Appendix A
Speaker and Planning Committee Biographical Sketches
Julian Agyeman, Ph.D., FRSA, FRGS, is a professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University. Dr. Agyeman has extensive experience in local government, in environmental and sustainability consulting, and in the voluntary sector in the United Kingdom. Dr. Agyeman is the originator of the increasingly influential concept of “just sustainabilities,” which explores the intersecting goals of social justice and environmental sustainability, defined as the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now, and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, while living within the limits of supporting ecosystems.
Dr. Agyeman is the author or editor of 12 books. He is also a founding senior advisor/thought leader at PlacemakingX and sits on a number of boards both nationally and internationally. In 1996, he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA) in the United Kingdom, a network of people dedicated to enriching society and shaping the future through ideas and action, and in 2016 he became a Fellow of the U.K. Royal Geographical Society (FRGS), the learned society and professional body advancing geography and supporting geographers.
Dr. Agyeman has held visiting professorships at various universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. He was Senior Scholar at The Center for Humans and Nature, Chicago, and was a Fellow of the McConnell Foundation Cities for People program in Montréal, Canada. In 2018, he was awarded the Athena City Accolade by KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, for his “outstanding contribution to the field of social justice and ecological sustainability,
environmental policy and planning.” Dr. Agyeman holds a Ph.D. in urban studies from the University of London, an M.A. in conservation policy from Middlesex University, United Kingdom, and a B.Sc. (joint honors) in geography and botany from Durham University, United Kingdom.
Dawn Alley, Ph.D., is Head of Healthcare Innovation at Morgan Health, a JP Morgan Chase business unit focused on improving the quality, efficiency, and equity of employer-sponsored health care. Dr. Alley previously served as Chief Strategy Officer at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), where she led investment strategy across a $10 billion portfolio of value-based transformation and population health models. Prior to joining CMMI, she was a senior advisor in the Office of the Surgeon General and on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has extensive expertise in population health and aging, with more than 50 publications in journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. Dr. Alley holds a Ph.D. in gerontology from the University of Southern California and received postdoctoral training in population health through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Bader, Ph.D., is associate professor of sociology at American University. Dr. Bader studies how cities and neighborhoods have evolved since the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He links long-term patterns of neighborhood racial change to the ways that race and class influence the housing search process. He has developed methodological tools that combine survey data with “big data” to study neighborhood environments. Dr. Bader is also Associate Director of the Metropolitan Policy Center and an affiliate of the Center on Health, Risk, and Society. He has a joint appointment with the Department of Public Administration and Policy. Before joining the faculty of American University, Dr. Bader was a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania where he was also a senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in architecture and art history from Rice University.
Raymond J. Baxter, Ph.D., is the co-chair of the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dr. Baxter has led a distinguished career devoted to improving health and health care in America and the world. His leadership in strategy, policy, operations, and research has touched nearly every facet of the health field: public health, hospitals and ambulatory care, integrated delivery systems, mental health, long-term care, and environmental health.
Dr. Baxter most recently was CEO of the Blue Shield of California Foundation. Its mission is to make California the healthiest state and to end domestic violence, by addressing the root causes of ill health and inequity. For 15 years, Dr. Baxter was Kaiser Permanente’s national Senior Vice President for Community Benefit, Research, and Health Policy. There he built the largest community benefit program in the United States, investing over $2 billion annually in community health. He led Kaiser Permanente’s signature national health improvement partnerships, including the Weight of the Nation, the Convergence Partnership, and the Partnership for a Healthier America. Dr. Baxter established Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Effectiveness and Safety Research and built out its national genomics research bank, served as President of KP International, and chaired Kaiser Permanente’s field-leading environmental stewardship work. He was also a founding sponsor of the KP School of Medicine.
Previously Dr. Baxter headed the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, and The Lewin Group. He holds a doctorate from Princeton University. Dr. Baxter currently serves on the advisory boards to the deans of the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing, and the boards of the CDC Foundation and the Blue Shield of California Foundation. He served multiple terms on the Global Agenda Council on Health of the World Economic Forum and the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Ph.D., M.D., M.A.S., is professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and the Lee Goldman, M.D. Endowed Professor of Medicine. She is the inaugural Vice Dean for Population Health and Health Equity in the UCSF School of Medicine. Dr. Bibbins-Domingo co-founded the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital that generates actionable research to increase health equity and reduce health disparities in at-risk populations in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and nationally. She is one of the principal investigators (PIs) of the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute and leads the UCSF COVID Community Public Health Initiative.
Dr. Bibbins-Domingo is a general internist, cardiovascular disease epidemiologist, and a national leader in prevention and interventions to address health disparities. She is a National Institutes of Health–funded researcher who uses observational studies, pragmatic trials, and simulation modeling to examine effective clinical, public health, and policy interventions aimed at prevention. She leads the UCSF Cardiovascular Disease Policy Model group that conducts simulation modeling, disease
projections, and cost-effectiveness analyses related to cardiovascular disease in the United States and in other national contexts.
Dr. Bibbins-Domingo was a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 2010 to 2017 and led the Task Force as the vice-chair and chair from 2014 to 2017. She is an inducted member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the National Academy of Medicine.
Robin Bronen, J.D., Ph.D., co-founded and serves as the executive director of the Alaska Institute for Justice (AIJ), the only nonprofit in Alaska that provides immigration legal services and trains bilingual Alaskans to work as professional interpreters in the medical, legal, and social services. The Federal Bureau of Investigation awarded the Alaska Institute for Justice the 2012 Director’s National Community Service award for the agency’s work with human trafficking victims. The Municipality of Anchorage awarded AIJ the Community Diversity award in 2007.
Dr. Bronen works as a human rights attorney and has been researching and working with communities forced to relocate because of climate change since 2007. Her research has been publicized by CNN and The Guardian, among others. She has worked with the White House Council on Environmental Quality to implement President Obama’s Climate Change Task Force recommendation to address climate displacement as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Climate Change Office.
Dr. Bronen’s additional honors include the 2012 Alaska Bar Association Human Rights award, 2012 International Soroptimist Advancing the Rights of Women award, and 2007 Robert Hickerson award for public service. Dr. Bronen also serves as a senior research scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks researching climate-induced relocations since 2007. Her publications include articles in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change, work from Brookings Institution, The Guardian, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nupur Chaudhury, M.P.H., M.U.P., is a public health urbanist and interrogates the influence of the built environment on health. She was trained at the New York University Wagner School of Public Service and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She is the founder and principal of NupurSpectives Consulting, a firm that centers communities for equitable change.
Ms. Chaudhury has a background in community-based health, urban planning, and community organizing. Previously, she was the founding Director of Neighborhood Health at the Center for Health Equity, housed at New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She has also worked with Rebuild by Design as a resiliency planner post–Hurricane
Sandy by building and strengthening neighborhood coalitions in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Ms. Chaudhury was also the Director of the Creating Healthy Places program in Brownsville, Brooklyn, working with public housing residents to develop the neighborhood agenda linking the built environment, health, and violence to its work on active living and healthy eating. Most recently, she directed the Building Healthy Communities initiative as a Program Officer for the New York State Health Foundation.
Ms. Chaudhury is a member of the American Planning Association, the American Public Health Association, an Urban Design Forum’s Forefront Fellow, a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow, board member of the Center for the Living City, and past board member of University of Orange and Made in Brownsville (now Youth Design Center).
Juan De Lara, Ph.D., M.A., is an associate professor in the Department of American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and Director of the Latinx and Latin American Studies Center. His interdisciplinary research focuses on three broad themes. The first centers on urban political economy, racialization, and the politics of space. A second set of research interests focuses on the use of data science and technology to reorganize how various state agencies are restructuring the social relations of race, immigration, and labor. A third set of projects focuses on public-facing research that supports community-based organizations in their efforts to resolve social disparities. His book, Inland Shift: Race, Space, and Capital in Inland Southern California, uses logistics and commodity chains to unpack the black box of globalization by showing how the scientific management of bodies, space, and time produced new racialized labor regimes that facilitated a more complex and extended system of global production, distribution, and consumption. Dr. De Lara earned a Ph.D. in geography from University of California, Berkeley, an M.A. in urban planning, and a B.A. in sociology and labor studies from Pitzer College.
Mindy Fullilove, M.D., M.S., is a professor of urban policy and health at The New School’s Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment. She is a social psychiatrist who explores the ties between environment and mental health. With her colleagues at the Cities Research Group and the University of Orange, Dr. Fullilove explores the consequences of social fracture for our society and our health, and seeks ways to reconnect the broken parts. Prior to joining The New School full-time in 2016, she taught at Columbia University and was a lecturer at Parsons. Dr. Fullilove has published numerous articles and six books including Main Street: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All, From Enforcers to Guardians: A Public Health Primer on
Ending Police Violence (with Hannah L. F. Cooper), Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America’s Sorted-Out Cities, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, and House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place. Dr. Fullilove received her bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College and her M.S. and M.D. degrees from Columbia University. She completed residency at New York Hospital Westchester Division and Montefiore and is board certified in psychiatry.
Alejandra Hernandez, M.E.M., is an Environment Fellow at The Kresge Foundation. Ms. Hernandez supports the Environment Program’s strategy to help cities combat and adapt to climate change while advancing racial and economic equity. She also works with the Climate Change, Health & Equity (CCHE) initiative team to mobilize equitable climate action in low-income communities across the country.
Previously, Ms. Hernandez served as a conservation policy associate with the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, where she supported policies and programming for a sustainable and resilient food and agriculture system. She has also held different positions with the John Bartkowski Department of Environmental Health at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Ms. Hernandez holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Dallas and a master’s degree from the Yale School of the Environment. She serves as a board associate for the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice for the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She also serves as a board member for the Wisconsin chapter of the New Leaders Council and the nonprofit, Acquazul.
Richard J. Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., is professor emeritus at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. A pediatrician, he has served in many leadership positions with the California Health Department, including the highest as the State Health Officer. For nine years he was Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center for Environmental Health and received the Presidential Distinguished Service award. In October 2011 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Dr. Jackson was instrumental in establishing the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program and in creating state and national laws to reduce risks from pesticides, especially to farm workers and to children. While at CDC he established major environmental public health programs and instituted the federal effort to “biomonitor” chemical levels in the U.S. population. He has received the Hero Award from the Breast Cancer Fund, Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Public Health Law Asso-
ciation and the New Partners for Smart Growth, the John Heinz Award for national leadership in the environment, and the Sedgwick Medal, the highest award of the American Public Health Association. In 2015, he received the Henry Hope Reed Award for his contributions to the field of architecture.
Dr. Jackson lectures and speaks on many issues, particularly those related to the built environment and health. He has co-authored the books Urban Sprawl and Public Health, Making Healthy Places, and Designing Healthy Communities. He has served on many environmental and health boards, as well as the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects. He is an elected honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects as well as the American Institute of Architects.
Eric Klinenberg, Ph.D., is the Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. Dr. Klinenberg is currently leading a major research project on climate change and the future of cities. He is also leading a large-scale research project on the sociology of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will result in a book, 2020: A Social Autopsy.
Dr. Klinenberg’s books include Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life; Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone; Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago; and Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media. He has published sociological research in the American Sociological Review, Theory & Society, Ethnography, the American Journal of Public Health, and Public Culture. In addition to his books and scholarly articles, Dr. Klinenberg appears often on public radio and television, and he has contributed to popular publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Fortune, Rolling Stone, The London Review of Books, Le Monde Diplomatique, and the radio program This American Life.
Milton Little, M.A., has served as president and CEO of United Way of Greater Atlanta since 2007. Previously, he served as president and CEO of United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley. His career spans more than 30 years in the fields of urban affairs, public policy research and analysis, philanthropy, and community engagement. Mr. Little is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse College with a B.A. in sociology, and he earned an M.A. in urban sociology and social policy from Columbia University.
He is a member of many boards and advisory committees. Notable among them are the Center for Assessment and Policy Development, past chair of the Southern Education Foundation, and past vice chair of the
board of directors for Ways to Work. He is a member of the Atlanta Mayoral Board of Service, the Commerce Club Operating Board, 100 Black Men of Atlanta, Leadership Atlanta Class of 2010, and the Rotary Club of Atlanta. Mr. Little also serves on the Junior League of Atlanta Community Advisory Board, University of Georgia Advisory Board for the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, Atlanta Speech School Board of Advisors, Woodruff Arts Center Board of Trustees, Central Atlanta Progress, Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students, Georgia’s Older Adults Cabinet, Georgia’s Children’s Cabinet, Hope Atlanta Advisory Council, Get Georgia Ready Reading Cabinet, and Susan G. Komen of Greater Atlanta. In January 2018, he was selected to serve on Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ Transition Team.
Oscar Perry Abello is a New York City–based journalist covering alternative economic models and policies in cities. He is currently senior economics correspondent for Next City, an independent, not-for-profit, online magazine about urban planning, development, and design across the United States. He also contributes to Yes! Magazine, City & State New York, Impact Alpha, Shelterforce, and other outlets. Mr. Perry Abello is a child of immigrants descended from the former colonial subjects of the Spanish and U.S. imperial regimes in the Philippines. He was born in New York City, and raised in the inner-ring suburbs of Philadelphia. Mr. Perry Abello has a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University, where he majored in economics and minored in peace and justice studies. He spent several years embedded in the international development industry before transitioning to journalism full-time in 2015.
Thomas W. Mitchell, J.D., LL.M., is a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law. At Texas A&M, he co-directs the Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law. Prior to joining Texas A&M, he served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Law School as a full professor with a chair in law. He is a national expert on property issues facing disadvantaged families and communities and has published leading scholarly works addressing these matters.
Mr. Mitchell has done extensive law reform and policy work, most prominently serving as the principal drafter of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act. He also has helped develop federal policy proposals, working with some in Congress and others in the executive branch, to help disadvantaged farmers and property owners. Recently, he was named 1 of 21 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship for 2020 in recognition of the substantial impact his overall professional work has had in assisting disadvantaged farmers and property owners, farmers and owners who are disproportionately African American, and other people
of color. In 2021, he was awarded the Howard University Alumni Award for Distinguished Postgraduate Achievement, an award that Thurgood Marshall and Vice President Kamala Harris, among many other Howard luminaries, also have received.
Mr. Mitchell is a graduate of Amherst College, the Howard University School of Law, and the University of Wisconsin Law School where he received an LL.M. (master of laws) and served as a William H. Hastie Fellow.
Lourdes J. Rodríguez, Dr. PH., M.P.H., serves as Senior Program Officer for Women’s Health at St. David’s Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2020, Dr. Rodríguez served as associate professor and Director of Community-Driven Initiatives at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. She also worked as Program Officer at the New York State Health Foundation, and from 2004 to 2012 she co-directed the urbanism and the built environment track in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. As a public health practitioner, and in both academic and philanthropic roles, she collaborates, develops, and evaluates initiatives to improve health with people most impacted by health inequities. Dr. Rodríguez has a Dr. PH. from Columbia University, an M.P.H. from the University of Connecticut, and a B.S. in industrial biotechnology from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Population Health Improvement and currently holds an appointment as an adjunct faculty with the UTHealth School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus.
Robert Sember, M.A., an assistant professor of interdisciplinary arts at The New School’s Eugene Lang College, works at the intersection of art and public health. He is a member of the international sound-art collective, Ultrared, which helped establish Vogue’ology, an initiative by and for members of the African American and Latino/a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in New York City. His ethnographic research in the United States and South Africa has focused on governmental and nongovernmental substance abuse, mental health, and homelessness service sectors with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS prevention, testing, and treatment access. He is a senior associate with the Center for Social Innovation where he has led initiatives on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on addiction and mental health recovery. Mr. Sember is also the faculty of the Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture, and Society at the University of Amsterdam’s Graduate School of Social Sciences.
Vivek Shandas, Ph.D., is a professor of climate adaptation and Director of the Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab (SUPR Lab) at Portland State University. Trained as an interdisciplinary scholar, Professor Shandas examines the assumptions that guide decisions about the built environment, and uses spatial analytical tools and policy evaluations as a means for identifying socially inequitable outcomes. He has published more than 100 publications, including three books, and serves as a consultant and technical advisor to public, private, and nonprofit organizations. His research has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, Times of India, Le Monde, CNN, and dozens of other international and national media. During his spare time Professor Shandas serves as Chair of the City of Portland’s Urban Forestry Commission and revels in the mountains and waters of the Pacific Northwest.
Monique Tsosie is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation Tribe. Ms. Tsosie currently serves as a Program Analyst for the American Indian Research Center for Health (AIRCH) program at the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. (ITCA), partnered with The University of Arizona. She manages grant-funded programs, assists with the American Indian Education initiatives, Climate Resilience Project, and Ending the HIV epidemic program at ITCA. She serves on the Arizona Indian Education Association Committee, is a member of the AIRCH Community Action Committee, and volunteers as a Community Advisor Board member for the John Hopkins for American Indian Health Mother/Daughter Program.
Ms. Tsosie’s prior work includes serving as Research Field Staff for the Western Region with the Southwest Research and Information Center and the University of New Mexico on the Navajo Birth Cohort Study/Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcome Project. As a research technician, she gained valuable trainings in motivational interviewing, youth mental first aid, and administering mental behavioral health measurement tools. Ms. Tsosie has a background illustrating her abilities to work in different environments and maintaining cultural sensitivity while working with American Indian tribal communities. She is passionate for the community she serves with experience and focus on American Indian health and wellness.
Karen Umemoto, Ph.D., M.A., is a professor in the departments of Urban Planning and Asian American Studies and is the inaugural Helen and Morgan Chu Endowed Director’s Chair of the Asian American Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Umemoto’s research and practice take a broad view of planning in the context of social inclusion, participatory democracy, and political transformation. She has published more than 50 articles, book chapters, and professional reports,
and she has served on the boards for the Association for Asian American Studies and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. Dr. Umemoto has also served on editorial boards for five journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association. In 2001, she received the University of Hawai’i Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching. She is the recipient of the W.E.B. DuBois Award of the Western Society of Criminology, co-author of Jacked Up and Unjust: Pacific Islander Teens Confront Violent Legacies, and the author of Truce: Lessons from an L.A. Gang War. Dr. Umemoto received her Ph.D. in urban studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds an M.A. in Asian American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in interdisciplinary social science from San Francisco State University.
Meghan Venable-Thomas, Dr. PH., M.PH., M.A., is the Cultural Resilience Program Director at Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., supporting community development organizations across the country in integrating cultural and healing-centered approaches for increased equitable development. She is also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leaders Fellow. With more than 10 years of military experience developing and implementing strategies, building programs, and leading teams, Dr. Venable-Thomas is now focusing on ways to improve health disparities in the United States and abroad. She maintains her military service as a Major in the Massachusetts Army National Guard providing Sexual Assault Prevention Coordination, directing programs, training, and victim advocacy around sexual assault prevention. She is also an instructor and Project Manager at TRILLFIT®, spearheading the development of TRILLFITs Pledge for Racial Justice, Anti-Racism and Equality in the Wellness Industry. She leverages her varied experiences to support healthy, thriving communities. Dr. Venable-Thomas graduated with her doctorate in public health from Harvard University, focusing on health equity, community-based participatory research, and tools for advancing healing justice. She also holds a master’s degree in public health management from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy.
Myla Vicenti Carpio, Ph.D., M.A., is an associate professor and Director of Graduate Studies in American Indian Studies at Arizona State University. She is a citizen of the Jicarilla Apache Nation and also of Laguna and Isleta Pueblo heritage. Her research areas include Indigenous history, urban issues, gender and sexuality, and decolonization. Dr. Vicenti Carpio has published numerous articles and her book, Indigenous Albuquerque, was published in 2011. She is currently working a co-authored book with Karen Leong, American Movements: Understanding the Ideological and
Institutional Reasoning for Japanese American and American Indian Relocations, 1940-1970, which explores the institutional intersections of Japanese internment and American Indian urban relocation policy. In addition, Dr. Vicenti Carpio is a co-editor with Jeffrey Shepherd (University of Texas at El Paso) of the Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies book series. Dr. Vicenti Carpio received her doctorate in history from Arizona State University.
