Keynotes, plenaries, panels, and facilitated conversations for conferences, organizations, and communities navigating complexity, harm reduction, racial justice, and the human cost of leadership.
A body of work that moves rooms
What Monique Brings to Your Stage
Monique Tula has spoken to thousands of people over more than 25 years, including at international conferences, national convenings, Congressional briefings, and community gatherings.
Her talks do more than deliver information. They create space for people to think differently, feel less alone, and move with greater honesty and intention.
She speaks from lived experience about what it costs to do this work, and what makes it possible to keep going.
What She Speaks About
Tending the Flame: Nervous System Regulation for People Doing Hard Work
For practitioners, leaders, and organizations who are tired of being told to practice self-care. This talk addresses the actual mechanism — regulation, not resilience theater — and gives people tools they can use immediately.
Leadership Under Pressure: Moving Through Complexity Without Losing Yourself
For leaders navigating urgency, transition, and the weight of holding teams and missions through uncertain terrain. Strategy and nervous system, together.
Harm Reduction, Racial Justice, and the Cost of the Work
A frank conversation about racialized drug policy, who gets to lead in this field, and what it costs to show up at the intersection of race, public health, and systems change.
Staying in the Work: Workforce Sustainability in Public Health and Harm Reduction
What makes people leave. What makes them stay. And what organizations can do to build cultures that don't require martyrdom as the price of commitment.
Selected Engagements
100+ engagements since 1999
2026 Guest Speaker, Spring Program Meeting, Bureau of Substance Abuse Service, MDPH, Boston, MA
2026 Keynote Speaker, Pathways to Recovery Conference — plenary on nervous system and leadership under pressure, Anchorage, AK
2025 Opening Plenary Speaker, Drug Policy Alliance Reform Conference, Detroit, MI
2025 Guest, Recovery-ish Podcast — conversations on racialized drug policy, organizational leadership, and workforce sustainability in the SUD field
2023 Keynote Speaker/Moderator, International Harm Reduction Conference, Melbourne, Australia
2021 Keynote Speaker, Antiracist Approaches in Healthcare for People Who Use Drugs, NY State Hep C & Drug User Health Conference
2021 Panelist, Congressional Briefing on Principles for Use of Opioid Litigation Funds
2020 Keynote Speaker, Harm Reduction to Address Health Equity & Racial Justice in SUD Prevention, Treatment & Research — AMERSA
2019 Keynote Speaker, HIV & Substance Use Disorder Conference, NEAETC, Boston, MA
2018 Keynote Speaker, Tribal & Rural Harm Reduction Summit, White Earth Nation, MN
2017 Keynote Speaker, International Harm Reduction Conference, Montreal, Quebec
Additional speaking history available upon request.
Ready to bring this work to your audience?
Monique speaks to conferences, organizations, and communities doing the hardest work in public health, harm reduction, racial justice, and leadership.
Every engagement is tailored to the room.