Be the Change Symposium Speakers

Our keynote speaker, Dr. Sandra L. Bloom, is recognized nationally and internationally as the founder of the Sanctuary Model®.

Dr. Sandra L. Bloom is a Board-Certified psychiatrist, graduate of Temple University School of Medicine and currently Associate Professor, Health Management and Policy at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University.

From 1980-2001, Dr. Bloom served as Founder and Executive Director of the Sanctuary programs, impatient psychiatric programs for the treatment of trauma-related emotional disorders and during those years was also President of the Alliance for Creative Development, a multidisciplinary outpatient practice group. Dr. Bloom is recognized nationally and internationally as the founder of the Sanctuary Model®. Between 2005 and 2016, over 350 social service, juvenile justice and mental health organizations were trained in the Sanctuary Model®.

Dr. Bloom is Past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. She is currently co-chairing a new (2016) national organization, the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP), whose goal is to advocate for public policies and programs at the federal, state, local and tribal levels that incorporate up-to-date scientific findings regarding the relationship between trauma across the lifespan and many social and health problems. In May of 2019 CTIPP was awarded the American Psychiatric Association’s 2019 Distinguished Service Award. Since 2012, Dr. Bloom has also served as Co-Chair for the Philadelphia ACEs Task Force.

Dr. Bloom is the Founder of Creating Presence, an online organizational approach for creating trauma-informed systems.

Dr. Bloom’s complete list of publications are on her website, sandrabloom.com.

Jannie L. Blackwell, a six-term council member born and reared in Philadelphia, is a seasoned advocate for social change with a 30-year reputation for serving community members and the poor and underprivileged in the City of Philadelphia, making her a leader in our city with her own vision.

Jannie L. Blackwell is a graduate of Cheyney University where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Education and a graduate of St. Joseph’s University where she received a Master of Arts in Education. Councilmember Blackwell began her political career by serving as Special Assistant to the Governor, assigned to the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She resigned with her husband, then State Representative Lucien E. Blackwell, when he ran for and was elected to City Council.

In addition to serving as delegate to the National Convention for the last four presidential elections, she served as Administrative Assistant to two Lucien E. Blackwell campaigns for Mayor, four for City Council and three for the U.S. Congress. She also served in this capacity during his fifteen-year tenure in City Council, before succeeding him.

Since taking office in 1992, Jannie has emerged as a strong contender and powerbroker in the local political arena. Elected among her peers as Majority Leader in 2000, Councilmember Blackwell is a behind-the-scenes consensus builder and problem solver. A stellar politician who understands the making of solid policy, Councilmember Blackwell has introduced significant legislation during her four Council terms.

In addition to her role as Majority Leader from 2000 -2008, Blackwell is also Chair of the Education Committee and the Chair of the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless. She is Vice Chair of the Finance Committee and a member of the Committee of the Whole, Committee on Transportation and Public Utilities, and the Committee on Ethics. Councilmember Blackwell is also a Co-Founder and Commissioner on the Mayor’s Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs.

While rooted in the Blackwell tradition of empowering the underserved, Jannie has crafted her own vision for the Third Councilman District that focuses on increasing affordable housing and creating economic opportunity for her constituent base whose demographics are continually expanding. She has likewise enhanced her district by increasing commercial development and homeownership opportunities. As a Commissioner on the Philadelphia Housing Authority Board, she is proud of the blight removal and new housing construction across the City. The Lucien E. Blackwell Homes, located in and around 46th Street and Brown Streets in West Philadelphia, total over 1,000 new homes available for rental and homeownership!

In 1999, Councilmember Blackwell announced a Ten-Year Economic Development Plan for West and Southwest Philadelphia leading to the formation of a non-profit organization, “West Philadelphia on the Move”. The Plan incorporates her vision for increasing affordable housing and job and business development. Her leadership and hands-on approach with business leaders, public and private institutions, community groups, town watch leaders, block captains, and other elected officials, has continued to allow this economic development plan to come to fruition, culminating in over 3 billion dollars in public and private investment.

Councilmember Blackwell has made a life-long commitment to move her community forward and will always work to foster an end to homelessness, neighborhood blight and poor public education through using the tools of public policy, legislation, and public involvement. Her overall vision is to improve her constituents’ quality of life – regardless of race, class, gender, or socio-economic status. She continues to believe that there is a solution to every problem, and that when we work together, everybody wins.

Ashley Coleman is the Executive Director of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center. Coleman has been a fixture in the LGBTQ+ community in Philadelphia for over 10 years having previously served as Executive Director at GALAEI and Senior Events Manager at Mazzoni Center. She holds two degrees from Temple University, Bachelor of Science in Education and (Bachelor of Arts in History. Her activism and advocacy began as a youth in the Lehigh Valley, leading Queer youth initiatives while producing large scale events for nonprofits in Northeastern Pennsylvania. She went on to serve as the general conference coordinator of the world’s largest Transgender specific conference from 2016-2019. She led galaei through the production of Philadelphia’s 50th Pride parade and festival in 2022.

Susan DelMaestro, Ph.D., is a Clinical Psychologist at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia and has dedicated the past 30 years to doing direct clinical work as a trauma therapist.  In her pursuit to provide best practices to the Veterans she serves, she has trained in Prolonged Exposure, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Cognitive Processing, and Narrative Exposure Therapies, and has specialized in the application of evidence-based therapies to Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  She is also the Crescenz VAMC Director of Psychology Internship and Residency Programs and, in this role, trains future generations of psychologists to view individuals with trauma with deep compassion and respect for their internal strength. She joined the Board of Directors of WOAR in 2014 to contribute to the mission of healing sexual violence and preventing sexual trauma in our local community.  She is honored to have spent her career learning from survivors about the resilience and generosity of the human spirit.

Tamala Edwards joined 6abc in January of 2005. She is the weekday co-anchor of Action News Mornings from 4 a.m to 7 a.m. and is a regular co-host of Inside Story, conducting probing interviews with newsmakers like Governor Tom Corbett, Senator Bob Casey, Mayor Michael Nutter and others, as well as moderating many election debates.

Prior to joining 6abc, Tamala Edwards was the anchor of ABC’s World News Now, and World News This Morning. Prior to joining World News Now, she was an ABC News correspondent based in the network’s Washington, D.C., bureau covering education, religion, and culture for World News Tonight and other ABC News programs. She was an embedded reporter during the Iraq War, moving with the Air Force from Kuwait to Nasiriyah, Iraq. She joined ABC News as a White House correspondent in August 2001.

Before coming to ABC, Edwards was a staff writer at TIME Magazine. During the 2000 presidential election, she covered Vice President Al Gore’s campaign and former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was a panelist in the Apollo Theatre debate in New York between Gore and Bradley, and Edwards also participated in MTV’s “Choose or Lose” broadcasts.

Ms. Edwards previously served as a correspondent in the Washington bureau of Time from 1995-1997, where she covered Bob Dole’s presidential campaign politics, society, and breaking news. Before coming to Washington in 1995, she worked for two years as a Time reporter in New York covering international news.

Ms. Edwards has written on a diverse number of topics including the cover story, “Who Needs a Husband?” on the changing dynamics surrounding love and marriage. She has also written about House and Senate races, the Reform Party, the fight over school funding in Vermont, and other highly charged political issues. She has covered the business boom of college preparation, the growing importance of women in philanthropy, the Supreme Court case of student-to-student sexual harassment and the public debate over books on topics like modesty, race, and mental illness. She has written dispatches from the presidential campaign trail and articles on the passage of the historic balanced budget and tax-cut bill, the stripping of home rule from the District of Columbia, and an account of former Chinese first lady Madame Chang’s return to Washington.

While in New York at Time International from 1993-1995, she covered global issues from the reclamation of an ancient Jewish text in Bosnia to the international expansion of MTV News to an international art-world ruckus over a group of Canadian prehistoric figurines.

The Education Writers Association awarded Ms. Edwards first prize for her contribution to Time’s 1999 cover story, “What Makes a Good School.” In its August 2000 issue, Vogue magazine named her a journalist for “The Next Establishment,” and in November 2000, she was featured in Folio magazine’s “30 Under 30” list.

Born in Georgia and raised in Texas, Edwards graduated from Stanford University with an honors Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations. Tamala and her husband are the proud parents of two young sons.

Amber Goltz is originally from Denver, Colorado and holds a bachelor’s degree in International Affairs and two masters degrees in Nonprofit Management and Human Rights Practice. Amber began her work in social services working with children with special needs and shortly thereafter had an opportunity to live abroad in Peru for two years. Fueling her desire to work with survivors of human trafficking she than began to work as a supervisor for a human trafficking hotline in Colorado while working with at risk children and their families.

She is now the Manager of Anti-Trafficking at WOAR in Philadelphia, where she works directly with victims and survivors of human trafficking in the city as well as working with at-risk youth and provides trainings to other organizations, hospitals, law enforcement, etc. Amber also assists with victim interviewing and sits on many task forces locally and nationally. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple in the College of Public Health teaching a class on human trafficking to graduate students who are working toward their Masters in Social Work.

Indira M. Henard, DSW, MSW is the Executive Director of DC Rape Crisis Center (DCRCC) in Washington, DC. Like WOAR, DCRCC was founded in the early 70s as one of the first rape crisis centers in the country. Indira has been involved in the violence against women movement for 20 years. Indira’s expertise in gender-based violence is rooted in an anti-oppression, feminist theory and survivor centered model. Indira’s direct service experience in various gender-based violence programs has helped to inform her policy analysis that has led to coordinating public policy initiatives, organizing, and planning space for survivor led advocacy and educating local and international communities around civic participation within the violence against women movement.  Indira received her Master of Social Work degree from the National Catholic School of Social Service at Catholic University of America. Additionally, Indira has deep ties within the policy sector having served as a Ralph Bunche Institute Fellow at Duke University, a Congressional Truman Fellow on Capitol Hill and a Charles Hamilton Houston Fellow at Georgetown Law Center. Prior to joining the DC Rape Crisis Center, Indira served as a Senate Aide for Senator Barack Obama D-IL on Capitol Hill, as well as Special Assistant on his Presidential Campaign. Indira was most recently awarded the national “Victim Impact Award” from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Jovida Hill, Executive Director, Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Engagement For Women.

Jovida was appointed by Mayor Kenney in June 2016. Prior to joining the administration, she was an award-winning writer and producer of more than 200 films and videos for the education, broadcast and training markets. Her work has included the civil rights documentary series In the Land of Jim Crow, which documents poignant first-person accounts of the African American struggle for justice and equality; the series Reinventing Democracy, hosted by noted historian Douglas Brinkley; and the series Celebrate, which introduces children to multi-cultural celebrations that herald our differences to amplify our similarities. A founding member of the African Sisterhood and Women Gather Conference, Hill currently serves on the boards of the Black Women’s Health Alliance and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.

Leah Hynansky (They/Them) is a grateful member of the Advisory Council for The Salvation Army’s New Day to Prevent Trafficking. Leah is unwavering in their dedication to help other survivors and also volunteers their time with WOAR anti-human trafficking and Redeemed for a Cause Outreach. Anti-human trafficking work is Leah’s life’s calling. They are intensely dedicated to working for justice and advocacy for others with a particular determination to bring to public attention an understanding of the horrific crime of human trafficking, a crime whose cruelty level is so intense and profitable that it is often hidden in plain sight to avoid profit loss. Education is essential to protect the human rights of those trapped in trafficking. Leah is honored to help anyone find a way out and a path to a life of safety, serenity, care, self-respect, self-love, spiritual strength, and peace. They know that changes in corporate structure must happen and that speaking out against human trafficking, and the corporate and social structures that support it, will provide a safer and more peaceful world so that children can safely grow, learn, thrive and ultimately participate wholly and happily in a better society. Leah is a Ukrainian-American and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College but has spent most of their life unlearning the traumatic neurological patterns put in place by their trafficking experiences. Singing was Leah’s way to joy, healing and survivorship. To balance and buoy their life, health and spirit, Leah enjoys dragon boating, crochet and their cat Satya. Leah’s core values are trust, peace and love for all so that the world can be a place of safety, respect, hope and care.

Alexis Krieger began her Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) career in 2004 as an Investigative Specialist and was assigned to the Philadelphia Division.

In 2010, Alexis became a Victim Specialist and was assigned to the Newark Division of the FBI, providing victim assistance to victims of federal crimes.  Alexis served as a member of the New Jersey Coalition Against Human Trafficking as well as several sub-committees.  Alexis also assisted in creating various training protocols for human trafficking. In 2014, Alexis participated in joint, coordinated operations with the FBI, state and local law enforcement agencies targeting child sex trafficking leading up to Super Bowl XLVIII and Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco. In 2016, Alexis received an award from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for her work on the recovery of a 14-year-old sex trafficking victim.  As of January 2016, Alexis transferred back to the Philadelphia Division as a Victim Specialist.  Alexis has received Exceptional Performance Awards for her role as a Victim Specialist in 2018 and 2021. Alexis served as an FBI Adjunct Faculty member from 2017-2021. In 2018, Alexis joined and served on the FBI’s National Victim Services Response Team that deploys to mass casualty and active shooter incidents across the country for four years.

Sakinah Love is the Founder and Executive Director of Redeemed for A Cause. As Executive Director, she works with victims of Philadelphia’s most vulnerable populations, including victims of human trafficking, abuse, and trauma. Sakinah believes in a hands-on approach – committing to do direct bi-weekly street outreach with victims, providing on-the-spot counseling, referrals to other service providers and building relationships with those that may want to escape their circumstances in the future.

Under her leadership, Redeemed for A Cause has served over 1,000 victims of human trafficking through the drop-in center services for victims that include case management, life coaching, counseling, crisis intervention, mental health, STD Testing, clothing, bible study and many other prevention and intervention services with the help of various community partners. Currently, the organization provides these services in their drop-in centers which are in West Philadelphia and South Philadelphia.

Omar Martinez completed a dual degree program, simultaneously gaining his master’s degree in public health and juris doctorate at Indiana University-Bloomington. He also completed a master’s degree in clinical research methods at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Professor Martinez completed an NIH T32 postdoctoral research fellowship in behavioral science research in HIV prevention at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Martinez is an Associate Professor in the Population Health Sciences Department, College of Medicine, University of Central Florida. Professor Martinez’s research expertise includes the correlates, prevalence, and prevention of substance use, mental illness, and HIV among underserved and vulnerable populations. His work has contributed to a better understanding of the impact of syndemic factors, including both individual-level factors (e.g. substance use and mental health problems) and the larger social context (e.g. immigration policies, stigma, discrimination, structural racism, violence, and cultural imperialism that affects the overall health outcomes among systematically and structurally excluded populations.

His experiences also include developing and implementing programs and interventions to address health disparities and inequities, including HoMBReS, a best-evidence community-level intervention HIV prevention intervention for self-identified heterosexual Latinxs; Connect n’ Unite, a couple-based behavioral HIV prevention intervention for Black men who have sex with men; Connecting Latinos en Parejas, a couple-based HIV prevention and treatment intervention for Latino men who have sex with men; Trans Equity Research Project, a homegrown, peer-led, group-level HIV prevention and care intervention, in English and Spanish, for men and women of trans experience; and Juntas Contra el Virus del Papiloma Humano, an HPV self-sampling intervention for under-screened Latinas. He is currently leading an NIH study to assess the feasibility and acceptability the Organizational Partnerships for Healthy Living, an innovative, multilevel intervention package intended for health care organizations serving people living with HIV(PLWH).

Professor Martinez is the director of the Implementation Science Research Lab. The lab has developed a national and international reputation for conducting high-impact health disparities research and for providing a unique venue for training the next generation of biobehavioral researchers. The lab focuses on research to enhance the development, uptake, effectiveness and efficiency of evidence-based interventions and policies within clinical and community settings in order to improve population health and reduce health disparities.

Florence Momplaisir, MD, MSHP is an early career physician scientist and Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Division of Infectious Diseases. Her clinical research focuses on improving postpartum retention and viral suppression of women living with HIV and on decreasing racial disparities in HIV prevalence among U.S. populations. Dr. Momplaisir was selected to be an HIV Prevention Trial Network (HPTN) Scholar and an International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trial Network (IMPAACT) Scholar. Using HPTN 037 data, she evaluated the association between individual, behavioral and network related factors and racial disparities in HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs (PWIDs). Using data from IMPAACT P1025, she evaluated the association between prenatal depressive symptoms and viral suppression at delivery and postpartum, and the mediating role of antiretroviral therapy adherence.

In addition to her research, Dr. Momplaisir actively advocates for the care of women living with HIV through her involvement regionally with the Philadelphia Department of Health’s Fetal Infant Mortality Review and nationally with the Centers for Disease Control Elimination of Maternal Child Transmission of HIV Infection Stakeholders Group. She serves as an expert panel member in the Department of Health and Human Services Perinatal HIV treatment guidelines. She is currently serving as a PI for an R01 funded study, conducting a multi-site randomized clinical trial to test a peer-led behavioral intervention to improve postpartum viral suppression, with the goal of improving maternal viral suppression and maternal health. Dr. Momplaisir has extensive experience providing care for women with and at risk for HIV during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Dr. Momplaisir’s areas of expertise include community health workers, health care disparities, medication adherence, and social determinants of health.

Rosalind Pichardo is an activist, educator, survivor whose life has been touched by gun violence. She survived an attempted homicide and shortly after boyfriend Talvird was murdered. She later lost her twin sister Kathy to suicide and her brother Alex to murder. In response to these tragedies, she has made it her mission to create change. Rosalind founded Operation Save Our City in 2012. She works with homicide victims to advocate for justice.

Rosalind worked at Prevention Point as the Community Engagement Team’s Lead Educator, where she trained thousands on how to administer Narcan to reverse an OD. Rosalind has reversed more than 1,049 opioid overdoses on the streets of Philadelphia. Rosalind works with the DEA as a Facilitator of Art and programming for at risk youth suffering from trauma and living in communities that are underserved. Rosalind also works at Temple University Hospital in the Emergency Department as a Trauma Victims Advocate. She has been featured in numerous pieces and documentaries – Hello SUNSHINE, Kensington Crisis, Tipping the Pain Scale, and Woke Philadelphia that shared her story as an Activist & Advocate.

Lauren Realberg is a Deputy City Solicitor with the Child Welfare Unit of the Philadelphia Law Department, representing the Department of Human Services. Lauren handles dependency cases in Philadelphia’s Juvenile Human Trafficking Court, known as WRAP (Working to Restore Adolescents’ Power) Court, which aims to help youth with dependency, delinquency, and/or crossover matters who have been identified as victims of commercial sexual exploitation/human trafficking. She also works with older youth who have chosen to remain in dependent care, and youth who have both delinquent and dependent court involvement and advises the Department on compliance with delinquent court orders. Prior to joining the Law Department in 2018, Lauren served as an Assistant District Attorney with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office for five years, prosecuting matters ranging from narcotics distribution to domestic violence to shootings. Lauren graduated from Colgate University with a degree in International Relations and French and received her Juris Doctor from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law.

Shea M. Rhodes, Esq. has dedicated her career to combating violence against women, protecting the rights of those who are oppressed or exploited, and championing human rights. She is a national expert on laws related to sex trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, and prostitution policy. As the Co-Founder and Director of the Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE Institute) at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, Ms. Rhodes works with and on behalf of victims and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Additionally, the CSE Institute serves as the data and information clearinghouse for Pennsylvania stakeholders working to implement Pennsylvania’s comprehensive human trafficking statute enacted in 2014.

Ms. Rhodes’ work at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law also includes teaching the course Human Trafficking, which seeks to address human trafficking from the legal and policy perspectives. This course explores the laws related to the various needs of human trafficking survivors, rhetoric, and popular culture perceptions of human trafficking, and how to respond to the diverse physical, emotional, and psychological needs of survivors through trauma-informed lawyering skills.

Ms. Rhodes was awarded a 2021-2022 U.S. Fulbright Scholar grant for the Fulbright-Schuman European Union Affairs Program by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to conduct research in Austria and Sweden. Her research, titled “Discouraging the Demand that Drives the Exploitation of Persons that Leads to Human Sex Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation,” looks at whether Austria and Sweden have successfully implemented a directive from the United Nations’ Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children.  The directive calls on all States Parties to take legislative or other measures to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children, that leads to trafficking.

Ms. Rhodes is also a member of several anti-trafficking initiatives, locally and internationally, including Philadelphia’s Anti-Trafficking Coalition, the Pennsylvania Anti-Human Trafficking Advocacy Work Group (PAHTAWG), Shared Hope International’s JuST Response Council. She is a founding Steering Committee member and is currently on the Executive Committee for World Without Exploitation (WorldWE). She also sits on the Board of Directors for Dawn’s Place, a residential treatment program for women who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. In May of 2019, Shea was inducted as a fellow into The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, which is a not-for-profit medical, educational, and cultural institution that serves to advance the cause of health and upholds the ideals of the heritage of medicine.

Prior to forming the CSE Institute in 2014, Ms. Rhodes served the Philadelphia community as an Assistant District Attorney. During that time, she helped found Project Dawn Court and develop a Law Enforcement Working Group to facilitate effective handling of human trafficking cases. Before joining the District Attorney’s Office, Ms. Rhodes served as a staff attorney for the Crime Victim’s Law Project where she represented victims of sexual violence.

Ms. Rhodes regularly conducts trainings and presentations throughout the Commonwealth and nationally. Ms. Rhodes’ written materials, including policy papers, legal resources, and newsletters, can be found on the CSE Institute website.  She is a graduate of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law and the University of Kansas.

Dr. Willamette Simmons is a licensed psychologist with over 15 years of experience in the mental health field. Dr. Simmons obtained her Doctorate in Psychology (PsyD) and Master in Business Administration (MBA) with a concentration in Health Care Management (HCM) from Widener University.

Dr. Simmons specializes in depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship issues, eating disorders, chronic pain, schizophrenia, and immigration challenges. She has taught a variety of international and national workshops including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Schizophrenia, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Mood Disorders, and Evidenced-Informed Trauma Interventions. Dr. Simmons has also made special guest appearances on local and international TV and radio shows discussing various mental health issues.

Dr. Simmons is a Board Member of The Liberia Medical Mission, Suicide Prevention Alliance, Child Guidance Resource Centers, and Hope Foundation Services. She is the Past President of the Pennsylvania Psychological Foundation and a former Pennsylvania Psychological Association (PPA) board member. Dr. Simmons is an Assistant Professor at Widener University Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology and an adjunct professor at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM). Dr. Simmons is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Pennsylvania Psychological Association (PPA), and the Philadelphia Society for Clinical Psychologists (PSCP).

Carol was Executive Director the Women’s Law Project (WLP) for more than 30 years until her retirement from the position in 2022. In her time at WLP, Carol presided over major legal victories in the areas of reproductive rights, discrimination in employment, education, athletics, and welfare. Carol is a leading expert in institutional response to sexual and domestic violence against women. Carol led a major reform effort to improve police handling of sex crimes in Philadelphia, oversaw an annual audit of rape case files at the Philadelphia police department. Carol’s work included successfully requested hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee to address the same miscarriages of justice occurring in cities across the country and initiating the call to update the definition of rape used by the FBI in the Uniform Crime Reporting system. Founded in 1974, the Women’s Law Project is one of the few public interest law centers in the nation devoted to women’s rights, and the only one in Pennsylvania.

Prior to being at WLP, Carol also served as Executive Director of the Mayor’s Commission for Women; Executive Director of Penn Women’s Center Executive Director of Bicentennial Women’s Center; and was a lawyer for the City of Philadelphia.

Elizabeth Van Nostrand is an associate professor in the Department of Health Services Administration and Policy. Van Nostrand is an expert in legal epidemiology—the study and application of law as an intervention to prevent disease and injury. Currently, she is leading a four-year study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that will identify impactful therapies, services and treatments offered to individuals arrested for drug misuse and their effect on morbidity (as measured by emergency department presentations, rearrest and EMS calls) and mortality.

Van Nostrand’s interests include disaster preparedness research, developing new methods to prepare the public health workforce to respond to emergencies, and telehealth regulatory compliance. She is the co-author of three public health emergency law bench books for health departments in the District of Columbia, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Through a CDC-funded grant, Van Nostrand also created the Emergency Law Inventory (ELI), a public health informatics tool for volunteers engaged in disaster response. She received the National Partner Award from the Medical Reserve Corps (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and two awards from the University of Pittsburgh’s Innovation Institute for the development of ELI. In 2022, Van Nostrand received a second grant from the CDC to update ELI’s content.

In 2022, Van Nostrand received a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health to assess workforce needs and help create a workforce development plan.

Selected peer-reviewed presentations include:

• “Why Aren’t Mountain State Folks Getting the Shot? Health literacy, COVID-19, and Vaccination Rates in West Virginia Counties” (West Virginia College of Law Health in the Hills Symposium: February 2022)
• “Improving the Resiliency of Public Health Systems to Mitigate the Forecasted Health Impacts of Climate Change” (IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Colloquium, Brisbane Australia: July 2022)
• “Using a Mixed-Methods Design to Identify Services that Impact Non-Fatal and Fatal Overdose Events” (2022 Conference on Statistical Practice: February 2022)

Previously, Van Nostrand was an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. While at Pitt, Van Nostrand was the department’s vice chair for practice, director of the MPH and JD/MPH programs, and the interim director of the Center for Public Health Practice. She developed innovative courses and curricula, including Public Health Law, Health Law, Current Issues in Health Law, Health Policy, Population Health, and Law in Public Health Practice. Van Nostrand received three Craig Award nominations (Pitt Public Health’s highest award for teaching) and a Delta Omega Honorary Society award (honorable mention) for curriculum development.

Van Nostrand is the former director and principal investigator of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Public Health Training Center (funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration). Under her directorship, the training center focused on public health informatics trainings and creating multidisciplinary training paradigms that integrate both public health and clinical care.

Carolina Villamil Grest, BS, MSW, PhD is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work of the College of Public Health at Temple University. Her research focuses on realizing health equity among racial and ethnic groups, with a specific focus on Hispanic/Latino/a/x youth and families in the U.S. Applying an ecological and life course perspective, her research examines the structural, social, and intersectional forces that shape both risk and protective behaviors to inform targeted interventions addressing the effects of poverty, stress, violence, and ethnicity on race-based trauma. Ultimately, her research aims to reduce health disparities and enhance the health and well-being of Hispanic/Latino/a/x youth and families. Dr. Villamil Grest looks to highlight community-embedded strengths and achievements which to guide the development and sustainability of culturally grounded prevention interventions for Hispanic/Latino/a/x youth and families.

Prior to joining the School of Social Work, Carolina received her PhD in social work from the University of Southern California and her MSW from Catholic University. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Villamil Grest was a fellow supported by the Council on Social Work Education Minority Fellowship Program. Her work is inspired by practice as a licensed clinical social worker for over seven years in various interdisciplinary settings, where she used a trauma-informed perspective and wellness frameworks to support the needs of immigrant children, youth and families.