC's Professional Training Institute.
Dr. Penzel is the author of The Hair Pulling Problem and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: A Complete Guide To Getting Well And Staying Well, a self-help work covering trichotillomania and other OCD spectrum disorders.
Board Member
Barbara O. Rothbaum, Ph.D., ABPP
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Director, Veterans Program and the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program
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Paul A. Janssen Chair in Neuropsychopharmacology
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Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research
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Emory University School of Medicine
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Barbara Olasov Rothbaum received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is currently a professor in psychiatry at the Emory School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at Emory.
Dr. Rothbaum is a pioneer in the application of virtual reality to the treatment of psychological disorders, and also specializes in research on the treatment of individuals with anxiety disorders, particularly focusing on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and trichotillomania.
She has won both state and national awards for her research, is an invited speaker internationally, authors scientific papers and chapters, has published or edited six books, and received the Diplomate in Behavioral Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology.
Board Member
Melinda Stanley, Ph.D.
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Distinguished Emeritus Professor
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Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
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Baylor College of Medicine