SUMMER NEWS UPDATE
SAVE THE DATE
Sept. 21, 2021 | 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. EDT

Please join us as we host our inaugural symposium on structural racism: "Anti-Racism in Public Health Policies, Practice and Research." Three unique panels will launch a series of conversations and research on racism as a determinant of health and root cause of health inequities to help improve data and inform policies and practices. Please visit us online for the latest event updates.
WELCOME NEW FXB HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS FELLOWS
Dr. Jourdyn Lawrence 
Jourdyn is a social epidemiologist whose work primarily aims to address racism as a cause of racial health inequities in the U.S., mainly focusing on chronic health and aging-related outcomes. Her research interests include social policy, perceived race, quantitative methods in social epidemiology and scale development and measurement. She studied social epidemiology in the Dept. of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and holds a PhD in Population Health Sciences. She earned her MSPH in Epidemiology from the University of South Carolina and her BS in Biology from Clayton State University. She is also an affiliate of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University.
Dr. Marie Plaisime
Marie's research investigates racial bias training in medical education and clinical practice, race-based medicine and algorithmic bias. She applies mixed-methods and interdisciplinary approaches to detect, examine and quantify how structural racism in medicine jeopardizes healthcare delivery, access and quality. She completed her PhD in Medical Sociology at Howard University and is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar. Her professional experiences include research at the Association of American Medical Colleges, National Institutes of Health and the Dept. of Health and Human Services. Marie received her MPH from the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. 
Dr. Brittney N. Butler
Brittney is a social epidemiologist whose primary research seeks document and combat anti-Black racism as a fundamental cause of racial disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality for Black women. She holds a dual academic appointment as a FXB Health and Human Rights Fellow and David E. Bell Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is the current president of the Society for the Analysis of African American Public Health Issues. She completed her PhD in Epidemiology at Ohio State University and MPH from Washington University in St. Louis. She is also an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholars Program.
Keletso Makofane, MPH
Keletso is a public health researcher and activist who works in the global HIV response, focusing on sexual minority men in east and southern Africa. He is a member of the governing council for the International Aids Society and sits on the board of LVCT Health, as well as the founding board of Global Black Gay Men Connect. He has served on various working groups and committees that shape the global response to HIV, including the Guidelines Development Group for the first comprehensive World Health Organization guidelines for HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for key populations and the IAS-Lancet Commission on the Future of Global Health and HIV Response.
Tori Cowger, MPH
Tori is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on understanding and eliminating health inequities. Her current work blends public health research, practice and advocacy dedicated to eliminating the inequitable toll of structural racism and social inequities on the health of individuals and communities in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 and overdose epidemics. She is a doctoral candidate in the Dept. of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a doctoral affiliate with the FXB Center. Tori received a MPH from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta and served as an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
NEW HIRES & PROMOTIONS
Rebecca Shin
Assistant Director of Operations/ Strategy Officer
Veronica Lewin
Director of Communications &
Public Affairs
Gerlinde Munshi
Assistant Director of Finance
Elizabeth Oh
STRIDE Program Coordinator
Claire Street
Program Coordinator
Anjli Patel
Special Assistant/
Senior Research Coordinator
Learn more about our team here.
SUMMER VIDEO SERIES: THE INTERSECTION
This summer, the FXB Center launched a new video series, "The Intersection," which highlights interviews with leading health and human rights experts who offer their candid perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic and important policies to advance this year.

“A lot of topics that I've always seen as interconnected have coalesced during the pandemic. It's now clearer to most of us that there are things that are closely connected that we are not in the habit of looking at as being connected,” said renowned writer and medical ethicist Harriet A. Washington in the first episode of "The Intersection" series. “I think the more salient example is the medical fate of people of color during this pandemic. It actually is following a predictable pattern, but a pattern that seems to have caught the health care system in this country off guard, which it shouldn't have.”

New episodes of "The Intersection" will be released at noon ET each Wednesday through Sept. 1, 2021. Click below to watch the series on the FXB Center’s YouTube page.
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