[Click for the Symposium Program Guide in PDF]

 
Elie Ibrahim Ata, MD, is a Lawrence native and Family Medicine Resident at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. He attended Merrimack College, attaining degrees in biology, chemistry, religious studies, and Spanish culture. During his undergraduate career, he worked in Lawrence at the Corpus Christi House, Good Shepard Soup Kitchen, and Lazarus House Ministries. This is where he was introduced to the struggle of addiction and its detrimental effects. At Central Michigan University, as part of the College of Medicine’s inaugural class, he assisted in establishing an Addiction Medicine group. Additionally, he’s worked with Boston Medical Center and Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Wendy Barr is the Residency Director at the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency. She graduated with an MD and MPH from the Tufts University School of Medicine and completed her family medicine residency at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center in 2002. She then received a Master’s of Science in Clinical Epidemiology as part of a faculty development and research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. She is involved in multiple national organizations around improving primary care education and maternal and child health and has published several articles and book chapters in maternal and child health. She has presented nationally and internationally about the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency and some of the programs developed to improve how doctors are trained and the care of our patients, especially women and children.

Amy Bositis is the Clinical Services Manager for the HIV, Hepatitis C, OBAT and Prevention programs at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. She is a Certified-Nurse Midwife who has focused on quality management of programs that provide services for people living with HIV.

Chris Bositis currently works at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center in Lawrence, MA, where he is clinical director of the HIV and viral hepatitis programs, and a core member of the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency faculty. Chris is a family physician and a certified HIV specialist; in addition to providing direct patient care, he is responsible for resident and provider education related to HIV and viral hepatitis. He is also a certified suboxone provider, and is committed to working with the community to implement evidence-based approaches to reduce the burden of HIV and viral hepatitis in at risk populations.

Brad Buschur is a Project Director at Groundwork Lawrence. With 20 years of urban planning and landscape architecture experience, Brad has implemented over $10 million in park improvement projects. He brings a unique understanding on how to challenge typical models of accessibility and inclusion to create play spaces that attract users of all abilities and ages.

Tom Coppinger is the Director of Point after Club, a Community Rehabilitation and Recovery Center that offers people with mental illness hope and opportunities to achieve their own personal goals. He has worked at the Club in various positions since 1980 and was appointed Director in 1995, taking the place of the Club’s founding Director his mother Rose Coppinger. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Clubhouse Coalition, and has been actively involved in various advocacy efforts throughout his career. Tom has led the Point After Club to receive a 3 year unconditional Accreditation with Clubhouse International, acknowledging compliance to the 37 Standards of the Evidence Based Clubhouse Model.

Anil 'Nilly' DaCosta, M.Ed, is Lawrence’s first Homelessness Initiatives Coordinator. Part of the Mayor’s Health Task Force, he works for the Mayor’s Office and the Office of Community Development. With a focus on health disparities of the chronically homeless and its correlation to community health as a whole, he coordinates services and initiatives that lessen service gaps and identifies systemic barriers that perpetuate homelessness. He’s worked with this population in Lawrence for over three years and has worked with the homeless in New York, Camden, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA. He completed his undergraduate studies at LeMoyne College and received a Masters of Education in Community Engagement from Merrimack College.

Eugene Declercq, PhD, is Professor of Community Health Sciences and Assistant Dean for DrPH Education at the Boston University School of Public Health and professor on the faculty of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Boston University School of Medicine. He has served as lead author of national reports on women’s experiences in childbirth entitled Listening to Mothers I, II & III and New Mothers Speak Out and is the founder of www.birthbythenumbers.org. He is a recipient of the Martha May Eliot Award from the American Public Health Association for service to maternal and child health in the U.S.

Ryan Dono, MD, a Family Physician at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center (GLFHC), Core Faculty at Lawrence Family Medicine Residency, and Homeless Program Medical Director, has served the Lawrence community for the past 7+ years. Active interests involve providing broad spectrum primary care, homeless care, treating opiate addiction, teaching in the residency as a core faculty member and providing obstetrical care at Lawrence General Hospital. He did his undergraduate studies at Boston College, and medical school at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA.

Susan Fink is Manager of Financial and Administrative Services for the city of Lawrence in the Lawrence Community Development Department. She has overseen many of Lawrence’s park improvement projects implemented over the past ten years. She has worked for the city for over 22 years focusing her efforts on parks, homelessness, and finance. She is the vice-chair of the National Community Development Association (NCDA) Region 1 Board and a member of the national board for NCDA. She is a long time resident of Lawrence.

Kathleen Flynn was an early supporter of the Immigrant City Archives (now the LHC) during the 1980s and 1990s, volunteering and serving in several board capacities, including president. A graduate of Regis College, she received advanced degrees from Northeastern University in counseling and Fitchburg State College in educational administration. Kathy was a founding member of the Bridge Over Troubled Waters Program in Boston, MA. After 33 years of service she retired as an administrator from Whittier Regional Vocational Tech High School in Haverhill, MA. Currently she supports LHC as a volunteer and researcher and also authored A Sacred Space, a history of St. Mary and Immaculate Conception Cemeteries. She is a board member and annual walker for the Just'Cause 60-mile Walk for Breast Cancer.

Savannah Gillis is a member of the Andover High School Class of 2018. Interested in pursuing an education in Political Science, History, or Public Health, she’s most enjoyed her time taking AP U.S. History, AP European History, and preparing for the AP U.S. Government exam. Her free time is spent working at the Andover Youth Services, where she helps run an after-school program and teaches cooking classes for middle schoolers. She is also a member of the Andover Youth Council, where she volunteers to help put on events for high schoolers in the area while also advocating for the youth in town elections and political decisions.

Margaret E. Greene, PhD, has worked for 20 years on the social and cultural determinants of health, development policy, and gender. She’s conducted research on gender, adolescence, and sexual and reproductive health for the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, and The U.S. Agency for International Development. She contributes to a series in The Lancet on gender inequality and global health. Prior to founding GreeneWorks, a consulting group working to promote social change for health and development, Greene was on the faculty of George Washington University’s Department of Global Health and a program director at the International Center for Research on Women. She received a PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania, and her BA in linguistics from Yale University.

Patricia Jaysane holds a doctorate in historical linguistics from Laval University. As a professor at Merrimack College, she became increasingly involved in the city of Lawrence and its history, founding the Urban Resource Institute. In that capacity she authored a report entitled The Context of Community Health in Lawrence. While Director of the Lawrence History Center, Jaysane curated a major exhibit on Lawrence at Ellis Island and another specifically on public health in the City. She and her husband, Eugene Declercq, have given several presentations on the history of public health in Lawrence.

Amita Kiley was raised in Lawrence and graduated from Northeastern University with a B.A. in American History in 2004. Her experience growing up in Lawrence fostered a love of the city and a strong sense of wanting to preserve its history. In 2001, as part of Northeastern’s Co-operative Education program, she found herself working at the LHC as a preservation assistant. She continued her professional career after graduation at the archive. In 2014, she moved into her current role as collections manager and research coordinator. She works closely with LHC’s director and local historians, coordinates and supervises volunteers, handles walk in visitors and school groups and manages membership correspondence from the LHC office. Amita has presented at the New England Archivists Fall and Spring meetings for the last several years as well.

Elane Lee is a family nurse practitioner with over 30 years of experience. A graduate from the UMass Lowell Family Nurse Practitioner Master’s Program, she’s worked at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center for 11 years. As co-director of the Healthcare for the Homeless Program at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center for the last ten years, she’s worked at shelters in Haverhill and Lawrence. The Healthcare for the Homeless program serves 14 shelters/food pantries with weekly medical sessions in Haverhill, Lawrence and Lowell. A Mobile Health Unit serves those who are living on the streets or under the bridges in Haverhill and Lawrence. Currently, Elane also works at Lynn Community Health Center in the Urgent Care Department.

Rebecca Lee, MD, a Family Medicine Resident at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, became interested in addiction medicine through her work with the homeless in Boston. In 2014, when the Long Island Bridge suddenly closed, cutting off access to over 50% of Boston’s addiction treatment centers, she created an advocacy group to facilitate communication between policy makers and treatment program leaders. Since then, she’s met with MA Governor Baker to discuss policies to improve access to medication-assisted treatment as well as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to present how MA can be used as a model for better addiction education. She’s co-authored journal articles reviewing a framework for teaching pain and addiction medicine in medical schools.

Dr. Cara Marshall, Associate Program Director at the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency, graduated from the University of Florida College of Medicine and completed her family medicine residency at Montefiore Residency Program in Social Medicine in 1999. Her interests include health literacy, domestic violence issues and the impact of socioeconomic status on health. She has presented locally and nationally about these issues and about the impact of the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency.

Vilma Martínez-Domínguez, Lawrence Community Development Director, and a leader in the Mayor’s Health Task Force (MHTF), served as its coordinator for seven years. Under her leadership, the MHTF evolved into a strong grassroots, multi-sector coalition whose vision is to promote health equity for all, through advocacy, education, capacity-building, and networking. She serves on various coalitions and advisory groups to help advance social justice and gender and health equity. As Community Development Director she provides administrative oversight to a robust Community Development Block Grant funded by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. She supports the Office of Planning & Development in the implementation of programs related to economic and community development and housing.

Lesly Melendez is the Deputy Director of Groundwork Lawrence. Through 17 years in community organizing and project management, Lesly developed a deep knowledge of the Lawrence community and its park system. She has led numerous park improvement and activation projects designed to improve the lives of Lawrence residents.

Elecia Miller is a Project Officer for the city of Lawrence Mayor’s Health Task Force (MHTF). She has worked with MHTF for nine years. As a full time employee of the MHTF, she oversaw the daily operations of the coalition. Today, she is the coalition’s Project Officer, overseeing health initiatives such as Mass in Motion, a statewide initiative that looks at access to physical activity and healthy eating. As a part of the MHTF, she has participated in community events such as Por Tu Familia, a Spanish diabetes conference, hosted by the Diabetes Today Coalition in conjunction with the American Diabetes Association, and Fiesta de Salud, the largest interactive health fair held in the Greater Lawrence area.

Dr. Keith Nokes is a faculty member at the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency and Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, where he directs a longitudinal program for medical students interested in careers in underserved communities. He received his undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Biology from Bowdoin College and his MD and MPH from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He trained in Family Medicine at the University of Rochester as a member of the inner-city track. Areas of interest include clinical pediatrics, medical education, social determinants of health and social needs screening and intervention.

Dr. Barbara Poremba, Professor Emeritus of Nursing at Salem State University, holds a Doctorate of Education and a Bachelor’s in Nursing from UMass Amherst, a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard, a Master’s in Community Health Nursing from Boston University and an Adult Nurse Practitioner Certification from UMass Medical Center in Worcester. Her career has been focused on public health, culminating with the development of an online public health and nursing course, and in practice, as Chairperson of the Salem Board of Health. She’s done extensive historical research on such subjects as Boston’s Cocoanut Grove Fire of 1942, the 1917 Halifax Explosion, the Pandemic in Lynn, and Margaret Sanger, Pioneer of Birth Control.

Nathan L. Porteous received his BS in mechanical engineering from RPI and his MFA in industrial design from SCAD. His thesis titled If Computers Could Shrug: Designing A Physical Language for Computers explored how a collection of user interactions adopting human language principles will enable people to more intuitively collaborate with computers. He has had professional experience in the fields of product design and user experience design at Hasbro, Radio Flyer, and IBM.

William M. Porteous received his B.S and M.S. from Michigan State University in chemical engineering. Holding a Sc.D. from MIT in chemical engineering, he was employed by Cabot Corp for 37 years, primarily in research and development and holds patents in the area of carbon black production. The later part of his career was spent developing processes for the production of inkjet dispersions. Retired from Cabot at the end of 2012, he spends his time on family history, photography, and travel.

Shoba Ramanadhan, ScD, MPH, is a Senior Scientist at the Center for Community-Based Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Research Scientist in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research and community engagement activities focus on supporting the use of evidence-based programs in community-based organizations, particularly those serving vulnerable populations. She is interested in the potential for capacity-building programs and social network development to promote the use of research evidence in community settings. Much of her work uses a community-based participatory research approach.

Ashlynn Rickord is a historian of state hospitals for the mentally ill and state schools for the developmentally disabled. She received her Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School where she researched religious life at state institutions in MA. As Administrative Assistant at the Public Health Museum at the Tewksbury Hospital, she is working on several grant projects related to her research, including restoration work on the historic Tewksbury Hospital Cemetery and the MetFern Cemetery in Waltham, MA (the shared cemetery between Metropolitan State Hospital and the Fernald State School). In 2018 she begins a three-year position at the Archdiocese of Boston as Project Director for an exhibition honoring the life and legacy of Cardinal Richard Cushing, with particular emphasis on disability inclusion and interreligious dialogue.

Louise Sandberg is the archivist responsible for the Special Collections of the Lawrence Public Library. She has a BA from Brandeis University and an MSc in Library and Information Sciences with a concentration in Archives management from Simmons College. She has worked in archives at Brown University, MIT, and SEA Consultants. She has managed the Special Collections at the Lawrence Public Library for twenty years. Since starting to process material already in the library and other items that have come in since she started, 1600 linear feet of manuscripts, posters, artwork, photographs, artifacts, plans, as well as maps and printed material been put under control.

Michael A. Sandberg, PhD, retired from his position as Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School/Mass. Eye and Ear in September 2017. He completed his graduate training at Brown University in 1973 and then was recruited to the Berman-Gund Laboratory for the Study of Retinal Degenerations and the Electroretinography Service (now the Inherited Retinal Disorders Service) at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Later he pursued a post-doctoral fellowship at Hadassah University in Jerusalem. He has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and a dozen book chapters on topics related to patient management and to animal models of human retinal disease.

Sandra Silva is the Associate Vice President of Community Program Operations at GLFHC. Sandra has worked at GLFHC for over 20 years and is responsible for the fiscal and programmatic monitoring of the HIV, OBAT, Homeless and Prevention programs.

Jonas A. Stundžia, a Lithuanian American, born and raised in Lawrence, MA, received degrees in philosophy and linguistics from universities in Rome, Italy and Vilnius, Lithuania. He continued his post graduate studies in archival science at UMass Boston. In the past he initiated Arts for Lawrence, Save Den Rock Park, and The 1912 Strikers’ Monument. He chairs the Lawrence Historical Commission and is on the Lithuanian Academy of Science, Lithuanian Alliance, and Lithuanian Community Inc. archival boards. He also works in conjunction with the Lithuanian National Museum, Academy of Science, and the Emigration Institute collection commissions in Lithuania. As an officer for the Lithuanian National Guard, he installed two monuments, one in Lithuania. In 2006 he was granted Lithuanian citizenship.

Gwen Sweeney is a sophomore at Andover High School. She has an interest in medicine and detective work. For this project, she conducted research on local government action and public reaction to the influenza epidemic as documented in the Andover Townsmen. Also she implemented the creation of documents showing the impact of tuberculosis and influenza cases throughout the city of Lawrence.

Michael Sweeney is an attorney with a long-term interest in the study of epidemics and pandemics and their impact on society. He worked at the AIDS Law Center of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia during the summer of 1992, at the height of the AIDS epidemic. He currently serves on the Massachusetts Public Health Trust Fund and on the Illegal Tobacco Control Board for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. His family history has been impacted by tuberculosis and has lived in Lawrence since the early 1900s.

Julia Tse, MD, is a family medicine resident physician working at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center located in Lawrence, MA since 2015. She grew up in New York City and studied medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Julia decided to become a doctor after working on several projects in public health that explored various topics such as fighting for language access for non-English speakers, providing education on environmental health, and promoting physical activity. At the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, she has been able to develop her interests in women's health and community medicine. She enjoys participating in events such as health fairs and has volunteered multiple times at the clinic’s Mobile Market, which gives Lawrence community members an opportunity to get free fruits and vegetables.

Martha Velez is the Executive Director of the Lawrence Senior Center. Born in Cuba, an immigrant to Lawrence at age five, Martha and her family came to the United States with the hope of a better life. Anchored in love for her family and her new city, Martha has wrapped her arms around all who live in Lawrence by creating a bridge between diverse cultures and by giving a voice, dignity, and respect to all she meets. Her leadership at the Lawrence Council on Aging and her commitment as director of the Lawrence Senior Center to a holistic approach in creating community has resulted in a vibrant, enriching environment that serves thousands of people a year—seniors, veterans, and entire families. In all that Martha does, she brings together her hard working nature, her grateful spirit, and her deep personal understanding of the sacrifices immigrant families make when they come to this country, to help lift up and strengthen the city of Lawrence for the future.

Marquis Victor, President & Executive Director of Elevated Thought, leads ET’s vision, objectives, goals and mission, and facilitates many of their programs and workshops. Additionally, he developed various art and social justice based curriculum including the youth empowerment program Creative. Community. Change. (C3). He manages ET's contract with the Mayor’s Health Task Force by coordinating the Lawrence Youth Council (LYC). Through ET’s work with the LYC, ‘What is Education?’ has grown into a definitive youth-led movement in the city. In addition to being a poet and filmmaker, he has a master’s degree in Education from Lesley University and taught in Revere and Boston, MA public schools for over seven years. Pursuing his Doctor of Education at Northeastern University in Educational and Organizational Leadership, he lives in Methuen with his wife and 19-month-old daughter.