Ebi D. Okara, Ed.D. || Licensed Psychologist, Founder & Owner of Metis Psychological Associates, LLC

Dr. Ebi D. Okara is the founder and owner of Metis Psychological Associates, LLC., a private mental health group practice, which was established in 2009 and has locations in both Randolph and Medfield, MA. He has been a clinical psychologist for over 25 years. He completed his psychology internship at the Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine/Boston Medical Center (BMC). After his internship, he completed a Forensic Mental Health post-doctoral fellowship (part-time) at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Okara was born and raised in Nigeria until he immigrated to the United States to study at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where he graduated with a BA in Biology. He subsequently received his master’s and doctorate degrees in Psychology from Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN. He has been providing individual, couples, family and marital therapy at Metis Psychological Associates, LLC, as a Licensed Psychologist Provider since he founded the practice in 2009.

Dr. Okara has been a member of Trinity Episcopal Church Boston for over three decades where he has served on the Vestry and is currently an Usher. He is very active in his community and served on the Board of Directors of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce and currently serves on the Boards of Envision Bank Charitable Foundation and Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton. Dr. Okara is married and the father of an adult son. He and his wife live in Canton, MA.

Sherene Shenouda, PhD, MBA || Director, Business Development & Licensing, Mass General Brigham (MGB)

As a Director with the Business Development & Licensing team, Mass General Brigham (MGB), Sherene Shenouda, is responsible for intellectual property management and commercialization of technologies developed by clinicians and researchers at McLean Hospital and the MGH department of psychiatry. Prior to joining MGB Innovation in 2019, Sherene gained broad entrepreneurial and leadership experiences, including co-founding a technology start-up. Sherene has a broad basic and clinical research background obtained both from her PhD in physiology and post-doctoral work at Boston University School of Medicine. She also received her MBA with an emphasis in business analytics and entrepreneurship from Babson College. Sherene lives in Boston and has volunteered at several youth-serving organizations.

William Tomlinson, PhD || Director, Software & Application Innovation Lab (SAIL), Boston University

William Tomlinson is a proven servant technical leader with over a decade of industry experience in hardware and software development and leading large-scale interdisciplinary technical programs. Currently, William is the Director of the Software & Application Innovation Lab (SAIL), Boston University’s professionally staffed software engineering firm. In this capacity, William is responsible for overseeing operations, shaping, and implementing long-term strategic plans and managing organizational growth while seeking to develop new opportunities and partnerships. Before joining SAIL, William held the roles of Principal Engineer and Group Leader (technical manager) for the Embedded & Comm. Systems Group at Draper Laboratory (Cambridge, MA). Here he demonstrated proficiency in business development, strategic planning, program management, and developing mission-critical systems for wireless communications. William received his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University and an M.S. and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University and North Carolina A&T State University, respectively.

Dennis Tyrell, PhD || Psychologist & Co-owner of Ashmont Counseling Associates

Dr. Dennis Tyrell is a licensed psychologist with a specialty in forensic psychology. Since graduating in 2002, Dr. Tyrell has been employed at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital providing services on the psychiatric units of the Department of Mental Health, which is commonly referred to as Metro Boston Mental Health Units (MBMHU). Dr. Tyrell grew up in the Caribbean and pursued undergraduate studies at the University of the Virgin Islands where he graduated with a BA in Psychology. Soon thereafter, he immigrated to the Boston area and worked primarily in human services (residential care), before entering the master’s level counselor training program at University of Massachusetts/Boston. Dr. Tyrell earned his doctoral degree from Boston College.

In his clinical work, Dr. Tyrell is fascinated with the life stories that help individuals to understand where they come from and where they are going. Using a cognitive behavioral approach, he empowers clients to deconstruct the invalidating experiences and to frame them in a manner that brings insight, healing, and the power to forge ahead and successfully embrace life’s challenges.