Posts in: Leadership in Action

The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of police are a reminder of what Black people have known for some time; Black lives are not valued. In the United States, being a visible descendent of Africans automatically comes with excess baggage. Remnants of slavery and Jim-Crow era segregation are visible in almost every facet ...

The 2020 Presidential election is occurring within a context unlike any other. Over the past few months, the U.S. has experienced unprecedented wildfire and hurricane seasons, threatening communities and ecosystems across the country. And, looming over this election is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that predominantly impacts communities of color. As the current adm...

St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church has flooded twice in the last decade: in 2011 from Hurricane Irene and in 2018 from Hurricane Florence. While the church rebuilt both times from flood insurance payouts, Minister Gerald Godette is counting the days until another supercharged hurricane sends waters up the Pamlico and into their sanctuary. Yet, with fe...

Bray Beltrán grew up valuing community health and well-being, and in his career, he has always gone above and beyond to center community impact. But it was only in the last few years that Bray really identified that as his purpose. Growing up in a muggy coastal town in Colombia, Bray talks about how he felt that he and his family didn’t have much. But he explai...

Practice is core to our work. Our trainings revolve around hands-on exercises and feedback in a supportive setting, and are unique in that the practice and feedback comes from trusted partners from other fields, such as journalism, policy, and community leadership. These experts work closely with scientists in small groups and one-on-one as they practice communicat...

Dr. Carlos M. De León-Rodríguez recently completed an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) post-doctoral fellowship with the Centers for Disease Control in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His research focused in developing diagnostic tools to differentiate between the Zika and dengue virus infections, which have similar early symptoms and are both mosquit...