COVID Community Forums

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, BPI has hosted a series of virtual forum conversations for the alumni community with leading public health and social justice experts. Below is the roster of experts and scholars who have joined BPI in these conversations to date.

June 8th

The Role of Health, Wellness, and Activism Among Individuals, Organizations, and Institutions Participating in Historic and Contemporary Anti-Oppression Movements.

With historian and public health scholar Dr. Samuel K. Roberts, Jr. and physician and community healer Dr. L. Toni Lewis.

May 29th

Equity and Justice in STEM Education and Career Opportunities at the Center of Realizing Full Citizenship for Marginalized U.S. Populations

With Dr. Kamau Bobb, engineer and science and technology policy scholar whose work focuses on the relationship between equity for students and communities of color in the STEM enterprise, large educational systems, and the social and structural conditions that influence contemporary American life.

May 26th

Knowing and Avoiding COVID-19 Infection Risks

With Dr. Erin Bromage, associate professor of biology at UMASS-Dartmouth and author of the widely shared and heralded guide for avoiding and spreading Covid-19 infection titled “The Risks–Know Them — Avoid Them.”

May 19th

Mental Healthcare in the COVID-19 Era

With world renown urban psychiatrist Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Dubbed the “Town Shrink” by the New York Times, and author of Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, And What We Can Do About It

May 14th

COVID-19, COVID-19 & Criminal Justice Reform: Perspectives from Philanthropy

With Jule Hall ’11 from the Ford Foundation; Alex Duran ’18 from Open Society Institute, and Julie B. Ehrlich from the Mellon Foundation.

May 11th

COVID-19 Myths, Misinformation, and Medical Mistrust

With Dr. Bob Fullilove, BPI Senior Advisor, Public Health Program
Professor, Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center
Associate Dean, Community and Minority Affairs, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

May 8th

Impact of COVID-19 on New York State and City Politics

With Dyjuan Tatro ’18, Government Affairs and Advancement Officer at BPI; Amelia Adams, Government Affairs Specialist and founder of Adams Advisors; and Councilman Keith Powers, Chair of the NYC Council’s Criminal Justice Committee.

May 1st

NYC Food & Farming

With Dennis Derryck, founder of Corbin Hill Food Project; Sandra Nurse, founder of  BK ROT, a co-founder of Mayday Space and a carpenter based in Bushwick, Brooklyn who instructs with Farm School NYC; & Karen Washington, a political and community activist, who co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS), serves on the Board of several farms and grassroots organizations, and is the co-owner and grower at Rise & Root Farm in Chester, NY.

April 28

Lessons from Black and Latinx communities’ mobilization for Health Justice and Equity

With Alondra Nelson,  president of the Social Science Research Council and Harold F. Linder Chair in Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study; author of Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination, The Social Life of DNA, and creator of the #coronavirussyllabus.

April 16th

BPI alumni’s work in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; Health Access Equity Unit

With Anibal Cortes ’08, Richard Gamarra ’14, and Mari Carlesimo all staff members at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

April 14th

Healthcare Equity, the Disproportionate Effect of COVID-19 on already vulnerable Communities (particularly communities of color)

With Dr. Mary Bassett, Former NYC Health Commissioner, and current director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University

April 7th

What does the CARES Act mean for you?

With House Staffer Molly Carey from the office of Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney

April 4th

Insights and Recommendations from the Frontlines of COVID

With Dr. Leo Eisenstein, a physician currently treating COVID-19 patients at Bellevue Hospital and answering calls on the coronavirus hotline for NYC’s public hospital system.

March 30th

Essential Coronavirus-related Epidemiological, Medical, and Everyday-Practical Information and Recommendations

With Dr. Bob Fullilove, BPI Senior Advisor, Public Health Program
Professor, Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center
Associate Dean, Community and Minority Affairs, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University