Marissa Nelson

Marissa Nelson is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT), AASECT Certified Sex Therapist (CST) and Sexuality Educator (CSE), and TEDx Speaker who has helped thousands of couples rediscover lasting connection while overcoming all of life’s challenges together. She is one of less than twenty African-American therapists nationwide to hold these professional designations.

An internationally recognized expert, she is the creator of IntimacyMoons Couples Retreats, rated by Women’s Health, Fodor’s Travel, and Travel Curator Magazines as one of the top luxury couples retreats worldwide. She has also been featured in over 150 national and international media publications including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Condé Nast. She consolidated these experiences into craft the now popular TEDx talk "We all experience sexual rejection - and it’s not about sex".

In 2022, Nelson launched Fertility Haven, a behavioral health integration that provides tailored emotional wellness support to fertility patients during treatment cycles. She has spoken at numerous fertility-focused conferences and often conducts patient engagement workshops for fertility providers such as Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Maven and Kindbody. For her efforts in this space, Nelson was nominated in 2023 to INNOVATE Washington’s Top 100 innovators list. Nelson is also the Washington DC facilitator of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Women’s Circle.

Her most recent speaking engagements include Black Enterprise, John’s Hopkins AI Summit, Virtuoso, Oxford Trauma Conference, The Sex Symposium and Alloy Women’s Health.

Nelson is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters in Education Entrepreneurship, and also possesses a Masters in Marriage & Family Therapy from Drexel University where she received the Department of Family Therapy Service Award. Nelson also pursued post-graduate studies, receiving a Certificate in Sexual Health & Sex Therapy from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.