SPEAKERS
KIESE LAYMON
Keynote Speaker
Bestselling Author, Social Critic, and Essayist
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. In his observant, often hilarious work, Laymon does battle with the personal and the political: race and family, body and shame, poverty and place. He is the author of the award-winning memoir Heavy, the ...
CAMILLE BENNETT
Keynote Speaker
Founder and Executive Director,
Project Say Something
A 32-year resident of Alabama, her global perspective stems from living on the island of St. Maarten. Camille is the Founder and Executive Director of Project Say Something (PSS) a nonprofit organization with a mission to confront anti-Black systems and ideologies, promote...
SESSION SPEAKERS
Jessica De Jesus Acevedo, M.Ed., founder and co-owner of Little Star of Ours family daycare in Cambridge, MA., established in 2016. She is a fourth-year Doctoral Candidate in the Early Childhood Education and Care Ph.D. program at the UMASS Boston. She serves on the Department of Early Education and Care Workforce Council, Cambridge-Somerville Black Business Network, FuelEd Fellow, and the City of Cambridge First Charter Review committee member...
Jessica De Jesus Acevedo
Lightning Talk Presenter
LaI am an advocate for children and families. I am a foster and adoptive mother. I strive to enhance equity and educational parity for all, with a special focus on foster children, battered women and persons with disabilities. I do not rely on emotions or opinions. I rely on clean data and finding the gaps of inequity and backing my research with facts on how these problems are enhanced exponentially for children and families of color.
Terry Alves-Hunter
Lightning Talk Presenter
Judy Bennett has been committed to service to families and communities for more than thirty years.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant, she served as CEO at Apostles’ House, providing homeless services for women and children. Executive Director at Cross Counters, Inc., providing administrative services for teen-age youth within New Jersey’s foster care system. Executive Director of the federally-funded Newark Weed and Seed Initiative, fostering relationships between law enforcement and community...
Judy D. Bennett
Session: Health
Nieisha Deed is a powerful emerging voice and leader in the mental health and wellness space in Boston and is working fiercely to advocate for mental wellness in Boston’s Black community. She is the visionary and creator behind PureSpark. As a person living with bipolar disorder, Nieisha understands all too well how important access to holistic support services and community are to one’s mental wellness. As a Black woman, Nieisha is a community builder and disruptor in the mental health...
Nieisha Deed
Session: Health
Femeika Elliott, is the founder of the Rooted East Collective located in Knoxville, Tennessee and the Chief Operations of the Knoxville Community Gardens & Growers Alliance. She is a food educator, home gardener and herbalist. Femeika is skilled in public service and resource allocation with nearly 10 years experience focusing on substance abuse, mental health, child welfare and the juvenile justice sector. She loves speaking passionately...
Femeika “Meik” Elliott
Session: Food Systems
Jamie Gonzalez is a builder, culinarian, and a growing force in changing the culture of how San Antonio eats. Known as “The Produce Lady”, she utilizes her unique moniker, 15+ years of produce industry experience and a passion to feed people to develop feeding programs that support an equitable food system. Jamie is the founder of the BIG FRESH Market Box Programs. These produce boxes and markets are the catalyst...
Jamie Gonzalez
Session: Food Systems
Judy Hu is a Boundary Coach and Licensed Mental Health Counselor based in Massachusetts, specializing in helping people navigate Psychological Boundaries and self-esteem. With nearly two decades of experience, she has developed her own Psychological Boundary Framework™, aimed at empowering individuals to live authentically by unlearning toxic beliefs. Judy prioritizes serving the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities, offering a range of services from individual to group coaching...
Judy Hu
Session: Health
Jayson-Ann Johnson leads the prenatal and early childhood strategy efforts at Bridgeport Prospers’- an initiative of United Way of Coastal and Western Connecticut where the focus is cradle-to-career collective impact. She has a Master’s degree in Public Health with a concentration in Health Promotion. Prior to her current position, Jayson-Ann worked as a WIC Nutritionist and Breastfeeding Coordinator where...
Jayson-Ann Johnson
Session: Health
Brook LaFloe is from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa & grew up in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Brook co-founded Niniijaanis One of Ones LLC, a social enterprise for Indigenous children. She is an educator and entrepreneur with passion for revitalizing culture, and facilitating the growth of local Indigenous artists & economies. Her academic background includes a Tulane University Bachelors of Science in Neuroscience and Anthropology, a Loyola University of Maryland Master’s in Education and 2 Association Montessori International...
Brook LaFloe
Session: Education
Malkia Singleton Ofori-Agyekum serves as the ParentChild+ Pennsylvania State Director. She has been overseeing the Program’s successful start-up in Philadelphia, as well as supporting sites elsewhere in the state and working on expanding into new PA communities. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Rehabilitation Services from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Master of Science in Early Childhood Education from the University of Pennsylvania. As a program designer, leader and advocate in the fields of early childhood...
Malkia Singleton Ofori-Agyekum
Session: Education
Katia Powell-Laurent is an award-winning nutrition and wellness expert, a practicing Holistic Nutrition Practitioner, maternal health researcher, Birth Doula, policy advocate, and the founder of Black Girls Nutrition – a digital nutrition company that provides culturally tailored nutritional solutions to women from the Black Diaspora.
Katia has helped her current and past clients lose over 100,000 lbs. She has been featured in People Magazine, Boston Business Journal, personally lost 200lbs, is a Robert Woods...
Katia Powell-Laurent
Session: Health
Dinah Shepherd is a co-founder and co-director of First Teacher, a community of parents and caregivers working together to prepare all our children to be school- and world-ready. She has taught middle school and high school English Language Arts in Boston for 15 years, and is the mom to two teenage boys. Dinah excels in the fields of humor and connection and struggles with patience and motivation.
Dinah Shepherd
Session: Education
Clare Viglione (she/her) is a licensed clinical dietitian, a public health researcher, and the director of the GROWBABY Research Network at Vital Village Networks. Clare graduated from Columbia with a Masters in Public Health and is currently working towards a doctoral degree in Health Behavior at University of California San Diego. Clare has worked and managed collaborative research studies with Harvard Prevention Research Center...
Clare Viglione
Lightning Talk Presenter
Kile Adumene (she/her) is a working mother of four wonderful children. She brings a wealth of lived and professional experience as a Black-immigrant and highly skilled community organizer who understands the importance of building the capacity of others to organize for themselves and their communities. Kile directs a community-led initiative called Manchester Community Action Coalition (MCAC), an organization that provides a gracious space for most impacted residents to co-create solutions. She brings a wealth of...
Kile Adumene
Session: Education
I am the Garden program manager for Skyline Urban Ministry. We are a food resource center which distributes dry goods and we aim to provide as much fresh produce as we possibly can. Our organization acknowledges the importance of food that has high nutritional content and we aim to provide fresh fruit, vegetables, and dairy products to our low-income patrons who may not otherwise be able to afford these foods...
Travis Andrews
Session: Food Systems
Mariana is committed to rebuilding inefficient and ineffective systems to create an ecosystem of health that is accessible and acceptable by all. As the Co-Founder and Deputy Director at Vital CxNs, Mariana is responsible for developing and operating the internal processes that advance the work and mission of the organization. She also has the pleasure of leading the organization’s food access initiatives, co-designing innovative community-based strategies...
Mariana Cohen
Lightning Talk Presenter
Sierra Doehr (she/they) is a first generation Filipinx-American whose experience with colonialism in the U.S. has continually led them to seek healing. Their healing journey led them to become a practitioner of energy healing and apprentice of Hilot, an ancient Filipino healing art. Their work as a food justice advocate eventually guided them to the intersection of food security and racial equity as a health educator and backyard farmer...
Sierra Doehr
Session: Food Systems
Senior Director of Community Engagement at The Possible Zone, an Innovation Center in Boston, Juan-Carlos Ferrufino is passionate about working on challenging projects that have strong, long-lasting impacts on people's lives and their communities. His professional background is in Business, Economic Development, Multicultural Affairs, Micro and Macro Lending.
Juan-Carlos was the Education Committee Chairman for the FDIC’s national initiative, the Alliance for...
Juan-Carlos Ferrufino
Session: Health
Raena Granberry is a Health Equity Strategist and Director of Maternal and Reproductive Health at California Black Women’s Health Project.
She has worked to ensure better outcomes for pregnant Black women and families with The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LADPH), Cedar Sinai Hospital and Watts Health Clinic, Maternal Mental Health Now, and California’s Black Infant Health Program...
Raena Granberry
Session: Health
Nikole Huertas is a co-founder and a workshop facilitator of First Teacher, a community of parents and caregivers working together to prepare all our children to be school and world ready. She has worked in daycares and pre-schools in Boston. She is passionate about ensuring high-quality support and care for all families, especially families living with special needs and families headed by a teen parent. Nikole is the mother of four children: two adults, two teens.
Nikole Huertas
Session: Education
Mia serves as the Early Childhood Project Coordinator and manages the Pritzker Children’s Initiative Community Innovation grant as the Pritzker Children’s Initiative Fellow in Alachua County, Florida. She is responsible for joining forces with other passionate early childhood community system leaders to better coordinate services and connections that improve the outcomes of children prenatal to eight years old in her community. Part of her focus is to: Learn more about what is or is not available for families from prenatal to age 8 in Alachua County...
Mia Jones
Session: Education
BroAlejandra is a life-long Angeleno who calls Southeast LA home. Her interest in exploring visual art, storytelling and community archival work is thus informed by the culture of and challenges endured by her community. She is a graduate from UCLA, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, and she is now pursuing her Master's of City Planning at MIT. Today, she seeks to continue exploring how communities may gain more autonomy in reimagining and enacting futures that meet their needs and desires.
Alejandra Martinez
Lightning Talk Presenter
Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s, Inés worked as the Senior Program Officer for Resilient Communities, Resilient Families for LISC Boston. She spent over a decade in the public government as a Senior Planner/Project Director for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, where she managed the Fairmount Indigo Planning Initiative and worked on numerous neighborhood planning and economic development initiatives.
As a first-generation Puerto Rican woman, Ines has dedicated 25+ years of personal and professional life to...
Inés Palmarin
Session: Education
As a Public Health Social Worker, Sarah Primeau brings experience in person-focused interventions and population-level systems change efforts. As the Program Director for Health Leads in Boston, Sarah leads a range of initiatives that enable healthcare and community stakeholders to improve health by centering the community in addressing essential resource needs required to support health equity. As a part of her work, Sarah co-leads the Massachusetts...
Sarah Primeau
Lightning Talk Presenter
I am Patricia Del Pilar Tarquino. I was born in Cali, Colombia, near the eastern foothills of the Andes Mountains. I am an immigrant, a Berea College alumna, and former environmental justice community organizer in Central Appalachia. I currently live in Nashville, Tennessee and work in collaboration with several urban agriculture nonprofits, farmers and organizations on issues of land and food access in Davidson County.
Patricia Tarquino
Session: Food Systems
LaNorris D. Alexander, MA, is an emerging scholar in adolescent, post-secondary, and community literacies. He is a student at The Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology. His doctoral research addresses the issues faced by marginalized students attending secondary schools and in their collegiate, undergraduate studies. His research interests include learning and instruction practices centering culturally relevant literature, as well as leading students and educators navigating and overcoming challenges resulting from internal and settler colonialism...
LaNorris D. Alexander
Lightning Talk Presenter
Leah began rescuing food from several grocery stores after seeing the immense amount of food waste in the Greater Boston community. Because of her own lived experience with food insecurity she created the Roslindale Food Collective, a mutual aid organization that rescues 2,500-3000 pounds of quality groceries every week. Now serving as a Community Leader with the Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative (NFAC), Leah leads NFAC's community engagement...
Leah Arteaga
Lightning Talk Presenter
Breannah Conward-Lewis
Program Manager, Human Resources
Boston Medical Center Health Systems
Breannah Conward-Lewis
Session: Education
Soraya is a mother, a family wellness advocate, and a birthkeeper. She is on fire about creating a paradigm shift around how we understand the changes during and throughout childbirth and the essentials to support mothers to thrive throughout their motherhood journey. Soraya co-founded Maternal Nurturing Collective, which provides Afro-rooted holistic, spiritually connected, and evidence-centered nurturing support to help mothers feel connected, liberated, and thrive. She is also the founder and program director of Sacred Birthing...
Soraya DosSantos
Session: Health
Nelida Garcia is committed to increasing educational opportunities for students of all backgrounds. She currently serves as Director of Partnerships and Outreach for EdNavigator, a national nonprofit that partners with healthcare providers to offer expert education support to families. In her role, she works directly with healthcare practices to build an integrated support model that allows pediatricians to refer families seeking support with school enrollment and special education concerns...
Nelida Garcia
Lightning Talk Presenter
Ricardo Henry has been a proponent of racial equity and inclusion in Massachusetts for several years, collaborating with organizations to raise the minimum wage and advocating for housing and foreclosure rights and prison reform, to name a few. Ric currently serves as the Senior Community Leader of the Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative (NFAC) which is a network powered by community members and community-based organizations...
Ricardo Henry
Lightning Talk Presenter
Alula Hunsen is an essayist, an editorial manager at the Boston Ujima Project, and a research assistant with Hacking the Archive (currently based in Boston). His specific interests are in Black cultural production, planning creative spaces, and alternative economies that support self-determination. From trends to transit, from music to mosaics, and whatever else may irk his ire or hold his heart, you can find his work at www.offmydome.com.
Alula Hunsen
Lightning Talk Presenter
Moulinrouge Kaspar is a graduate student at MIT, where she is deeply invested in research at the nexus of AI, healthcare, and equity. Her work emphasizes both the identification of biases present in clinical risk algorithms derived from electronic health records and the development of explainable ML models to provide transparency in healthcare AI systems. She is passionate about ensuring that technological advancements in AI and data-driven healthcare result in equitable and fair outcomes for all patients.
Moulinrouge Kaspar
Lightning Talk Presenter
Lee Murkey is an artist, and activist from Florence Alabama, who specializes in community engagement and teaching literacy skills by connecting Hip-hop to literature. He currently serves as CO-deputy Director for Project Say Something.
Lee Murkey
Session: Health
My name is Marc Peeples known to the community as Brother Truth. I am an urban farmer and educator born and raised in Detroit. I am co-founder of Liberated Farms and Pyramid Builders Institute of S.T.E.A.M. Our mission is to combat food apartheid by empowering the youth with skills and education that will change the culture of their communities. We offer multiple programs for the kids throughout the year including a Youth Farmer...
Marc Peeples
Session: Food Systems
Dr. Sandel serves as a Professor at the Boston University (BU) Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine and a Professor at the BU School of Public Health. She’s also the co-director of the Grow Clinic for Children at Boston Medical Center (BMC), a multispecialty clinic for children with failure to thrive. She is the principal investigator for the Boston Opportunity System Collaborative, which helps underserved Boston neighborhoods with employment and affordable housing opportunities. Megan advocates for place-based investing—focusing on
Megan Sandel
Session: Health
"I think it's important because we are so alienated from our food and we have an impaired relationship with food that I think manifests itself in a lot of the health outcomes you see,” --Being able to reconnect not only with the land but where your food comes from, learning about our heritage, as it pertains to both things, I think it's very important.
Tacumba Turner is a dedicated advocate for community wellness, environmental justice, and sustainability...
Tacumba Turner
Session: Food Systems
DATA EQUITY SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS
Bonnie Boswell is an award-winning producer/reporter, talk show host and speaker. Ms. Boswell is currently the executive producer/reporter of Bonnie Boswell Reports, a feature news series, and Bonnie Boswell Presents, a news magazine program, broadcasting and streaming on PBS.org/KCET/PBS SoCal.
Ms. Boswell is the executive producer of “Saving Moms” a feature length documentary on the challenges and solutions to maternal health in America broadcast...
Bonnie Boswell
Dr. Dayna Long is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Long has been a primary care pediatrician at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland for over 20 years. For the past 7 years, she has also served as the co-Director of Center for Child and Community Health (CCCH). The mission of CCCH is to be a positive force for all children to live a full, vibrant and healthy life. Dr. Long accomplishes this mission...
Dr. Dayna Long
Dr. Candice Hargons (she/her) is an award-winning associate professor in the counseling psychology program at the University of Kentucky, where she studies sexual and mental health – all with a love ethic. She is PI of the SAMHSA funded Neighborhood Healers Project, which seeks to advance mental health literacy and service utilization among Black Lexingtonians. She is also a co-I on projects funded by NIDA, HRSA, and NIMHD examining substance use outcomes, treatment, and sexual health disparities...
Dr. Candice Hargons
Lilly Marcelin, the founder and Executive Director of RSP, is a community activist and organizer who has dedicated herself to a lifelong journey around racial and social justice equity. Ms. Marcelin has worked on a broad range of issues from gender-based violence, human trafficking, health, and socioeconomic disparities to women’s reproductive health and rights. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Resilient Sisterhood Project (RSP)...
Lilly Marcelin
In 2016 Charles Johnson, lost his wife Kira, during a routine C-section at Cedar Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, California. He founded 4Kira4Moms in 2017 as a response to his experience, to be a voice for other mothers and families facing unnecessary maternal loss, and putting an end to the maternal mortality health crisis. Mr. Johnson worked relentlessly with congress to pass the preventing maternal death act (H.R.1318) that was signed into law December 21, 2018.
Charles Johnson
Y. Denise Mayhan, PhD currently serves as the Director, Practice Operations for the Talk With Me Baby (TWMB) initiative at Grady Health System, Atlanta, GA, US. Since 2018, in partnership with the Rollins Center for Language and Literacy, TWMB-trained nurses, certified medical assistants, and providers coach parents and caregivers on how to help their babies and young children build capacity for lifelong learning and health. TWMB has touched the lives of more than 10,000 families and 6,000 Grady employees...
Dr. Y. Denise Mayhan