María E. Garay-Serratos’, MSW, PhD

María E. Garay-Serratos’, MSW, PhD, life mission is to create global awareness via
education, presentations, trainings, and other strategies among the child welfare, social services, healthcare, and other fields largely unaware of the unrecognized and hidden domestic violence – traumatic brain injury/chronic traumatic encephalopathy (DV-TBI/CTE) epidemic among females, disproportionately impacting disenfranchised women, and how it impacts an individual’s ability to parent, work, and fully function in daily life. In the United States, one in three women experience DV and over eighty percent of them report having one or more TBI because of DV. This amounts to as many as forty-four million DV women survivors who demonstrate signs of TBI and potentially CTE, a progressive neurodegenerative disease.
Catastrophically, DV victims are undiagnosed and untreated, meaning TBI and CTE symptoms are often mistaken by providers as signs of resistance, apathy, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, denial, apathy, and other issues.

Dr. Garay-Serratos’ unique background as a first-generation Mexican immigrant DV-
TBI/CTE child survivor, her DV-TBI/CTE journey with for her mother, experience, and academic preparation, qualify her to provide DV-TBI/CTE training, education, and awareness.
She is also qualified to address equity issues that are leaving marginalized DV victims at greater risk for head trauma. Dr. Garay-Serratos has over 25 years of C-level non-profit experience and currently is the Founder and CEO of Pánfila Domestic Violence HOPE Foundation and Protagonist. She is also the Protagonist, Associate Producer, and DV-TBI/CTE Expert Consultant for This Hits Home, a feature documentary released in May 2023 (available to stream on Amazon) revealing the DV-TBI/CTE epidemic and a call to action. Dr. Garay-Serratos attended Pitzer College where she earned her undergraduate degree in sociology. Her graduate studies in social work were at the University of Southern California, Suzanne Dworak- Peck School of Social Work, where she earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate.