The Use of Arts & Storytelling to Prevent Firearm Injury

Please join the Yale School of Public Health for a panel discussion on "The Use of Arts & Storytelling to Prevent Firearm Injury." Moderated by Dean Megan Ranney, this discussion features three expert panelists, who will present their individual experiences working in the field of gun violence prevention. The panelists include Nelba Márquez-Greene, Dr. Chana Sacks, and Dr. Joseph Richardson Jr.

Nelba Márquez-Greene, LMFT, is our Activist in Residence at YSPH, where she works to amplify and uplift the voices of survivors in the field of public health. Nelba has a background in Family Therapy, having worked for the University of Winnipeg, the Klingberg Family Therapy Center, and Central Connecticut State University. She also founded the Connecticut Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Diversity Committee and served on the CTAMFT Board of Directors. Nelba has testified and advocated at the state and federal levels on many different mental health initiatives, hosted TEDx talks, and is a nationally sought after speaker. She has won many awards for her work, including the Aurora Family Therapy Center Key to the Centre award, a YWCA Connecticut Women’s Leadership Award, recognition in People Magazine as one of Ten Women Changing the World, and a feature in Chelsea and Hillary Clinton’s Book of Gutsy Women. In the many years that have followed, stints in advocacy, public policy, community care, etc. have affirmed her core belief that in order to change the world through policy and research we must also take care of people. Public health practices can do both.

Dr. Chana Sacks is a general internist in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Co-Director of the MGH Gun Violence Prevention Center. Dr. Sacks attended the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed her residency and Chief Residency in Internal Medicine at MGH. Since joining the faculty there, Dr. Sacks has focused her health policy work on developing and implementing a public health approach to addressing gun violence in New England and across the country. Dr. Sacks' research focuses on the prevention of firearm-related injuries and suicide prevention, particularly among older adults. She is an Editor-at-Large at the New England Journal of Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of NEJM Evidence.

Dr. Joseph Richardson is the MPower Professor of African-American Studies, Medical Anthropology and Epidemiology, at the University of Maryland. Dr. Richardson’s research centers on gun violence, violent firearm injury, mental health/trauma and community violence interventions for Black boys and young Black men. He is the Founding Program and Research Director of the Capital Region Violence Intervention Program (CAP-VIP), and currently serves as the Lead Epidemiologist for the Violence Prevention Program at the Center for Injury Prevention and Policy at the University of Maryland R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. Dr. Richardson is also the Founding Co-Director of Prevent Gun Violence: Research Empowerment Strategies and Solutions (PROGRESS). Dr. Richardson currently serves as Co-Chair of the District of Columbia Violence Fatality Review Committee, the Co-Chair of the Black and Brown Collective for Community Solutions to Gun Violence, and the Executive Producer and Director of the award-winning digital storytelling project Life After the Gunshot which explores the lives of 10 young Black men survivors of violent firearm injury in Washington DC.

The Dean's Lecture series is open to active Yale community members only for in-person attendance. The general public is welcome and encouraged to participate via the Zoom link provided. Thank you for your understanding.