Jessica Masino Drass, MA
Jessica Drass teaches in UArts’ Art Education and Museum Studies programs, as well as in the Art Therapy minor. She is also an artist, an author, a researcher, a psychotherapist and a mom.
Biography
Jessica Masino Drass works full time as a trauma specialist for Temple University’s Philadelphia Healthy and Safe Schools program, which is part of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine’s Center for Urban Bioethics. She is an art psychotherapist, an arts-based researcher, an author, a clinical supervisor and a former high school art teacher.
Drass’ research explores the interdisciplinary domains of creativity through an artistic inquiry process of making maps and performing data to capture, develop and expose various types of knowledge. Her work seeks to illuminate the existence of parallel perspectives and experiences by highlighting how the arts can serve as a portal and a map to these paradoxical realities to challenge assumptions and create ruptures in thought and routine.
Experience
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Drass holds a BA in Fine Art from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; an MA in School Psychology from Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey; and an MA in Art Therapy from Drexel University, Philadelphia.
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In addition, she was a PhD candidate and research fellow in the Creative Arts Therapy Department at Drexel University.
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She is trained in dialectical behavior therapy, and her clinical work focuses on treating trauma and dissociation through her Punk Rock Art Therapy approach.
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Additionally, Drass was the co-founder of Wise Mind Creations, a mobile art studio that specialized in using art making to practice mindfulness and build community.
Awards & Accolades
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Drass co-authored a manuscript that was awarded the 2018 Canadian Art Therapy Association Authorship Award.
Protest without education is just noise.