Dr. Cecilia M. Cardesa founded TraumaVenture in 2016 to shift narratives on mental health, destigmatize mental health conditions and humanize trauma. TraumaVenture is a boutique management consulting firm specializing in guiding organizations create trauma-conscious strategies. In March 2020, Cecilia founded MappingOnward, which lives at the intersection of classrooms and sidewalks, boards and barrios, trauma and healing, and grief and hope.

Education

Dr. Cardesa studied Political Science at Villanova University (2002). Her undergraduate thesis focused on the impact of globalization in international non-governmental organizations. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. When Cecilia traveled to Germany in 2008 as a graduate student, she was moved by the architectural use of space memorializing memory after a visit to the Garden of Exile at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. The commitment to survivor memory continues to anchor her work on trauma. The thesis for her master’s at the University of Pennsylvania was on the Role of Storytelling in Social Value Creation. Cecilia’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania looked into Situating Traumatic Memory in Social Value Creation (2014). Cecilia humbly and proudly began her academic journey in community college.