SPEAKERS
Get to Know Them
DR. EZELLE SANFORD III
Keynote He/him/his
Dr. Ezelle Sanford III is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Program on Race, Science, and Society (PRSS) at the University of Pennsylvania. There he manages the Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery project (PMAS) while also working on a book project, Segregated Medicine: How Racial Politics Shaped American Health Care. Dr. Sanford obtained his Ph.D. in History and History of Science from Princeton University and is an alumnus of Washington University in St. Louis. He specializes in the history of modern medicine and public health, African American history from emancipation to the present, and twentieth-century United States history. His writing has appeared in academic and popular publications including National Geographic, Black Perspectives, and Technology and Culture. He has received several awards including the Ford Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellowship, the Charlotte E. Procter Honorific Fellowship from Princeton University, and the John B. Ervin Scholarship from Washington University in St. Louis.
DR. KAMINI DOOBAY
Panel 1 Moderator
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
ANTHONY FELICIANO
Panel 1 Speaker
Currently, Anthony is the Director for CPHS. CPHS mission is to "fight for equal access to quality
health care for everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, language spoken, diagnosis, or the ability to pay." CPHS is a voice for the public health and hospital system, a voice for the allocation of public funding in the state and city budgets; a strong supporter of community organizing, and supporter of the health care safety net and access to health care services for everyone, particularly in low-income, medically underserved, immigrant and communities of color. CPHS is committed to ensuring that the voices of medically underserved communities, especially their need for safety net health care providers, are heard. As a membership organization with an active board of directors, CPHS has many routes to understanding the important issues confronting many communities and prioritizes extensive community involvement in its numerous community health projects. For his advocacy and policy work, Anthony recently was awarded 2020” Health Power 100” leaders award from City & State.
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KATY MCFADDEN
Panel 1 Speaker
Katy worked as a staff RN in the Neonatal ICU at SUNY Downstate from 2014-2019 while completing her midwifery training at Brookdale and Kings County. She is now a full-time activist working on legislation to address state perpetuated medical racism & misogyny. She started the campaign #Equity4Downstate which was instrumental in securing an additional $50 million in funding for the hospital in the 2020-2021 NY State Budget.
SURAJ MADOORI
Panel 1 Speaker He/him/his
Suraj Madoori is Treatment Action Group’s (TAG) U.S. and Global Health Policy Director, leading the organization's domestic and global policy work on HIV, TB, HCV, and now COVID-19. Prior to joining TAG, Suraj was associate director of the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance (HIV PJA) and national/federal policy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC). Suraj is also a founding member and current co-chair of the nascent network HIV Racial Justice Now (HRJN), focused on addressing intersectional racial justice issues in the HIV epidemic. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago and has earned three master’s degrees in medical journalism, public health, and bioethics and health policy—focused on drug development ethics and policy issues.
CHARMAINE RUDDOCK
Panel 1 Speaker She/her
Charmaine Ruddock, MS Director, Bronx Health REACH The Institute for Family Health
Ms. Ruddock joined the Institute for Family Health, a network of federally qualified health centers in New York, in 2000 to direct Bronx Health REACH, a coalition of 80+ community and faith-based organizations focused on racial and ethnic health disparities in the Bronx. As Director, she oversees a multi-sectorial effort to understand and address the underlying causes of, and solutions to, racial and ethnic health disparities in the community. Her responsibilities include: 1) developing a community coalition of health care providers, community and elected leaders, government and social service agencies, local businesses, faith and community based organizations in a place based approach to health equity and; 2) creating sustainable primary prevention initiatives; and 3) promoting community transformation through policy, system and environmental changes. Ms. Ruddock is a founding member of the National REACH Coalition and currently chairs the Board of Directors. She holds a BA from the University of the West Indies and a MS from the Graduate School of Management at The New School.
KARIM SARIAHMED, MD
Panel 2 Moderator He/him
Karim is an internal medicine resident in NYC and a member of Put People First! PA, an organization of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
JARON BENJAMIN
Panel 2 Speaker He/him/his
Jaron Benjamin is the vice president for community mobilization for Housing Works, Inc, and is involved in Birddog Nation, a nation-wide effort that stopped the repeal of the Affordable Care Act in 2017. He also coordinates the “Act Now, End AIDS” coalition, a nationwide partnership dedicated to organizing and assisting states, cities, and counties in committing to ending the epidemic. Before joining Housing Works, Jaron was executive director at the Met Council on Housing, the oldest tenant organization in the US., and before that, the coordinator for VOCALNY’s AIDS Housing Network.
NAOMI ZEWDE
Panel 3 Moderator
Naomi Zewde is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy at the City University of New York, a research fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and a proud member of the Campaign for New York Health. Professionally, her research centers on economic inequality in wealth and in health insurance and examines the ability of public policies to reduce these inequalities. She has a series of studies on the economic impacts of the Affordable Care Act for the previously uninsured, and the effects of Medicaid expansion on poverty and rates of home eviction. Her work has been published in academic outlets including Health Affairs, the American Journal of Public Health, and The Review of Black Political Economy, and has been covered widely in popular press outlets including the Washington Post and NBC News. Zewde holds a PhD in health policy from Penn State, and an MPH and BA from Emory.
HEIDI SIEGFRIED
Panel 3 Speaker Sher/her
Heidi Siegfried, Esq. is the Health Policy Director at Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York a cross disability organization whose mission is to ensure full integration, independence and equal opportunity for all people with disabilities by removing barriers to full participation in the community. She has served as CIDNY’s Health Policy Director for twelve years monitoring and analyzing trends in federal, state, and city health policy affecting access to care and coverage; writing and presenting testimony, bill memos, and helping organize CIDNY’s Action Network. Prior to her current position, she was employed as Supervising Attorney at The Partnership for the Homeless. She has a Master of Social Work from University of Nebraskan and a Juris Doctorate from SUNY at Buffalo School of Law.
ANNETTE GAUDINO
Panel 3 She/her
Annette, TAG’s State and Local Policy Director, works across our hepatitis C, HIV and TB programs to advance elimination efforts in U.S. jurisdictions, with special attention to the needs and human rights of people who use drugs. Prior to joining TAG, Annette organized for universal single payer health care as Statewide Coordinator for the Campaign for New York Health. Annette’s experience extends from bench to bedside: she has worked in a molecular biology research lab, and as a licensed speech, language and swallowing therapist.
MARGARET LEE
Panel 4 Moderator Workshop Leader She/her
Margaret is an artist who lives and works in NYC. She works with the Ain’t I A Woman?! Campaign in the fight against the 24 hour work day as well as the Peter Kwong Immigrant Workers Learning Center, which strives to advance justice and meaningful change to immigrant workers, youth and veterans of justice struggles.
MAX HADLER
Panel 4 He/Him/His
Max Hadler is the Director of Health Policy at the New York Immigration Coalition. He works on a range of issues and campaigns at the city and state levels to improve health access, coverage, and delivery for immigrant communities. Prior to joining the NYIC team, he worked in many capacities related to access to care for immigrants, including project director and research associate at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, researcher at the UCLA North American Integration and Development Center, and Spanish-English medical interpreter at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Max received an MPH from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and an MA in Latin American Studies from the UCLA International Institute. He also holds a BA from Wesleyan University.
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MARY LISTER
Panel 4 She/her
Mary Lister is an organizer with the Ain’t I A Woman?! Campaign, a national outreach and educational effort led by women workers to demand that those benefiting the most from sweatshop labor conditions-- in garment factories, home health care, or offices-- are held accountable. A home care worker for over 7 years, Mary has been joining with fellow home care workers to demand an end to inhuman 24-hour home care shifts in New York State. She is a co-founder of the Queen City Workers’ Center, a cross-trade organization for working class people in Western New York.
CARLYN COWEN
Panel 4 Speaker They/them/she/her
Carlyn Cowen is an advocate, activist, and Filipinx-American who believes in the power of transformative systemic change to build social, racial, and economic justice. They are currently the Chief Policy and Public Affairs Officer of the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), the nation’s largest Asian-American social services organization, where they are responsible for public policy, advocacy, government affairs, and community engagement. Previously, Carlyn worked at FPWA, an economic equity nonprofit, and at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Contract Services, in addition to consulting for the United Nations Development Programme and Oxfam International, among others. Carlyn has a Master's from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, and a double Bachelor’s in International Relations and Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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LETICIA PANAMA RIVA
Panel 4 Speaker
Leticia Panama Riva, originally from Ecuador, has worked as a home care worker for more than eight years, four of which she worked 24-hour shifts for five or four days a week. As a result, she has suffered numerous health problems for which she's required multiple operations. She says the 24-hour shifts have taken such a toll on her physically and emotionally. That's why she's organizing with other home care workers and other workers to stop the 24-hour workday.
RITA ABADI
Panel 2 Speaker she/her/hers
Rita Abadi, LMHC, is Operations Manager and Clinician for the Mount Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence (SAVI) Program at the Queens District Attorney’s Office and at the New York City Family Justice Center, Queens. She provides client-centered, trauma educated psychotherapy, advocacy and referrals to survivors of sexual and domestic violence, with special focus on sex trafficking. She holds a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling from New York University and a License in Clinical Psychology from Brazil. She completed post-graduate trainings in Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama and in Mental Health Treatment for Abused Children. She is fluent in 4 languages and has over 25 years of experience working with immigrants and culturally specific groups in the US and in Latin America.
AMANDA BURDEN
Workshop Leader she/her/hers
Amanda Burden, B.A. is a passionate New York City-based anti-oppression advocate, power-based personal violence preventionist and advocate with over 15 years’ experience in the fields of education, public health and program management. Burden has served leadership roles at several local and international agencies as a youth educator, peer supervisor, phone crisis counselor, emergency department survivor advocate and technical trainer and has been an invited guest grand rounds lecturer, panelist and moderator at NYC-based higher educational institutions and community based organizations addressing the topics of cross-cultural communication, aging and mental health, trauma, power-based personal violence, emotional first aid and structural oppression in community spaces. Burden currently oversees primary prevention educational programming and community outreach at New York City’s Mount Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program (SAVI) and serves as a board member for okayso, a free and confidential youth health education app available on iOS that provides users a group-text based space to receive personalized support from a live group of experts. Burden also produces an independent podcast and composes and performs original music.
LORENZO JONES
Panel 2 Speaker He/him/his
Lorenzo Jones is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director at the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice. He has more than 25 years of experience mentoring community leaders and organizing communities to make systemic change. As a trainer, strategist, and coach, Jones is sought after by groups across the United States and globally. He has trained groups as varied as: People’s Action, Open Society Foundations, the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Families and People’s Movement, Perrin Family Foundation (in which he now serves as a member of their Strategy Council), Public Welfare Foundation, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Drug Policy Alliance, Council of Europe’s Pompidou Working Group on Drug Policy, and more. He has trained advocates from dozens of states within the U.S. and Canada, Brazil, Hungary, and Poland. In 2013, in an effort to train a new generation of community organizers in Connecticut, Jones led a partnership with the Perrin Family Foundation to build and launch the innovative BLOC program -- Building Leadership and Organizing Capacity - which is a training cohort of young community organizers in Connecticut. BLOC is now the flagship organizing training program at Katal. For nearly 15 years, Jones has served as strategic advisor and consultant to criminal justice and drug policy reform organizers and campaigns around the country. Jones’s leadership strategy focuses on teaching everyday people that they can make the change they want to see, and helping organizers understand the political terrain on which they operate.
AMBER KHAN
Speaker Panel 3 She/her
Amber Khan is the Director of the Health Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, where she leads NYLPI’s work on healthcare advocacy, with a focus on racial equity and immigrant justice. Before joining NYLPI, she was a Senior Attorney at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where she advocated for the constitutional and human rights of pregnant and parenting people. Previously, Amber worked as a supervisor at the Center for Family Representation, representing low-income parents in civil child welfare proceedings. She also previously worked with international nongovernmental organizations focusing on transitional justice and the treatment of refugees. Amber received her J.D. from George Washington University Law School, her Master’s degree in international human rights from Columbia University and her B.A. from American University.
CLAIRE ABENANTE
Panel 3 Speaker She/her/hers
Claire Abenante, RN, BSN, is the Director of Primary Care and the Women’s Health Access Program at Independence Care System (ICS). ICS is the first and only “health home” program in New York State with disability-expert staff and programs designed to promote the health and independence of people with spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, and other disabilities that limit their mobility. The ICS Health Access Program has developed and implemented a model of care that supports partner health care agencies in delivering disability competent care by providing trainings and hands on support.
Claire has worked at ICS since December of 2014. Prior to that her experience includes work as a Certified Nurse’s Aide Training Instructor, Director of Client Operations in Corporate Health, Clinical Adjunct Professor at The College of New Rochelle, and Senior Staff Nurse specializing in cardiothoracic surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
CHARLES A HAWTHORNE
Workshop Leader They/He
Charles Hawthorne works for the Harm Reduction Coalition as a Capacity Building Coordinator. His role includes providing training, technical assistance, and educational materials to organizations in San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area that provide services for people who use drugs, people living with HIV/AIDS, people experiencing homelessness, and LGBTQ+ communities. Prior to joining the Harm Reduction Coalition, Charles worked at HIPS in Washington D.C. as a policy and direct service intern. Charles is received his B.S. of Biochemistry Purdue University and is currently pursuing his Master in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University as a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow.
JUMAANE D. WILLIAMS
Closing Talk He/him/his
Jumaane D. Williams is the Public Advocate of the City of New York. Previously, he served on the NYC Council representing the 45th District. Jumaane is a first-generation Brooklynite of Genadian heritage. He graduated from the public school system, overcoming the difficulties of Tourette’s and ADHD to earn a Master’s Degree from Brooklyn College. He began his career as a community organizer at the Greater Flatbush Beacon School and later served as the Executive Director of NYS Tenants & Neighbors. There, he fought for truly affordable, income-targeted housing across New York City and State. In the NYC Council, Jumaane championed landmark legislation that fundamentally transformed policing in NYC. Jumaane sponsored the Community Safety Act, reforming the City’s Police Department by ending the abuse of Stop, Question & Frisk in communities of color and creating the NYPD’s Office of Inspector General to investigate unlawful & unethical behavior. Jumaane has led the fight for better policing and safer streets, affordable housing, and transparency and accountability in City government. As Public Advocate, Jumaane continues to be an activist-elected official who brings the voices of everyday New Yorkers to City government, fighting to make New York a truly progressive beacon for all.
NATHALIA GIBBS
Workshop Leader They/she
Nathalia (They/She) joined Harm Reduction Coalition in September 2019 as LGBTQ and Harm Reduction Coordinator where she is currently working on building the Lighthouse Learning Collective. The Collective’s goal is to build between LGBTQ service providers, Substance use service providers, and community to transform systems of care for people who use drugs. She hopes for this to become a space to hear community needs, inform resource development, increasing culturally responsive and affirmative care, as well as providing capacity building and technical assistance to collective members in organizations and in community.
Grounded in the principles of transformative justice, pleasure, and liberation, Nathalia centers their work around community. As a queer black doula, organizer and passionate believer in harm reduction, they continuously look to explore how the themes of autonomy, mutual aid, and dignity intersect and connect the frameworks of reproductive justice, harm reduction, and abolition.
KAI WEN YANG
Workshop Leader
Kai Wen Yang is a graduate student and an adjunct instructor at SUNY Binghamton. The long hours, lack of control of working conditions, and demands for unpaid work prompted Kai to join and found a chapter of Students Organizing Against Reynolds (S.O.A.R.), a network composed of students from different college campuses across the U.S. The goal of the network is to grow the boycott against Reynolds Corporation and to stop sweatshop practices like mandatory overtime. S.O.A.R. is a coalition member of the Ain’t I a Woman?! Campaign.
