Paulette Spencer
Paulette Spencer (she/her) is a Black American of Jamaican parents. She was born and raised in the South Bronx. Having lived in the Bronx for 39 years, she spent her first 26 years living in NYCHA housing, and then lived in other parts of NYC until returning to the Bronx in 2009. She worked in international public health and social determinants of health for 17 years at an international development agency, while completing graduate degrees in Global Public Health Policy and Management, and International Political Economy and Development from New York University and Fordham University. Her Bachelor’s degree is in English Literature and Music from Queens College. Her work has focused on health policy and qualitative research in perinatal health and maternal mortality domestically and abroad. Her Bronx communities of interest are Fordham, Northeast Bronx and Morrisania, where there are high rates of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, asthma, obesity and diabetes.
She is currently the Community Engagement Specialist – Policy Analyst at the Bronx Community Health Network, where she — along with community advisory boards — has led programs to improve community health by increasing community-led physical activities in Bronx parks, and fostered community-led candid dialogue between community residents, CBOs and medical researchers, on benefits and trust factors of clinical trial participation for the Precision Medicine-All of Us Research Program. She has co-hosted a radio program on current affairs for a local community radio station. She is affiliated with the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Social Medicine Rounds Committee at Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Friends of Devoe Park and Bronx Parks Speak Up Forum.
She joined the Bronx Community Research Review Board because she wanted to support direct community dialogue and understanding between community residents and researchers throughout the research process, including post-research results, and support other organizations that seek to create their own research review board. She wants to focus on the ethics of informed consent for Bronx communities and the sharing of research results to improve the health of those participating communities.
Paulette can be reached at [email protected].
Jaleesa Baulkman
Jaleesa Baulkman (she/her) is a black cisgender woman born and raised in the Mount Hope section of the Bronx. She’s spent all her life in the Bronx, aside from the four years she lived in New Paltz while earning her bachelor’s in journalism and Black Studies.
She’s currently a content designer/UX writer, but before pivoting to tech she was a journalist. She became a journalist because she enjoys telling stories and analyzing complicated data and disseminating useful information to the public. She’s written and produced content for various print and digital publications, including Norwood News (a local newspaper in the Bronx), PIX11 News, Daily Mail Online, Google, and WebMD/Medscape.
She joined the Bronx Community Research Review Board because she wanted to be more involved in her community. As a reporter, she spent a lot of time reporting on health studies and surveys. This time around she wanted to take a more active role in her community by helping to assure that research meets the needs of Bronxites.
Jaleesa can be reached at [email protected]
Prakriti Hassan
Prakriti Hassan (she/her) was a long-time Bronx resident who currently resides in Queens. Prakriti moved to NYC from Bangladesh, and moved to the South Bronx in high school where she lived for more than two decades. Prakriti has been a part of the BxCRRB since 2017 and has worked in various positions across CUNY, the Public Science Project, and in collaboration with community orgs in the Bronx and Manhattan. She has extensive experience and expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods, with a particular emphasis on participatory surveys and participatory analysis of research. Prakriti and her family are Bronx patients who have accessed care across the neighborhood health systems – and she has a dedicated interest in advocating for patients in the Bronx. Ethics in research and healthcare for Prakriti means anti-racist, anti-ableist, and responsive care that addresses the wants and needs of the ACTUAL community members – centering the needs of Black, Brown, and marginalized communities. Her membership in the BxCRRB is an important part of how she offers her knowledge and engagement with research and providers doing work in The Bronx and she is especially committed to reviewing studies. Prakriti is the current Treasurer of the BxCRRRB, Inc and can be reached at [email protected].
Dr. Monique A. Guishard
Monique A. Guishard, PhD (she/her/hers) is a Black Dominican cisgendered woman, born on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands and raised in the South Bronx. Dr. Moe has lived in the Historic District, Fordham, and Morris Heights neighborhoods of the Bx for over 38 years. Guishard is connected to several health/disease communities: systemic food allergies accompanied by eczema and delayed fertility; additionally she cares for family members with diabetes, hypertension, and mild dementia. Monique is a community social psychologist, an Associate Professor of Psychology and Deputy Chairperson, of the Social Sciences Department, at her alma mater, Bronx Community College (BCC). She is the chair of the Board of Directors of The Bronx Community Research Review Board. Dr. Moe’s relationship to the BxCRRB started in 2012, when she conducted a longitudinal ethnography of their research review process and community engagement activities as part of her doctoral dissertation. As part of a Memorandum of Agreement with The BxCRRB, Monique agreed to assist the board with sustaining its work after the NIH study that funded it concluded. Throughout their collaboration, Guishard has been committed to transferring as much knowledge, about research ethics and public health methodologies, to enable the board (and other community-based entities) to design/conduct research without having to rely on academicians. She was the co-principal investigator of the $250,000 Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Eugene Washington Engagement Award funded Community Engaged Research Academy (#3422). CERA was a community academic partnership between The BxCRRB (Dr. Daniel Korin), The Bronx Health Link (Barbara Hart & Dr. Hal Strelnick) and Bronx Community College. From 2016-2018 CERA created a restorative interstitial Brown educative space designed to nurture research ethics and research methods literacy among Bronx patients and caregivers. In many respects CERA is the afterlife of the board; it helped broaden the scope of The BxCRRB’s work and assisted the board with establishing itself as an independent organization from its fiscal and founding sponsors. Outside of the CRRB, Dr. Guishard has 16-years of experience working in partnership with: young people, parent organizers, aspiring participatory action researchers, and environmental justice advocates—on mutually beneficial research partnerships. Guishard is a board member of: CUNY’s Center for LGBTQ Studies, The Public Science Project’s Critical Participatory Action Research Institutes, The Bronx Community Health Network’s All of Us Project, Weill Cornell’s Clinical Translational Science Award Community Advisory Board, and Bronx Community College’s Social Justice Network. Her work pairs critical theory, lived experience, and robust Black feminist epistemologies to endarken mainstream research ethics paradigms. Centering community-based research ethics, outside of white stream ethics and federal regulations, are critical to Dr. Moe— to redress the trauma and humiliation research has imposed on racialized and marginalized peoples. Lastly, Dr. Guishard is a co-Northeast Coordinator of the American Psychological Association Division 27, The Society for Community Research and Action. Email is the best way to reach Dr. Guishard: [email protected].
Justin T. Brown
Justin T. Brown, PhD, MPH, (he/him/his), is a Black gay cisgendered man, originally from southern Ohio. Arriving in NYC in 2004 for graduate school, he’s spent nearly 12 years connected to the Bronx through his work and community engagement. Justin’s taught across the borough at Bronx Community College, Hostos Community College, and Lehman College. He’s been involved in community-based work as an evaluator of community afterschool programs in both the Bronx and upper Manhattan. While working as the Deputy Director of the CUNY Institute for Health Equity, based at Lehman College, he worked on a number of collaborative community projects, including working with various organizations on developing a social service network for the LGBTQIA+ community. Currently, he is Associate Professor and Program Director of the Public & Community Health Program at LaGuardia Community College and Executive Director for CLAGS – the Center for LGBTQ Studies, based at the CUNY Graduate Center. Justin connects to disease communities suffering from eczema, psoriasis, high blood pressure, and all the issues related to year-round environmental allergies. Beyond this, Justin is connected via his loved ones’ battles with various cancer types, heart disease, and diabetes. Justin got involved with the CRRB through Dr. Moe and the CERA project. He served on the CERA team and became connected to the CRRB because of their commitment to Black and Brown communities creating their own health research system within the Bronx and beyond. Research ethics to him means respecting… Through membership with the BxCRRB, he feels that he’s found community, his people, and gets rejuvenated every time he gets to see the organization in action. Whether it be reviewing a proposed research project or outreaching to the community the BxCRRB is truly “by/for/with people”and unconditionally loves and love is what we need more of in this world.
[email protected] ; website forthcoming