Dr. Brooke Coley is a tenured engineering professor, center director, speaker, and nationally recognized scholar whose work has examined identity, belonging, equity, and the human experiences that shape our lives. Throughout her career, she has led multimillion-dollar initiatives, delivered invited talks nationally and internationally, and received recognition for her leadership, research, and commitment to creating spaces where people can thrive.

Beyond her professional accomplishments, Brooke's life has been shaped by many of the experiences explored in Healing in the Fast Lane: Confessions from a Work in Progress. She is a Black lesbian woman, a mother by choice, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a partner, a daughter, and a lifelong seeker of healing and belonging. Her journey has included family estrangement, trauma, grief, institutional betrayal, reinvention, and the ongoing challenge of building a meaningful life while carrying the complexities of each.

Through both lived experience and years spent exploring questions of identity, meaning, and belonging, Brooke became increasingly aware that different versions of herself were carrying different stories. Through the many transitions, setbacks, achievements, losses, and reinventions that shaped her life, she came to understand that healing rarely happens after life settles down—it happens while life continues moving. Her memoir represents the convergence of those experiences and offers readers an honest exploration of healing, self-acceptance, and the lifelong work of making space for every version of ourselves to belong.