Speakers
Keynote
Mindy Thompson Fullilove
Keynote Speaker
Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, LFAPA, Hon AIA, is a social psychiatrist and professor of urban policy and health at The New School. Since 1986, she has conducted research on AIDS and other epidemics of poor communities, with a special interest in the relationship between the collapse of communities and decline in health. From her research, she has published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs. A third edition of Homeboy Came to Orange: A Story of People's Power, which she helped her father, Ernest Thompson, write, was released in May 2018 by New Village Press. She is co-author, with Hannah L. F. Cooper, of From Enforcers to Guardians: A public health primer on ending police violence, issued by Johns Hopkins University Press in January 2020. Her forthcoming book, Main Street, will be released in October 2020 by New Village Press.
Elihu Rubin
Moderator
Elihu Rubin is Associate Professor of Urbanism at the Yale School of Architecture with a secondary appointment in American Studies. His work bridges the urban disciplines, focusing on the built environments of nineteenth and twentieth-century cities, the history and theory of city planning, urban geography and the cultural landscape, transportation and mobility, architectural preservation and heritage planning, and the social life of urban space. He has a PhD in History of Architecture and Urbanism and a Master of City Planning degree with a focus on transportation, both from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale.
The Hospital Panel
Christian Karlsson
The Hospital Panel
Christian Karlsson is Architect MAA and the Founding Partner of Karlsson Architects. Karlsson is working in the field of humanistic architecture for the most vulnerable groups in the society: mentally ill, elderly, people with dementia, children with challenges and the homeless people. He is engaged in developing new standards and principles of recovery and healing architecture and has been responsible for numerous award-winning projects. Especially mentionable is the groundbreaking New Psychiatric Hospital in Slagelse (GAPS) 2010-15, which is with an area of 44,000 m2 the largest and most ambitious project for psychiatric treatment in more than 100 years in Denmark. Current ongoing projects include New High Security Psychiatric Hospital in Trondheim (Norway); New Psychiatric Hospital in Kristiansand (Norway), Research Project demensX and housing and care center projects for people with dementia.
Kelechi Ubozoh
The Hospital Panel
Kelechi Ubozoh is a Nigerian-American writer, mental health advocate, and public speaker. She is the first undergraduate ever published in The New York Times. Her story of recovery is featured in O, The Oprah Magazine and the documentary, The S Word, which follows the lives of suicide attempt survivors to end the stigma and silence around suicide. She has appeared on CBS This Morning with Gayle King, presented at Cornell University, and she was featured on the Good Morning America website. A popular presenter and keynote speaker, Ubozoh previously supervised mental health programs and led communication operations at a mental health nonprofit organization. She is the co-editor of the book, We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health. We’ve Been Too Patient is a collection of diverse stories of radical healing that consider the recent movement towards reform in the mental health field.
Jason Danziger
The Hospital Panel
Jason Danziger is a practicing architect focused on user-oriented and conceptually driven design. Jason Danziger founded thinkbuild architecture while living in New York at the end of the 1990s before relocating to Berlin in 2000. The name thinkbuild refers to his core, conceptually-driven approach, a hybrid academic/practical strategy which intentionally blurs the lines between research and practice in order to better achieve the goals of his clients. The spaces he designs aim to have a supportive effect on the activities that take place within, whether for work, play, learning, living, or healing. His office provides complete architectural design solutions and services ranging from new build to adaptive re/use, as well as original furniture, custom lighting elements, and detailed color planning or material/construction process explorations. Danziger’s projects have been published extensively throughout Europe and starting in 2015, when he was awarded the BDA-Berlin Prize, his work has received numerous commendations and awards.
Matthew Steinfeld
Moderator
Matthew Steinfeld, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, the Associate Director of Clinical Training at the Substance Abuse Treatment Unit of the Connecticut Mental Health Center, and a psychoanalytic candidate in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis. His scholarly and clinical interests center on the clinical theory and technique of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the interplay of sociopolitical dynamics and psychological health in community-based treatment contexts, and the acoustic dimensions of psychotherapy. Dr. Steinfeld is an editorial board member of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and a board member of Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility (Section IX of the Society for Psychoanalysis & Psychoanalytic Psychology (Division 39) in the American Psychological Association. In 2019 Dr. Steinfeld collaborated with Daisy Ames, Principal of Studio Ames, on the design of a community-based mental health clinic, the conceptual underpinnings of which engaged latent factors commonly unaddressed in both treatment and design.
Martin Voss
The Hospital Panel
Martin is a consultant psychiatrist at Charité University Hospital and St. Hedwig Hospital in Berlin, Germany. He graduated from medical school in 2001 and since then has worked as a Neurologist, Psychiatrist and as a researcher in London and Berlin. His main interest and clinical speciality is the treatment of psychotic disorders. In 2013 he founded SOTERIA BERLIN, a psychiatric ward for young patients suffering from psychosis, that follows an alternative approach originating in the anti-psychiatry movement in the US. The design of the Soteria was executed in an intensive interdisciplinary collaboration with the architect Jason Danziger. The user-centered design process included other members of the clinical team as well as former patients and resulted in an environment, that truly differs from most psychiatric wards. Inspired by this collaboration, Martin and Jason founded PSYCH.RAUM, an interdisciplinary platform that explores the possibilities of architecture as an integral part of the therapeutic concept: Atmosphere as a therapeutic agent.
The Home Panel
Alison Cunningham
The Home Panel
Born and raised in Texas, Alison Cunningham has called New Haven home since 1982 when she left her home state to attend Yale Divinity School. She graduated with a M. Div. in 1982 and from there found her calling in work with people who experience homelessness. Cunningham did her first work in this field with young people in Bridgeport before moving into work with adults experiencing homelessness through Columbus House. From 1998 to 2019, she led the organization as CEO, developing a continuum of services and housing that moved people from homelessness to housing. Cunningham sat on numerous statewide and local boards and committees, always moving toward the vision of ending homelessness. In 2019, Cunningham left Columbus House to move into the position of Director of Professional Formation at Yale Divinity School, working with students who are interested in non-profit, justice-seeking work.
Earle Chambers
The Home Panel
Dr. Earle Chambers is the director of the division of research and associate professor of Family and Social Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. He is also part of the leadership team for the New York Regional-Center for Diabetes and Translational Research at Einstein. Dr. Chambers completed his B.S. in Biology at Duke University, his MPH at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his doctoral degree at the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health receiving his Ph.D. in epidemiology in 2003. Dr. Chambers completed his post-doctoral training at the New York Obesity and Nutrition Research Center at Columbia University. His research examines the intersection of the social and built environments on chronic disease risk among vulnerable populations. He also has experience in diabetes prevention and has conducted research examining the reach and effectiveness of the Diabetes Prevention Program in clinical settings. Dr. Chambers’ research has been supported by NIH, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Sam Tsemberis
The Home Panel
Sam Tsemberis, a clinical-community psychologist. Tsemberis originated the “Housing First” program, serves as CEO of the Pathways Housing First Institute, and Executive Director of the VA-UCLA Center of Excellence for Training and Research in Veteran Homelessness. The Housing First program, launched in 1992, is an evidence-based practice that results in significantly better housing stability and improved quality of life for individuals experiencing homelessness and severe mental health, addiction and health problems. His work has been recognized by - among others - the American Psychiatric Association (Gold Award for Community Mental Health Programs), the American Psychological Association (Distinguished Contribution to Independent Practice), and the Lieutenant Governor of Canada (Meritorious Service Cross).
Jessica Helfand
Moderator
Jessica Helfand received her BA and MFA from Yale University, where she taught for more than two decades. She is a co-founder of Design Observer, and co-host of two podcasts: The Observatory, and The Design of Business | The Business of Design. She is the author of numerous books on design and visual culture, including Design: The Invention of Desire (Yale, 2016); Face: A Visual Odyssey (MITPress: 2019) and the forthcoming Self-Reliance: Thoughts for a New World (Thames & Hudson, 2021). Named the first Henry Wolf Resident in Design at the American Academy in Rome in 2010, Jessica is a Life Fellow of the American Antiquarian Society, a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale, and a 2013 recipient of the AIGA Medal. A former member of The U.S. Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee, she has held fellowships at Civitella Ranieri, The Bogliasco Foundation, and Caltech.
Architectures of Mental Health
Christopher Payne
Architectures of Mental Health
Christopher Payne specializes in the photography of America’s vanishing architecture and industrial landscape. Trained as an architect, he is the author of several books, including Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals, a seven-year photographic journey through America’s vast and mostly shuttered psychiatric institutions. Payne’s current work has veered away from the documentation of the obsolete towards a celebration of craftsmanship and manufacturing. In progress is a book about American factories, to be published in 2021. Payne has been awarded grants from the Graham Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His work has been featured in publications around the world and many times in the New York Times Magazine.
Joel Sanders
Moderator
Joel Sanders FAIA is Principal of JSA, his LGBTBE-certified, award-winning architecture firm based in New York, as well as MIXdesign, a think tank and design consultancy dedicated to creating inclusive design solutions that meet the needs of people of different ages, genders, religions and abilities. Sanders is Professor-in-Practice and the Director of Post-Professional Studies at Yale School of Architecture and the author of three books -- STUD: Architectures of Masculinity, Joel Sanders Writings and Projects and Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture. JSA projects have been featured in international exhibitions and the permanent collections of MoMA, SF MoMA, Art Institute of Chicago and the Carnegie Museum of Art. The firm has received six New York Chapter AIA Design Awards, three New York State AIA Design Awards, three Interior Design Best of Year Awards, two ALA/IIDA Library Interior Design Awards, and Design Citations from Progressive Architecture.
Hannah Hull
Architectures of Mental Health
Hannah Hull is an artist using text, drawing, film, song, dialogue, and performance intervention. She is known for her work exploring social issues, including mental health, homelessness, art in prisons, outsider art and public art. Hull studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she currently holds a Practice-Based PhD Studentship. She has given talks and workshops across the UK and internationally, including a TEDx Talk in Munich. Her work has received international press coverage, and received funding from Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the British Psychological Society, Wellcome Trust, Unlimited and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Her work is always political (with a small ‘p’), and often playful.
The City Panel
Bryan C. Lee Jr
The City Panel
Bryan is an Architect, educator, writer and Design Justice Advocate. He is the founder/Design Director Colloqate Design a nonprofit multidisciplinary design practice, in New Orleans, Louisiana, dedicated to expanding community access to design and creating spaces of racial, social and cultural equity. He has led two award-winning youth design programs nationwide and is the founding organizer of the Design Justice Platform. He was most recently noted as one of the 2018 Fast Company Most Creative People in Business, a USC MacArthur Civic Media Fellow and the youngest design firm to win the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices award in 2019.
Nupur Chaudhury
The City Panel
Nupur Chaudhury is a bridge builder and translator in the fields of urban planning and public health. For more than fifteen years, she has developed and implemented strategies to support residents, communities, and neighborhoods challenge power structures to build just, strong and equitable cities. She has led coalition building efforts after Superstorm Sandy, redeveloped power structures in villages in India, and developed a citizen planning institute for public housing residents in Brownsville, Brooklyn. She is a member of the American Planning Association, co-chair of its Healthy Communities interest group, board member of the University of Orange, and founding chair of Made in Brownsville. She is a Fellow of the Urban Design Forum, and holds degrees from Columbia University (MPH), New York University (MUP), and Bryn Mawr College (BA in Growth and Structure of Cities).
Molly Rose Kaufman
The City Panel
Molly Rose Kaufman, is a community organizer, journalist and youth worker. Her writing has appeared in YES! Magazine, Kinfolk Magazine and the New York Times. In 2008, she co-founded the University of Orange, a free people’s urbanism school in Orange, New Jersey. She has a BA from Hampshire College, an MS in journalism from Columbia University. Kaufman was a 2016 Civic Liberal Arts Fellow at the New School and a 2018 Next City Urban Vanguard Fellow. She currently serves as the University of Orange Provost and teaches and Eugene Lang. Additionally, she serves on the board of the Jersey City Public Libraries and the World Fellowship Center.
Justin Garrett Moore
Moderator
Justin Garrett Moore is an urban designer and the executive director of the New York City Public Design Commission. He has extensive experience in urban planning and design—from large-scale urban systems, policies, and projects to grassroots and community-based planning, design, and arts initiatives. At the Public Design Commission, his work focuses on prioritizing quality and excellence for the public realm and fostering accessibility, diversity, and inclusion in New York's public buildings, landscapes, and art. He is a member of the American Planning Association's AICP Commission, the Urban Design Forum, and BlackSpace. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University and co-founder of Urban Patch.