2018 Research Forum: Public Humanities and Health Justice

Dr. Mooney's research interests are in the history of public health in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe and North America. His first book, Intrusive Interventions: Public Health, Domestic Space, and Infectious Disease Surveillance in England 1840-1914, examined the history of infectious disease reporting, institutional and domestic isolation, disinfection, and contact tracing, through the lenses of radical liberalism and citizenship.

He is currently writing two books. Spatial Histories of Modern Medicine: Using Space and Place to Understand the Past, which is under contract to Cambridge University Press, examines mundane and extraordinary spaces, including homes, streets, ambulances, waiting rooms, and emergency rooms to reveal how the characteristics of space and place influence healing practices, and how the practice of medicine produces particular kinds of place and space. Harm City? Health and Injustice in Urban America focuses on the city of post-world War 2 Baltimore to explore the fracturing of public health systems and policy in neo-liberalising American cities.

Dr. Brown's scholarly work focuses on the impact of historical trauma on community health, including racial segregation, forced residential displacement, and economic disinvestment. He also leads #BmoreLEADfree, a student-driven effort to help call for a state of emergency regarding lead poisoning in Baltimore. He is completing a book titled The Black Butterfly: Why We Must Make Black Neighborhoods Matter. He is also an activist for equitable redevelopment in Baltimore communities

Kristen Slesar is a trauma-focused psychotherapist and the project director of the Bronx Child Trauma Support Program in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. She is an associate faculty member of the Program in Narrative Medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, where she lectures on vicarious trauma and working with victims of violence to medical providers and students; facilitates Narrative Medicine workshops; and teaches an annual interdisciplinary course on Health Care Justice and Care for the Underserved at Columbia University.