Speakers
Dr. Rob Gore
Dr. Gore is an attending physician and clinical assistant professor at Kings County Hospital – SUNY Downstate Department of Emergency Medicine in Brooklyn, NY. He is the founder and executive director of KAVI (Kings Against Violence Initiative), a hospital, school and community-based youth violence intervention prevention and empowerment program targeting teens and young adults that have been injured as a result of violence or at risk for violent and recurrent violent injury. Dr. Gore is the founder and director of the Minority Medical Student Emergency Medicine (MMSEM) Summer Fellowship, which is a mentoring and enrichment program for underrepresented minorities interested in Emergency Medicine with a focus on project development.
RJ Thompson
The Project Director of the Human Rights Project, RJ Thompson, Esq. is a longtime human rights lawyer, organizer, and educator; as well as a certified personal trainer, go-go dancer and performer in the adult film industry. He is also the Managing Director of the Sex Workers Project. RJ received his J.D. from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law and his B.A. in Africana Studies and Political Science from the University of South Florida in Tampa. He has also worked with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Equality Florida, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, CRUNCH fitness, and Amnesty International USA. RJ is a queer identified mixed blood Cherokee with deep Southern roots. He is an active member and leader in the Soka Gakkai International USA (SGI-USA) Nichiren Buddhist organization for peace, culture and education. He is also a vegetarian and a bodybuilder.
Dr. Roman E. Gist
Dr. Ramon E. Gist is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and the Acting Director for Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. He obtained his B.S. in Biomedical Sciences in 2004 from The Sophie Davis School for Biomedical Education, a seven-year medical program located at The City College of New York which integrates baccalaureate education with preclinical medical education. Dr. Gist completed his clinical years of the program at SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine, where he graduated with his medical degree in 2006. Motivated by a love for children and a passion for prevention, Dr. Gist chose to peruse a career in Pediatrics. He completed his residency training in General Pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York and earned his board certification in 2009. He then went on to pursue fellowship training in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical center and earned his subspecialty board certification in 2012. Dr. Gist grew up in East Flatbush and still resides there today. He has served as a volunteer and mentor at KAVI since 2014. In 2017, Dr. Gist was appointed Associate Director and tasked with streamlining various aspects of workflow and evaluations of the community, school, and hospital components of KAVI.
Amin Husain
Amin Husain is a New York-based artist and organizer who works combines research, aesthetics, and action. He is a Palestinian-American activist and adjunct professor at NYU and Pratt Univ. He is the lead organizer of Decolonize This Place and the MTL+ co-founder. Amin Husain’s interests focus on resistance and liberation, movement generated theory and practice. His research and teaching interests span debt and financialization, globalization and political economy, social movements and cultures of resistance, race, class and ethnicity in the media, and postcolonial theory.
Woods Ervin
Woods Ervin is a black non-binary trans-femme organizer that has lived for some time in each of the four corners of the US. They have been organizing for over a decade in movements both for trans self-determination as well as prison-industrial complex abolition.
Woods has most recently worked with TGI Justice Project and Critical Resistance in the Bay Area. Woods has supported formerly incarcerated transgender youth at the Broadway Youth Center in Chicago and the Transformative Justice Law Project. Woods is currently doing active work to dismantle the prison industrial complex and come up with transformative practices for addressing legacies of community and systemic harm. They currently are engaged in research on policing at Interrupting Criminalization at Barnard. They also are an independent researcher on trans people in the labor market.
Sandra van den Heuvel
Sandra is a program associate with Vera’s Greater Justice in New York Initiative, which seeks to end mass incarceration in New York State. Her research includes landscape analyses of pretrial justice across New York State counties, the institution of court-imposed fines and fees, and the development of sentencing laws. Sandra’s focus on socioeconomic justice has informed her work with Vera’s Bail Assessment Pilot and research regarding revenue intake within New York State’s town and village courts. Beyond research and program development, Sandra provides strategic assistance to counties who have committed to reducing their incarcerated population.
Hawk Newsome
Hawk Newsome is an activist at the forefront of the New Civil Rights Movement and former County Committee Member of New York’s District 79. Hawk attended the prestigious Howard University Law School in Washington, DC. and completed his Jurist Doctorate at Touro Law School in Long Island, NY. After which he ran for City Council for the Bronx district where he grew up. He is a founding member and president of Black Lives Matter for Greater New York
Dr. Kamini Doobay
Kamini Doobay is emergency medicine resident at NYU/Bellevue. She grew up in Jamaica, Queens, a vibrant, rapidly growing but often underserved, fragmented community. She became very involved in service, advocacy and social justice initiatives in her community from a very young age. While attending Mount Sinai Medical School, Kamini co-founded the school’s chapter of Doctors for America (DFA) and spearheaded its partnership with East Harlem community-based organizations to raise awareness of and evaluate the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act in East Harlem. She is now on the state board for DFA.
Kamini spearheaded an intersectional, cross-functional collaboration among the medical community, community-based organizations, the public health community, and the legal sector in New York City to begin to address racism — personally mediated, internalized, and structural — which is itself is the primary driver of health inequities. This Department of Health-supported, action-oriented collective, the NYC Coalition to Dismantle Racism in the Health System, consists of more than thirty member organizations
Brian Cunningham
Brian began his career with CAMBA as a student advocate counselor in Brooklyn. He later began working as an Aide to State Senator Kevin Parker. In 2013, he served as Chief of Staff to Council Member Laurie. Within this capacity, Brian spearheaded numerous legislative and educational priorities in support of affordable housing, women’s issues, cultural preservation and supporting small businesses. Brian then went back into the nonprofit sector, helping to secure funding for affordable housing initiatives with Nazareth Housing. With his passion for serving the community, Brian took the opportunity to serve as an Aide to President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative, again helping to provide resources and funding to underserved youth. Currently, he serves as Project Director for Neighbors in Action, a project of the Center for Court Innovation.
Dr. Simon Fitzgerald
Dr. Simon Fitzgerald MD MPH is a trauma surgeon and surgical intensivist at Kings County Hospital. Originally from Baltimore, Dr. Fitzgerald is an ambassador for Baltimore Ceasefire 365. A recent analysis, in publication by the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that gun violence in Baltimore decreases by about 50% during the weekend long ceasefires called by the community-lead movement.
Katy McFadden
McFadden worked as a staff RN in the NICU at SUNY Downstate from 2014-2019 while completing her midwifery training at Brookdale and Kings County. She is now full time activist working on legislation to address state perpetuated medical racism.
Ross Joy
Ross Joy is the program manager of the Housing Resource Center at the Red Hook Community Justice Center, which provides support to litigants in housing court. He has been with the Center for Court Innovation since 2016. Ross has designed and led initiatives to prevent evictions and address repair needs through court attendance, good cause documentation and comprehensive resources for families facing housing instability. Ross has a background in community organizing around tenant rights and maintaining safe, stable and affordable housing in low-income communities. Previously, Ross was Lead Organizer at a neighborhood organization in Minneapolis, Minnesota, initiating tenant organizing in 15 apartment buildings. Before that, Ross served as an AmeriCorps team leader at City Year New York. He received his B.S. in International Relations and Spanish from Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and is currently an evening student at City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law.
Chivona Renee Newsome
Chivona Renee Newsome, the Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter Greater NY and Candidate for US Congress (NY15) is a civil rights leader at the forefront of the New Civil Rights Movement and former Financial Advisor at New York Life. As a financial advisor, Chivona served her community. She worked on the $50 Billon Dollar challenge which created college savings, retirement plans, and generational wealth for over 300 black and brown residents of New York.
Chivona has worked tirelessly leading protests and seeking justice for the families of police brutality, she works with members of LGBT community, victims of human trafficking, the mental health community, women’s reproductive rights organizations, and housing justice advocates. She co-founded Black Lives Caucus, lectured students and expanded Black Lives Matter Greater NY to multiple New York City charter schools. She is also the producer of Black Lives Matter with Chivona on WBAI 99.5
Nicole Charles
Nicole Charles, MA, MCHES is the Executive Director for Bronx Westchester Area Health Education Center and also serves as faculty member of Lehman College of The City University of New York and Mercy College. A native of the Bronx, who is committed to eradicating health inequities by serving those who are are pushed to the margins with the tools to have voice that will bring self-empowerment for personal and social justice. Presently Nicole serves on multiple boards such as, HealthPeople, Commission on the Public's Health Systems (CPHS), and the Office of the Mayor & The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (ThriveNYC). During her off time she enjoys saving her adult children's in their dramatic lives, playing a mean game pool/billiards, and occassionally getting to experience that rare activity known as sleep.
