HYPE Day 3: Andrea Petersen

Keynote speaker: Andrea Petersen

Drawing on her personal journey with mental wellness, Andrea Petersen equips audiences with powerful insights on how to manage and conquer anxiety and panic attacks.

Andrea is a nationally celebrated health, psychology, and neuroscience journalist and contributing writer at The Wall Street Journal. She brings mental health awareness to millions of readers with her thoughtful reporting on a range of important wellness topics, from student mental health and cognitive behavioral therapy to suicide, and insomnia. Prior to her current role, she worked for 18 years as a staff reporter and editor at the WSJ, and has contributed to several high-profile media outlets, from O, The Oprah Magazine to Time.com. 

She is the author of the acclaimed new memoir, On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety, which offers a brave and poignant chronicle of her 25-year struggle with acute anxiety, along with an examination of the science of anxiety and the groundbreaking research that may lead to new treatments and coping strategies.

Andrea enlightens with a refreshingly honest and relatable account of how she came to understand and master her lifelong struggle with anxiety – a journey that took her from therapists’ offices to yoga retreats to the Appalachian Trail. She reveals the fascinating biology behind the disorder, and breaks down how anxiety can hurt – and even help – us in our work and personal lives, leaving audiences with a new outlook on how we as a society view and treat disorders of the brain.