Dr. Sarah Jane is a scholar-activist whose work centers on decolonizing madness and fostering radical empathy and justice within marginalized communities. Her dissertation explores Neo-Madness, a concept she developed that repositions madness as a universal and supernatural energy, offering an alternative to Western frameworks of logic and reason. She is also the founder of the Madly in Love ethnographic project, which gathers love letters to and from madness, deepening public understanding of madness as a lived, affective, and relational experience.

As a disabled, queer, Crip, Mad person, it has been her life’s work to understand the human experience of madness and to center love, acceptance, and inclusivity within the Mad movement. She is dedicated to ending the stigmatization of mental illness and madness, while revolutionizing and decolonizing mental health care. Through her research, writing, and activism, she works to expand the way we talk, think, and feel about madness, illness, disability, and mental health.

In addition to her academic and activist work, Dr. Sarah Jane is a poet whose writing weaves together themes of madness, liberation, love, and trauma. Her poetry explores the emotional and psychological landscapes that come with being a mad person in a colonized world.

As the leader of the global Mad Liberation Movement, Dr. Sarah Jane offers Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training with a focus on critical compassion, empathy building, and the Mad community. She also provides small group and 1:1 mad coaching sessions to help others navigate madness and reclaim their experiences. Her future work focuses on expanding research into the epigenetics of madness, investigating how mad energy and trauma are stored and passed through generations as physiological and psychosocial processes. Through her advocacy, research, poetry, and movement-building, she aims to disrupt oppressive systems while providing a path toward healing, reclamation, and liberation for mad and marginalized communities.