Dr. Lavinia B. Masters Keynote Speaker, Consultant, Advocate, and Coach
Empowering the world to see purpose beyond pain with a "twist of hope"
About More Than An Act: Lavinia Speaks
Dr. Lavinia B. Masters
Dr. Lavinia B. Masters is a pioneering survivor advocate, nationally recognized DNA justice leader, trauma-informed strategist, keynote speaker, author, consultant, and legislative reform champion whose life’s work has transformed personal trauma into lasting systems change.
A survivor of a violent sexual assault at age 13, Dr. Masters endured more than two decades without answers while evidence from her case remained untested. When her sexual assault evidence kit was finally processed, DNA identified the person responsible and brought long-awaited resolution to her case. Rather than allowing that painful experience to silence her, she turned it into a national call for accountability, survivor dignity, and justice.
Her courageous advocacy was instrumental in the passage of Texas House Bill 8 in 2019—officially known as The Lavinia Masters Act. This landmark legislation strengthened requirements for the timely testing, tracking, retention, and handling of sexual assault evidence kits while improving transparency and survivor notification. Through this historic achievement, Dr. Masters became the first living Black woman in the United States—and the first Black woman in Texas—to have legislation named in her honor.
Dr. Masters has emerged as a prominent leader in the national movement to eliminate the backlog of untested sexual assault evidence kits and improve the ways law enforcement agencies, forensic professionals, prosecutors, healthcare providers, policymakers, and community systems respond to sexual violence. Her advocacy extends beyond raising awareness; she works to ensure that reforms are practical, accountable, trauma-informed, and centered on the humanity of every survivor.
Her leadership includes service on the Texas Governor’s Sexual Assault Survivors’ Task Force, membership in the DNA Center Advocates Coalition, and service as a co-founder and member of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault Survivor Advisory Board. She also serves on the boards of The Turning Point Rape Crisis Center and Ranch Hands Rescue–Bob’s House of Hope, continuing her commitment to survivors of sexual violence, trafficking, exploitation, and complex trauma.
Beyond her legislative advocacy, Dr. Masters has played a crucial role in educating courts, legislators, law enforcement professionals, forensic scientists, healthcare providers, faith leaders, advocates, and community stakeholders throughout the United States and Africa. Her work addresses the financial, legal, institutional, and human requirements necessary to combat violence against women, strengthen survivor protections, and improve the criminal justice system’s response to sexual assault.
Through her signature talks and training experiences, Dr. Masters brings together lived experience, policy expertise, faith, resilience, and actionable strategies for systems change. Her signature presentations include Justice in My Genes™, Unbroken, The Intimacy of Validation™, Firewall Resilience Experience™, No More Weight, and other transformative messages designed to educate, enlighten, empower, and encourage. Whether speaking before forensic scientists, law enforcement leaders, government agencies, universities, healthcare professionals, faith communities, or survivor audiences, she challenges people to move beyond simply hearing survivors toward building systems that honor, protect, and respond to them.
Dr. Masters is also the visionary behind signature events and healing experiences that create safe, affirming spaces for survivors and communities. These include Celebrate the Release™, a powerful experience centered on releasing trauma, shame, silence, and emotional weight; The B.A.D. C.H.I.C. Experience™—Born Again Daughters Collectively Healing in Christ; the W.I.P.E. Experience™—Women Inspiring Purpose & Empowerment; and other survivor-centered programs that combine education, faith, sisterhood, restoration, and celebration.
As the founder of the Dr. Lavinia B. Masters Legacy Group, LLC, and co-executive founder of Hope S.A.V.E.S.H.E.R., she develops trauma-informed training, survivor-centered programs, consulting strategies, and educational resources that help individuals and institutions move from awareness to measurable action. Her signature initiative, Justice in My Genes™, connects the science of DNA with the lived realities of survivors and equips professionals to understand that every evidence kit represents a person, a story, and a life waiting to be acknowledged.
Dr. Masters’ contributions have earned numerous honors, including induction into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2023, the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022, and the Texas Trailblazer Award in 2019. Yet her greatest measure of impact is not found in titles or recognition. It is found in the survivors who feel seen, the professionals who serve with greater empathy, and the laws and systems that change because someone refused to remain silent.
Today, Dr. Lavinia B. Masters continues to stand at the intersection of survival, science, legislation, faith, and justice. Her message is clear: DNA is more than evidence—it is a voice, a pathway to truth, and, as she often declares, “a footprint from God.”
Her life and leadership embody the principles that guide everything she does:
Empathy First. Justice Always.™
Justice in My Genes. Strength in My Story.™
Congratulations - 2023 Texas Women's Hall of Fame Inductee
EMPOWER, EDUCATE & ENLIGHTENMENT is Lavinia Masters
Empower
SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVOR DECLARATION
Created by: Lavinia B. Masters
I am a survivor…I am no longer a victim of my past circumstances.
Today I promise to:
Reach out for my deliverance
Embrace my recovery
Receive my healing and
Release all the pain that sexual abuse and rape trauma brings.
Today I am stronger…I now realize that I hold the keys to unlock my empowerment:
I choose to be delivered so that I can fulfill my destiny
I demand my recovery because God and I have a plan
I claim my healing because I know I have a purpose and
I must release the pain so that I can breathe again.
Educate
Lavinia believes in mentoring with compassion, guiding her champions to trust the processes of discovering their full purpose beyond their past pain so that they too can empower, educate and enlighten their communities on how to promote healing and seek justice for victims while remaining trauma-informed, and survivor-centered.
With over 30 years of public speaking which includes corporate training, a gift of transforming an audience, and a ravenous desire to encourage others to embrace purposeful living after trauma, Lavinia is a powerful advocate and speaker who moves audiences to take action and inspires other survivors to raise their voices.
Enlighten
Did you know that Dr. Lavinia B. Masters is also the namesake of HB 8: The Lavinia Masters Act of 2019?
She is also the 1st living African American woman to have a law her namesake not only in Texas but the US!
Lavinia is more than an act as she tirelessly fought since 2005 to raise awareness and demand change about the horrendous rapekit backlog once it was brought to her attention by now-retired, Sgt. Patrick Welsch of the Dallas Police Department, that her own sexual assault cold case from her childhood of 1985 was a part of the backlog.
She then begin to campaign and petition legislators to make a change to the injustices that were being plagued upon victims worldwide due to this backlog.
Then she was introduced and joined forces with the amazing Representative Victoria Neave-Criado in the fall of 2017 which took advocating for the rape-kit backlog to a higher level.
It was because of this union and Victoria's inspiration of the metoo movement and Lavinia's story that she formed a sexual assault task of force which included Lavinia and it was here where World History, Texas History, and Black History were born!
HB 8: The Lavinia Masters Act is an omnibus bill that:
1. Require an audit of untested rape kits to determine the number, status, and location of all rape kits in Texas
2. Create timelines for the submission, testing, and analysis of all newly collected kits
3. Prohibit law enforcement agencies from destroying rape kits related to an uncharged or unsolved case until the later of (1) the length of the statute of limitations or (2) 50 years
4. Toll the statute of limitations for sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault until the rape kit is tested
5. Increase the time the Texas Department of Public Safety maintains rape kits classified as "non-reports" from two years to five years
Lavinia's story continues as an advocate and activist but also as a consultant, coach, internationally renowned speaker, and author. Lavinia is available not just to share her story of resilience but also to empower her audience to overcome and become conduits for change!
Lavinia's expertise in consulting and coaching includes movie directors, actors, public and private schools, universities, and several organizations that value the importance of her voice to empower as she promotes self-love, self-care, and the wealth of mental health!
LAVINIA SPEAKS
Our Partners
Testimonials
Jane Manning Director, Women’s Equal Justice Project
I’m the director of a non-profit that serves survivors of sexual assault, and I’ve asked Lavinia Masters to speak at several events convened by my organization to advocate for a better legal system response to sexual assault. Each time, Ms. Masters has proven herself to be a surpassingly skillful and gifted speaker. She speaks with great strength and power, but also with great compassion and kindness. She has a remarkable ability to speak spontaneously, from the heart and with no script, but with tremendous discipline and clarity. I would be honored to attend any event at which she was speaking. She is a gifted woman who uses her gift to make the world more just.
Camille Cooper, Vice President of Public Policy RAINN
Lavinia Masters is a powerful advocate and speaker who moves audiences to take action and inspires other survivors to raise their voices. Her courage to come forward has inspired change at both the state and federal levels.
Denecia Spence, Ed.D. Speech Faculty Co-Chair — Equity Richland Richland Campus Dallas College
In the fall of 2019 as the co-chair of Equity Richland, I met Mrs.
Lavinia Masters. At that time, she was a panelist at two sessions of
our program entitled “I Am Evidence: A Community
Conversation.” During and after both sessions I had the
opportunity to witness her expressive public speaking skills, her
openness, transparency, and ability to transform the audience.
Her presence contributed to standing room only in the packed
gallery. Her kindness, professionalism, servant leadership, and
willingness to go beyond what was required of her, have forever
transformed my desire to continue to be of service to others.
Annarosa Mudd, actor/producer/writer
I was so honored to have the chance to feature Lavinia Masters as a speaker for a film I produced and starred in about my experience with sexual assault. Lavinia speaks with such clarity and bold honesty about her own experience, and coming from that place, she creates a loving and empowered space for other survivors and everyone who is listening. She is a bright light and powerful voice that is relentless, brave, and deeply loving. Lavinia makes every single person in her audience feel heard, valued, and that everything is going to be alright. For those of us working through traumas, there is nothing more gratifying and important. I am so grateful to her, and would highly recommend her as a speaker always.
Shalonda Waggoner Founder/President LatterHouse Decor
I would describe Mrs. Lavinia B. Masters as a true master (pun intended) of her craft. Public speaking is not for everyone. It can be both scary and intimidating, to say the least. But Lavinia has been chosen for this assignment. Her speeches not only touch every individual in the room, but she reaches to places that pull on our heartstrings that we never saw coming. Her voice permeates to the core of her subject matters. She uses her expressions to give thought-provoking speeches that come straight from her heart.
I appreciate her talks because I can always count on leaving with something that I thought I didn't need, like a better perspective on something. She has a way of allowing her audience to see things differently for the better of mankind.
I would recommend Lavinia to be a Public Speaker in any room because she will give you the flowers of life through her words that will captivate you and long be remembered.
Stephen Puddicombe National & Foreign Corresponder Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC)
Lavinia was and is amazing. She spoke thoughtfully and intelligently about a subject most would cringe at discussing. Her story and the way she told it made me realize I have met a very special person and that apart from this work we would become friends.
Lavinia changed my outlook and gave me hope for the future. To go through the horrible violence that she did but yet be willing to share her story to help others was beyond appreciated. She is thoughtful, brave, courageous, and caring.
Speakers like this; people like this are so rare.
LAVINIA TESTIFIES
Indeed, I am more than an act as I provide my expertise and training to middle and high schools as well as Charter Schools, Colleges, and Universities. I can be found speaking to the military, Corporate America, non-profit organizations, focus groups, law enforcement, Congress/Legislation, and law firms, as well as consulting directors/actors and celebrities on how to remain trauma-informed and survivor-centered when dealing with personnel on set and behind the scenes and the general public. Reach out to me to see how I can cater to your needs for your organization.