Dr. Julia Richerson is a primary care pediatrician at a FQHC in Louisville KY, primarily working with families who are refugees and immigrants. She believes children and families have amazing strength and wisdom, and have the power to change their communities and the world. She feels it is a great privilege to accompany them on their journey, as a pediatrician and child health advocate. Among her many professional and community roles, she serves as Climate Advocate for the KY Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Mims is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Louisville and Norton Children’s Medical Group in Louisville, Kentucky. She has been practicing outpatient pediatrics in Louisville, Kentucky since 2016. She has a special interest in climate change and environmental exposures as it affects children’s health. She is one of Kentucky’s climate advocates for the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a founding member of Kentucky Child Health and Climate Advocates.

"Melissa Rue is the Program Coordinator for the Children at Play Network (CAPN), a nationally recognized initiative of Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, a private 16,140- acre forest in Clermont, Ky., whose mission is to connect people to nature. CAPN connects children to nature through free play for their healthy development, cultivating lifelong environmental stewards and advocating for climate action to ensure children’s access to equitable and accessible healthy play. Additionally, Ms. Rue, whose undergraduate degree is in Journalism from the University of Kentucky, manages CAPN outreach, social media and communications, serves on Bernheim’s Diversity, Equity and Accessibility committee and supervises Bernheim’s Community Outreach Ambassador, as well as on-site occupational therapy graduate students completing their capstone projects.

"

Sara Wohlford is the Director of Sustainability at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia where she facilitates and coordinates programs for the health care system that reduce inefficiencies and waste and promote environmental sustainability. After receiving a master's degree in Public Health from Virginia Tech, Sara conceptualized and proposed her current position, created a work structure for sustainability for Carilion’s seven hospitals, and developed the Carilion Clinic Environmental Stewardship Council. Her programs increase recycling, decrease energy utilization, decrease natural resource consumption, and divert tens of thousands of pounds of waste from Virginia landfills annually, while educating and demonstrating to staff, patients, and visitors the inextricable links between community health, environmental health, and sustainability.

Dr. Samim Atmar is an Emergency Medicine physician working at the Inova Medical System. He completed the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Technology Policy Fellowship (STPF) with a focus on climate change and social justice at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). He was born in Afghanistan and at a young age moved to Pakistan as a refugee and later immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He obtained his medical degree at Albert Einstein College of Medicine followed by residency in Emergency Medicine at Mt. Sinai St Luke’s-Roosevelt in NYC. He is a member of the Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action and interested in the nexus between health, climate change and social justice. He is fluent in Spanish and Farsi (Dari). In his free time, Samim enjoys traveling, reading and hiking with his dog.

Dr. Hankin-Wei is a medical researcher and medical educator with expertise in emergency department-based public health research, HIV testing and linkage to care, and emergency care pedagogy in low-resource settings. She has been the Principal Investigator on funded projects including youth violence risk factor identification, drug and alcohol abuse screening and intervention in the emergency department setting, and an HIV screening and linkage to care program which led to no-cost HIV screening over 50,000 patients visiting an urban US emergency department. She has worked as a clinical educator in medically-underserved rural communities in the United States, rural communities in the state of Karnataka in Southern India, rural Guatemala, and Maputo, Mozambique. Dr. Hankin-Wei was recently named as the 2018 recipient of the Secretary of State Award for Outstanding Volunteerism Abroad for the State Department Africa Bureau."

Dr Mili Roy is a physician/ophthalmologist in active clinical practice with teaching, research and academic roles including a faculty position with the University of Toronto and Section Editor for the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology. Her deep sense of connection to the environment since childhood kept her involved over the years in following environmental science and issues, and supporting various environmental groups while continuing to practice medicine. As the environmental crisis deepened and also became a crisis of health, she realized she could increase her impact acting from within her role as a physician by framing environmental advocacy through the lens of health. This led to completing Climate Reality Leadership Corps certification, taking on a lead role as Ontario Regional Chair for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and wishing to learn more with the Climate Health Organizing Fellowship in order to bring her best to the immense opportunities and responsibilities facing us all in addressing the current crisis of sustainability and health.

Dr. Samantha Green is a family physician at St. Michael's Hospital and with Inner City Health Associates in Toronto, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and Faculty Lead in Climate Change & Health in the Department of Family & Community Medicine. She sits on the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. She advocates for climate action with the aim of improving the health of her patients and community.

Lyn is a conflict resolution trainer and mediator, and a social change trainer and organizer. Lyn co-founded ClimateFast in 2012 and led a pledge campaign for Members of Parliament. She co-founded the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign in 2022, and serves as Co-Chair. Lyn is also Co-Chair of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, and is a mother and grandmother, a Quaker, and an avid cyclist.

Ethan Sims is an emergency medicine physician with Emergency Medicine of Idaho and a member of the Idaho Clinicians for Climate and Health. He lives and works in Boise, Idaho, and enjoys biking, hiking and running in the gorgeous mountains of Idaho with wife, two daughters and three dogs. He is learning to nordic ski and coming to grips with the fact that his daughters are both more athletic than he, but is here to ensure that there's snow in the mountains for skiing and water in the lakes to swim in!

Dr. Elsa Lee attended medical school at the University of Utah, completed her pediatric residency at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and spent the early years of her career working for the Indian Health Service on the Navajo Nation. Since 2003, she has called Boise, Idaho, home and has enjoyed providing general pediatric care to children and their families at St. Luke's Children's Pediatrics. In 2021, she helped launch Idaho Clinicians for Climate and Health to provide local education and outreach to reduce healthcare sector contributions to climate change and mitigate the impacts of climate change on human health. in her free time (and if there's not too much wildfire smoke), Dr. Lee can be found in the great outdoors, often with her husband, their two teenagers and the family dog.

Amanda Blanchet is an Emergency Medicine Physician Assistant in Boise, Idaho. She is a founding member of the Idaho Clinicians for Climate and Health, a group which works to communicate the health risks associated with climate change and organize local sustainability efforts.

Her undergraduate studies were in International Business and she previously worked with international healthcare facility consulting and global military medical staffing.

Her passion is sustainable architecture and creating healthy spaces to benefit human health.

Dr. Shapley-Quinn is a family physician whose passion for work in mental health, maternal child health, and equity has been manifested professionally in her work as a primary care physician as well as years long work serving as Medical Director of a North Carolina County Health Department. Kathleen has been active in advocacy around food security for decades and has also served as board member for an agency providing advocacy and education for children of incarcerated parents. Her commitment to climate work grows out of both a sense of justice (cultivated early in her Detroit upbringing) as well as a passion for the beauty of our planet and the people who inhabit it.

Jennifer Lawson is a general pediatrician at Duke Children’s, Faculty Associate of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities and History of Medicine, Climate Change Faculty Fellow, AAP NC Chapter Climate Advocate, and member of NC Clinicians for Climate Action, who appreciates and loves to learn from ways of thinking outside of her professional discipline. Her interests focus on climate change and health, medical humanities, diversity, equity and belonging, and physician well-being. She teaches and mentors learners of many levels from undergraduate students to pediatric residents and fellows, and is currently involved in several climate and health related initiatives. "

Dr. Andrew Muzyk is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Medical Education at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Campbell University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Buies Creek, NC.

Georgia Christakis is a pediatrician, public health worker and mother. She completed her residency and chief resident year in New York before completing her fellowship in global child health at Boston Children's Hospital. During her fellowship she provided pediatric care as a hospitalist and outpatient pediatrician in Massachusetts, rural South Dakota and Liberia, West Africa. Her interests include reducing child mortality and improving health outcomes in the first 1000 days, geographic influences on child health outcomes, and improving equity and social justice in historically marginalized communities.

Dr. Catherine Toms is Senior Advisor for Climate and Health for the international nonprofit, Health Care Without Harm, working with Florida’s health systems to build resilience to weather-related impacts. As a steering committee member with Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, Dr. Toms educates other health professionals and the public about the health impacts of climate change and advocates for equitable solutions. Her newest program, Green Cars for Kids, is a health and climate solution providing free transportation for children and pregnant women to health services using an all-electric fleet. Dr. Toms earned a BS degree from Duke University, a medical degree from Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany, trained at Buskerud Central Hospital in Drammen, Norway, and holds a master of public health degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Dr. Kobrin is a Pediatrician and Pediatric Nephrologist, who received her education at Wellesley College & the State University of New York Medical School, with Internship & Residency/Chief at University of South Florida and Fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital. She has furthered her interests in leadership and global wellness at the Physician Leadership College Opus School of Business St. Thomas University, and UCSD School of Medicine Center for Mindfulness. A Clinical Professor in Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine for over 25 years, a Regional Medical Director for a multispecialty HMO, a founder and CEO of Sage Balance, LLC, a member of Florida Clinicians for Climate Action (FCCA) and the Southwest Florida Interfaith Climate Action Team, her passion is integrating medical knowledge, compassion and mindfulness to achieve equitable climate solutions.

Shuinn Chang is a Board-certified family nurse practitioner dedicated to improving the healthcare system on both a micro and macro level. She uses her background and experience in patient care, team building, and healthcare process improvement to build and design evidence-based, data, and technology-driven strategies and quality improvement programs for hospitals, clinics, medical groups, and payers. She is passionate about the environmental and social justice impacts of our modern healthcare system, and what can be done to build a future where the healthcare industry aligns with the sustainability needs of our communities and our world.

C. Freeman, MD, MBA, FAPA is an adult and geriatric psychiatrist who caters to underserved populations. Committed to creating healthier lives by delivering health care of the highest quality and providing mental health education to the community, she is sought out nationally for her diverse experience as a strategist, elder abuse expert, consultant, educator, GME residency director, healthcare administrator, and medical leader. Growing up on the Gulf Coast as the daughter of a Baptist minister and a music educator, Dr. Freeman has a true appreciation and respect for the beauty of the earth and its connectivity to our physical and spiritual being.

Cindy has been a midwife for over 32 years in home birth and birth center practices. She has always infused environmentally sustainable practices into her work and personal life. Cindy is very motivated to use her passion for environmental justice and equity for broader-reaching impact.

Dr. Britt Wray is a Human and Planetary Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health. Her research focuses on the mental health impacts of the ecological crisis. Britt is the creator of the weekly newsletter about “staying sane in the climate crisis” Gen Dread (gendread.substack.com) and author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis (Knopf 2022). She has a PhD in Science Communication from the University of Copenhagen, has hosted several podcasts, radio & TV programs with the BBC and CBC, and is a TED speaker.

Debra L. Safer MD brings to our team 20+ years as a psychiatrist as well as clinical researcher, with a more recent clinical focus on climate change and mental health. She obtained her MD from U.C. San Francisco and completed her psychiatry residency at Stanford University School of Medicine as well as a post-doctoral fellowship therein. The CHOF program’s focus on narrative is of particular interest given her master’s degree from U.C. Berkeley’s School of Public Health focused on the intersection of fiction narratives & medicine. Debra is active in organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, Climate Psychiatry Alliance helping to co-author action papers, including Establishment of an Assembly Committee on Social Determinants of Mental Health.

Kyle McKinley is the program manager tasked with administering this initiative and is currently pursuing an MPH in community health education at San Jose State University. In the past he was a non-senate faculty member of the Arts at UC Santa Cruz and assistant director of the Social Practice Arts Research Center, where his teaching and research were focused on the role of creative and community practices in social change.

Hugh is a 3rd year medical student at Harvard Medical School. He is interested in pursing Med-Peds and aspires to work at the intersection of climate change, community and global health in clinical, advocacy, and research capacities.

Marissa Zampino is a Community Organizer for the Mystic River Watershed Association. In this role, they build relationships and partner with community members and organizations to help surface and implement resident-generated heat and other climate resilience solutions, as climate change makes summer heat waves longer and storms more intense. Prior to MyRWA, she worked as an organizer for MASSPIRG Students where she recruited, trained, and organized hundreds of college students on voter registration, fighting hunger and homelessness, and transitioning UMass Amherst to 100% renewable energy. In her free time, she enjoys reading, drinking coffee, or finding new places to roller skate. Pronouns: she/they

Erin is currently in her second year of internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is training to be a primary care doctor and loves working in community health center settings. She previously worked as a community health worker in Virginia and has great admiration for patient navigators and CHWs. She has always been interested in environmental health, particularly after her undergraduate studies in anthropology and environmental science, and is working to build a knowledge base and skills in climate justice work.

Maddy is a a student in the Harvard Medical School MD-PhD Program who completed her first two years of medical school and is now beginning her PhD studies in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Maddy studied chemistry and biology with a minor in Spanish at MIT, where she graduated (virtually) in 2020. She is interested in the genomics and evolution of infectious diseases, especially in the context of climate change and healthcare disparities. Maddy has been involved in creating a longitudinal climate and health equity curriculum at the medical school in conjunction with Students for Environmental Awareness in Medicine, has been an active member of the Racial Justice Coalition, and is very excited to build skills in community organizing around climate and health.

Julia is a fourth-year MD-MPH candidate at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Prior to medical school, Julia's research background was in the disease burden and economic costs of exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, such as bisphenol A and PFAS, among infants and children. At HMS, Julia is co-leading a student initiative with Students for Environmental Awareness in Medicine (SEAM) to longitudinally incorporate climate change into the pre-clinical medical curriculum.

Natalie Baker is a second year medical student at Harvard Medical School. Born and raised in Northern California, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s from Stanford University where she witnessed the devastating health impacts of wildfire and heat on her community firsthand. During her first year of medical school, Natalie has been co-leading integration of climate change into the HMS curriculum and serving as Advocacy sub-chair at MS4SF and co-president of the Emergency Medicine Interest Group. In her free time, Natalie enjoys backpacking and trail running and is helping to organize an outdoor adventure trip for the incoming first year medical class!

Tanya Coventry-Strader is a purpose-driven social impact leader and community advocate. She received a BA in Mass Communications from Boston University College of Communications and went on to have a 25-year career as a corporate communications and CSR executive before moving into the public sector to pursue her passion.

Dr. Jaggi is a pediatric infectious disease specialist and the Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. She is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University. Her areas of research have included Kawasaki disease and quality improvement projects related to improving appropriate antimicrobial use. She sees hope in the area of climate change because of the improvement she has observed in use of antimicrobials after years of concerted efforts by clinicians and public health providers.

Dr. Mellinger-Birdsong received an MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School, completed a pediatrics residency at Hershey Medical Center of the Pennsylvania State University, and received an MPH from Johns Hopkins University. She has worked in areas as diverse as communicable diseases, vaccine preventable diseases, radiation environmental health, environmental public health, asthma, a county STD clinic, a county tuberculosis clinic, a Native American Indian Health Service clinic, and air pollution and climate environmental health.

Katie Lichter is a radiation oncology medical resident and climate health fellow at University of California San Francisco passionate about improving patient, community, and planetary health.

Dr. Jasmine Kamboj is a Medical Oncologist and Hematologist with Allina Health Cancer Institute and practices im the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. She is a passionate Climate Health enthusiast and is a member of ASCO’s Climate Change Task Force. Dr Kamboj has been a diligent advocate of cancer related concerns and was awarded Advocate of the Year award for the year 2020. She has most recently also joined Oncologists United for Climate and Health, and plans to focus on advocacy and creating awareness in the climate and health space.

Leticia Nogueira, PhD, MPH, is the Senior Principal Scientist at the Surveillance and Health Equity Science Department at the American Cancer Society. Dr. Nogueira’s research focuses on cancer disparities that can be addressed by policy changes, with a special focus on climate change and structural racism. She is also the American Cancer Society representative at the Society of Behavioral Medicine Presidential Workgroup on Climate Change and Health Disparities, the Medical Society Consortium on Climate Change and Health, and the Oncologists United for Climate and Health (OUCH). Dr. Nogueira holds a doctoral degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and an Adjunct Professor position at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

George Chalil is a fourth-year pharmacy student at the University of Charleston. George became involved in climate advocacy through one of his faculty mentors Alice Gahbauer, PharmD. He has worked with Dr. Gahbauer and other pharmacy students and professionals to combat the effects of the profession of pharmacy on climate health. He is a member of many sustainability organizations, such as the Sustainable Pharmacy Project. George is passionate about the impacts of oncology care on the environment. He hopes to practice as a clinical pharmacist in oncology and continue to pave the path to a more sustainable future and profession. Description goes here

Rosa Vazquez is a Community Organizer and Public Health consultant working to build power in historically disinvested communities. As an undocumented woman of color who grew up in Santa Ana, CA, Rosa experienced firsthand the environmental, economic and immigration injustices that force entire communities into vulnerable states. Rosa graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Government and minor in Ethnicity, Migration and Rights. Grounded in her lived experiences and a passion for enacting change, Rosa leveraged her Harvard college experience and early professional career, to build extensive experience in electoral and issue campaigns. In 2021 she launched AltaMed’s first on-the-ground community outreach campaign which trained a community workforce of 38 Community Health Workers to reach over 450,000 community members in an effort to increase COVID-19 vaccines and advance equitable recovery in communities across LA and Orange Counties. In her current role, Rosa leads AltaMed’s Local Community Campaigns and serves as a consultant for the Community Organizing and Research Engagement Team.

Dr. Ilan Shapiro is the Chief Health Correspondent, Physician and Medical Affairs Officer at AltaMed, a Federally Qualified Health Center. In addition, Dr. Shapiro is actively involved in creating binational public health programs to reach Hispanic communities on both sides of the border. He acted as the Medical Advisor for the General Consulate of Mexico in Chicago and was a Member of the Editorial Board for A Tu Salud (For Your Health), a health bulletin representing Hispanic health topics and resources. Dr. Shapiro is part of the National Hispanic Medical Association and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Shapiro earned a medical degree from Anahuac University in Mexico, and had the opportunity to practice medicine in several main hospitals in Mexico and has been serving in federally qualified health clinics in Chicago, Fort Myers (Florida) and Los Angeles.

Destinee Rodriguez has served as a community health worker in AltaMed’s Ándale Qué Esperas Campaign. Alongside her colleagues, she led the creation of a street vendor Community Mobilization program that is building infrastructure across LA county to activate vulnerable community groups around systemic issues at the root of negative health outcomes. In her college career, she was able to merge her dual passion of addressing health equities in vulnerable communities and environmental justice when she pursued her degree in Environmental Health. She currently now serves as the liaison for community engagement and activation for the My Community My Health Coalition at AltaMed.