Symposium 2024 Full Speaker Biographies

Alan M. Garber began serving as interim president of Harvard University on January 2, 2024, after having served as the provost and chief academic officer since 2011. He is also the Mallinckrodt Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, a Professor of Economics in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Public Policy in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. An economist and physician, he studies methods for improving health care productivity and health care financing. 

As Provost, Dr. Garber has been responsible for oversight of academic activities throughout the university, with direct responsibility for inter-school initiatives, faculty development, research policy, international affairs, and advances in learning.  The Harvard Art Museums, the Harvard Library, Harvard University Health Services, HarvardX, the American Repertory Theater, and the Arnold Arboretum are among the organizations reporting to the Provost. 

Before becoming Harvard’s Provost, Dr. Garber was the Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor and a Professor of Medicine, as well as a Professor of Economics, Health Research and Policy, and Economics in the Graduate School of Business (by courtesy) at Stanford University. At Stanford, he founded and directed the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, and served as a Staff Physician at the Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. 

Dr. Garber is an Elected Member of the Association of American Physicians, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He is also an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American College of Physicians and the Royal College of Physicians. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, Dr. Garber received a PhD in Economics from Harvard and an MD with research honors from Stanford.

Bertha French is descended from enslaved communities in Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Florida. Her strong connection to her family history stems from an ironclad oral tradition linking her to communities across generations and geographies. She is proud to be one of the co-founders and current board Vice-President of the Descendants of Enslaved Communities (DEC) at the University of Virginia founded in 2020, an independent nonprofit organization that seeks to research, reclaim and honor the more than 4000 enslaved people who seeded, built and sustained the University of Virginia. In addition to her work at DEC, she works as a senior international health research consultant specializing in gender based violence and trauma-informed health systems response; she has served on several non-profit boards; and led global grantmaking programs for social impact funds investing in indigenous women’s funds. While her formative years were spent in Côte d’Ivoire and lived in several countries including Niger, the Netherlands, and Brazil; she is most at peace at her ancestral home in Barboursville, Virginia. She holds a Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and a Bachelors from the University of Virginia. 

Carrie Mays is a social justice warrior advocating on the frontlines for social change.  For the past 7 years, Carrie Mays has been a youth activist in the city of Boston. In 2020 Carrie organized the biggest Black Lives Matter protest in Boston for George Floyd. Soon after, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu appointed Carrie to be the first youth representative to serve on the police accountability board making national headlines. In addition to such a turbulent time, Carrie and her peers created a youth civic engagement movement called “Gang Gang Votes” where they registered massive amounts of people to vote before the presidential election during covid! While she continues to make an impact on the world within and beyond her community, Carrie has also spoken at national conferences and academic institutions throughout the country as an expert panelist in places such as Washington DC, New York City, Aspen Colorado, and more – – speaking upon topics addressing racism, youth civic engagement, and system inequalities. As of recently, Carrie now serves as an appointed member on Boston’s first ever Reparations Task Force ordained by Michelle Wu and the city council. Due to her work she has been recognized by Al Sharpton, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for being an “Outstanding Advocate”, awarded the “Youth Leadership Award” by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley & featured on WGBH, the Boston Globe, WBZ and NBC News for her activism.  

George R. Greenidge, Jr. is  the Founding Executive Director of Greatest MINDS, a Boston-based BIPOC-run nonprofit focused on mentoring young people as they explore college, career, citizenry, and volunteerism as a way to bring about positive change in civil society. He is also a  Visiting Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. George received his BA in Political  Science from Morehouse College and his master’s in Human Development  & Psychology from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. (He has worked as an Economic Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and an Urban Fellow with the GSU College of Law’s Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth and the GSU’s Urban Studies Institute.)  In 2023, he was appointed by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu as a member of the  City of Boston Reparations Task Force  to research the impact of 400 years of slavery and economic exclusion on the city and to issue recommendations to address the legacy of harm to its Black residents.

Kelli Mosteller is an enrolled citizen of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Prior to joining the HUNAP staff, Kelli served as Executive Director of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center for eleven years. In that position she oversaw the tribal museum and cultural programming. She was also the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, NAGPRA Coordinator, and Gaming Commissioner. Her most cherished role within her community has been as mentor for Citizen Potawatomi youth and auntie for the eagles at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Eagle Aviary. 

Michael Curry, Esq. serves as President & CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, which represents 52 health centers, serving over one million patients out of over 300 practice sites. He was named a Bostonian of the Year in 2021 (along with his member health centers) by The Boston Globe and Boston Magazine, one of the Boston Business Journal’s Power 50 Movement Makers for 2022, one of Boston’s Most Influential Men of Color by Get Konnected! for 2023, and one of this year’s Boston Magazine 150 Most Influential Bostonians.

During the early battle with the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael was appointed by the Massachusetts Senate to the legislatively created Health Equity Task Force, which he co-chaired, aimed at addressing the health disparities that have been realized and magnified by COVID-19. He was also appointed by then Governor Charlie Baker to the COVID-19 Vaccine Working Group, and served on the Department of Public Health’s Health Equity Advisory Group, the City of Boston’s Health Inequity Task Force, and the City of Brockton’s Social Justice Task Force. He gained a reputation for always being the equity voice in the room.

He brings over 30 years of experience and results in civil rights advocacy, health reform and health equity. He is also the Immediate Past President of the Boston Branch of the NAACP (2011-2016), and has over 25 years of dedicated service to the NAACP on the city, state-area conference and national levels. He was elected to the NAACP Board of Directors in 2014, 2017, 2020, and was recently reelected in 2023 by members from across the country. He serves on the National NAACP’s Executive Committee, and as the appointed Chair of the National Board’s Advocacy & Policy Committee since 2019, Chair of the Constitution and Bylaws Sub-Committee, and Vice-Chair the Political Action and Legislation Committee. On May 15, 2021, the National Board appointed him as Administrator for the New England Area Conference of the NAACP, overseeing the state-area conference and all branches in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont. He is leading the reorganization and strengthening of the NAACP throughout the region. 

 Attorney Curry is also an Adjunct Professor at both New England Law Boston teaching “Diversity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession” and Suffolk University’s Moakley Center and Sawyer School of Management teaching a health care management and policy course. 

 Michael has received numerous local and national awards for leadership and advocacy, and is frequently requested as a keynote speaker and panelist on a wide range of civil rights and health policy issues. In 2022, he received the Trailblazer Award from the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (MBLA), a Community Leadership Award from the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Massachusetts Non-profit Network (MNN). In May, he will receive the 2023 SCI Idealist Award and Roxbury Community College’s Community Service Award during commencement. 

 Mr. Curry is a regular commentator on the local Public Radio Broadcast/WBUR Boston, WGBH Radio, as well as on television with WHDH, WGBH, WBZ and New England Cable News/NBC Boston, on a wide range of political, cultural and social issues. He earned a Bachelor’s of Arts from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and a Doctorate of Jurisprudence from New England School of Law, and later graduated from the inaugural class of the Executive Leadership Council’s Pipeline to Leadership Program. In the spring of 2022 Michael delivered three college commencement speeches and received two honorary degrees: a Doctorate in Business Administration from Curry College and Healthcare Administration from Labouré College. In June, he will receive his third honorary degree from William James College. 

Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. The book version of The 1619 Project and as well as the 1619 Project children’s book, Born on the Water, were instant #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her 1619 Project is now a six-part docuseries on Hulu.

Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times.

She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy. Hannah-Jones is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color, and in 2022 she opened the1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. Hannah-Jones holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her BA in History and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.

Roeshana Moore-Evans is the Executive Director of the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery (H&LS) initiative and is responsible for implementing reparative efforts that address Harvard’s ties to slavery. She oversees operational activities such as budgeting, human resources, and communications. She works closely with the Vice Provost for Special Projects to develop and advance H&LS’s strategic initiatives. Moore-Evans is also the president-elect of the Massachusetts Public Health Association (MPHA). Before joining Harvard, she served as the Senior Advisor to Dr. Nikhil Wagle at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She has extensive experience in finance, human resources, strategic planning, and leading diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. She is a Boston native, committed to leading conversations that deepen the understanding of structural racism and facilitating activities that dismantle it. 

Moore-Evans holds a B.S. and an M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Dr. Sara Bleich is the inaugural Vice Provost for Special Projects at Harvard University, director of the social sciences program and Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. With more than 180 peer-reviewed publications, she is a policy expert and researcher who specializes in diet-related diseases, food insecurity, and racial inequality. Prior to this, Dr. Bleich served in the Biden Administration as the Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service and as the Senior Advisor for COVID-19 in the Office of the Secretary at USDA. As a White House Fellow during the Obama Administration, she worked at USDA as a Senior Policy Adviser for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services and on First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative. Dr. Bleich was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023 and holds a B.A. in psychology from Columbia University and a PhD in health policy from Harvard University. 

Saskia VannJames is a Black queer woman of Honduran Garifuna and American Freedmen descent who works as the cofounder of the first Massachusetts reparatory justice organization, Grow to Consume, solidarity economy advocate, reparationist, cultural worker, human rights advocate, and former racial and health equity lobbyist who successfully advocated for a Cambridge ordinance to repair harm from racial caste system through an American Freedmen commission. Saskia is also cofounder and front line organizer of Ride for Black Lives Boston and up until covid hit was the only Black queer woman working as a bike mechanic at a bicycle cooperative in the entire state of Massachusetts. In their spare time Saskia loves repairing bicycles, artmaking, honoring their ancestors through heritage based gardening practices, and celebrating community. 

Tara Houska is a citizen of Couchiching First Nation, a tribal attorney, land defender, environmental and Indigenous rights advocate, and founder of the Giniw Collective, an Indigenous women, two-spirit-led frontline resistance to defend the sacred and live in balance. Ms. Houska was active in resisting the Line 3 oil pipeline, the Dakota Access pipeline, and is heavily involved in the movement to defund fossil fuels. She is a TED speaker, the recipient of the 2024 Rose-Walters Prize, the 2021 American Climate Leadership Award and the 2019 Rachel’s Network Catalyst Award. Ms. Houska served as an advisor on Native American affairs to Senator Bernie Sanders, and co-founded Not Your Mascots, a non-profit committed to promoting positive representation of Native Americans in the public sphere. She has written for the women-led climate anthology “All We Can Save”, the New York Times, CNN, Vogue, and Indian Country Today. Tara earned a Bachelor of Science, a Bachelor of Arts, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Minnesota. 

Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator and librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017-19, during which time she spearheaded American Conversations: Celebrating Poetry in Rural Communities with the Library of Congress, created the American Public Media podcast The Slowdown, and edited the anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time. 

Smith is the author of five poetry collections: Such Color: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2022 New England Book Award; Wade in the Water, which was awarded the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; Life on Mars, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; Duende, winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets; and The Body’s Question, which received the 2003 Cave Canem Prize. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction. She is the co-translator (with Changtai Bi) of My Name Will Grow Wide like a Tree: Selected Poems of Yi Lei, which was a finalist for the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize; and co-editor (with John Freeman) of There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis. Her memoir-manifesto, To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul, was a Time magazine and Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. 

Among Smith’s other honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Academy Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Harvard Arts Medal, the Columbia Medal for Excellence, a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award and an Essence Literary Award. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Philosophical Society. 

She is a Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.