Dr. LaTonya Summers is an award-winning Associate Professor and Department Chair of Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Jacksonville University. She brings nearly 30 years of clinical mental health and addictions counseling experience and conducts research on multicultural issues in counseling and supervision. Her work is featured in scholarly journals and international and national professional conferences. She is the author of Multicultural Counseling: Responding with Cultural Humility, Empathy, and Advocacy, a Springer Publishers textbook. She is the Program Director for the Center for Men’s Mental Wellness, a free counseling center for uninsured men in a low income and high crime community of Jacksonville, Florida.

Summers is the past president of the Florida Association for Multicultural Counseling & Development. She serves as the Vice Chairperson of the Advisory Board for Family Support services, where she supports the welfare of foster children. She founded the national annual Black Mental Health Symposium, a conference that equips mental health professionals with culturally specific skills to improve mental wellness in Black communities. She has been featured in O Magazine on the subject, of authenticity in the workplace; and she conducted a TEDx Talk entitled Know Pain, Know Gain https://youtu.be/9b6pnlmR0-I. Her memoir, Black Again: Losing and Reclaiming my Racial Identity is available in major online book retailers and on Audible. She loves being a wife, mom, and new grandmother.