Anti-Racism Panel 

Panel: Anti-Racism in the 21st Century Global Context: Implications for Injury and Violence Prevention.

April 7, 7:00-8:30

Dr. Stephanie Hawkins 

Dr. Stephanie Hawkins (she/her) is a clinical psychologist at RTI International. She serves as the Director of the Youth, Violence Prevention, and Community Justice program and is leading the RTI International Equity, Racial Justice, and Transformative Research portfolio. Dr. Hawkins is passionate about research that centers equity as well as the health and safety of  youth in marginalized communities. Her research expertise spans the substantive areas of community-based violence prevention, school safety, juveniles involved in the criminal legal system, and equitable outcomes for youth. Dr. Hawkins has been the Principal Investigator on national and state level studies funded by the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the District of Columbia Department of Behavioral Health, to name a few. She is the author of numerous articles, chapters, technical reports, and presentations on a range of topics and employs both quantitative and qualitative methods in her research.

Mighty Fine, MPH, CHES

Mighty Fine is the Director of the Center for Public Health Practice and Professional Development at the American Public Health Association (APHA). In this role, he designs, develops and evaluates public health programs and provides programmatic technical assistance to local, state and national partners. Overall, he focuses on enhancing health science, policy, public health practice and public health leadership.

Trained as a Social Epidemiologist, his work has stemmed across various aspects of public health, including injury and violence prevention, maternal and family health, HIV/AIDS, HCV, social policy and chronic disease prevention. Having lived and worked in rural and urban environments, Mighty credits this empirical insight with anchoring his understanding of systematic levers of oppression. Thus, a core part of his work has focused on addressing the structures that serve as pillars of disadvantage. He has built expertise in the social determinants of health and brings a social justice perspective to the assessment and prevention of public health issues. Mighty earned a Bachelor of Science in public health from Rutgers University and a Master of Public Health from Yale University, with a concentration in Social and Behavioral Sciences and Chronic Disease Epidemiology. He is also certified by the National Commission for Health Education as a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES).

Dr Courtney Ryder
PhD CF BScBEng(Biomed)(Hons)

Courtney Ryder is a Senior Lecturer in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Public Health at Flinders University and Nunga woman from Southern South Australia. Ryder’s research is focussed on understanding the nuanced ways in which health inequity manifestations impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. In this work, Ryder employs a weaving process for Knowledge Interface Methodology, which engages with Indigenous knowledges (knowing, being and doing), Indigenous research methods, public health knowledge and quantitative research methods, work which is published. She is also a world leader in the area of Aboriginal health education and has spent over a decade revolutionising Aboriginal health education at Flinders University. Ryder has designed and coordinated large and complex topics, both internal and online, pertaining to Aboriginal health and social health sciences in the Doctor of Medicine, Nursing, Midwifery, Health Science and Public Health programs at Flinders. Work which has transformed student learning in this space, and been recognised nationally and internationally, through keynote addresses, congress papers, best practice case studies and a Churchill Fellowship. 

Historical Panel

Title: Historical Perspective on Injury Prevention and Control: Lessons from Pioneering Leaders

Date: April 8, 8 - 9:00 am EDT

Susan Baker 

Susan P. Baker, MPH, ScD (hon.), DHL, is professor emerita at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. An injury epidemiologist, her research topics over the past 60 years have included transportation safety, occupational safety, and aviation safety, as well as suffocation, drowning, burns, and poisoning. Prevention of injury to children has been a major focus: her research provided the evidence for passage of child passenger protection laws.

Founder of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, she developed the widely used Injury Severity Score. Her publications include The Injury Fact Book and more than 250 articles in scientific journals.

Etienne Krug

Dr Etienne Krug is Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department for Management of Noncommunicable Diseases, Disability, Violence and Injury Prevention (NVI) since its creation in September 2014. He holds a degree of Medical Doctor from the University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, his native country, and a Masters Degree in Public Health from Harvard University in the United States.

In his current position, he defines the broad strategic directions for the WHO programmes which address the management of noncommunicable diseases; disability; and violence and injury prevention. He oversees relations with governmental and non-governmental partners, the development of global reports and guidelines, preparations for major political and advocacy events such as ministerial conferences and United Nations official weeks and days, and the management of substantive technical projects in countries. Dr Krug chairs the International Organizing Committee for the series of World Conferences on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion and the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration.

Dr Krug was Director of the WHO Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability (VIP) from 2000 to 2014. Prior to joining WHO, Dr Krug held positions at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and served as Country Director for Medecins Sans Frontières in several countries in Africa and Latin America. He has earned numerous awards and is a member of several editorial boards for scientific journals.

Kishnan Rajam 

Senior Professor & Head, Family Medicine Unit, Faculty of Medicine, AIMST

Co-Chair, Data and Research Sub-committee & Member, National Water Activity Safety Council, Ministry of Housing & Local Government, Malaysia

Formerly with Universiti Malaya and RCSI & UCD Malaysia Campus (Penang Medical College)

Former Technical Officer (Injury Prevention), WHO Western Pacific  Regional Office (WPRO), Manila 2008-2012

Former member of Joint Penang Ethics Committee (JPEC) and WHO WPRO Research Committee

Tun Abdul Razak Research Award, Academy of Medicine of Malaysia, 1994

Medal, Royal College of Physicians, London & Academy of Medicine for outstanding contribution to Medicine in Malaysia, 1991

Leon Robertson

Leon S Robertson, PhD, was a lecturer in epidemiology and public health at Yale University for 20 yeas before retirement in 1998. He previously served on the faculties of Harvard University Medical School and Wake Forest University and as senior behavioral scientist in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. He has coauthored six books and authored two: Injuries: Causes, Control Strategies and Public Policy (1983) and Injury Epidemiology (1992, second edition 1998). He has contributed more than 140 articles and chapters to the scientific literature. Dr Robertson was a member of the National Research Council (NRC)/Institute of Medicine committee on trauma research that produced the report Injury in America: A Continuing Public Health Problem and was vice chair of the NRC committee that reviewed the injury control program of the Centers for Disease Control. He also served on the NRC panel on occupational safety and health statistics and chaired the special interest group on injury control and emergency health services of the American Public Health Association. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Career Award from the association.

Trans-disciplinary Panel

Panel: Transdisciplinary perspectives and approaches for Injury Prevention and Control

April 6, 8:00am-9:00am EDT

Dr. Tom Burke

Thomas A. Burke, PhD, MPH, is the Jacob I. and Irene B. Fabrikant Professor and Chair in Health Risk and Society at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management with a joint appointment in the Department of Environmental Health ad Engineering. He is also Director of the Johns Hopkins Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute. Dr. Burke was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development. From January 2015 until January 2017 Dr. Burke was the EPA Science Advisor and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Research and Development. Before joining the University faculty, Dr. Burke was Deputy Commissioner of Health for the State of New Jersey and Director of Science and Research for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. He was Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Improving Risk Analysis that produced the report Science and Decisions, and currently serves as Chair of the Environmental Health Matters Initiative of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Dr. Burke received his BS from St. Peter's College, his MPH from the University of Texas and his PhD in epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Sheila Vakharia

Sheila P Vakharia is Deputy Director of the Department of Research and Academic Engagement for the Drug Policy Alliance. In that role, she helps DPA staff and others understand a range of drug policy issues while also responding to new studies with critiques and analysis. She plans conferences and convenings on cutting edge issues in the area of drugs, drug research, and harm reduction. Additionally, she is responsible for cultivating relationships with researchers from a wide range of disciplines aligned with DPA’s policy interests and working to mobilize academics in service of DPA policy campaigns.

Prior to joining DPA, Dr. Vakharia was an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Long Island University, and had also worked as a clinical social worker in both abstinence-only and harm reduction settings. Dr. Vakharia earned her doctorate at Florida International University’s School of Social Work. She received her Master’s in Social Work from Binghamton University and a Post-Master’s Certificate in the Addictions from New York University.

Claes Tingvall

Claes Tingvall is Professor (Adj) in Traffic safety at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Claes is retired since 2015 from the Swedish Transport Administration where he was Director of Traffic Safety. More recently Claes has been the Chairperson of the Academic Expert Group for the 3rd Ministerial Conference in Sweden March 2020. 

Announcing SAVIR’s first-ever Injury Science Reciprocity Ring® to build social networks, increase social capital, and ultimately cultivate long-term productive partnerships to grow the field of Injury Science. Wednesday, April 7th 9:15am - 10:45am EST (Advance registration required).

What is a Reciprocity Ring®?

A Reciprocity Ring® is a dynamic group exercise created by Dr. Wayne Baker at the University of Michigan that helps teams and groups of all sizes learn “pay-it-forward” principles while creating and cementing high-quality connections. The overarching goal is to build social capital and strengthen networks.

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT

Plan to participate in the first-ever SAVIR Conference Twitter chat on “What is InjuryScience’s Role in COVID-19 Response & Recovery?”. The Twitter chat will take place on April 8, 2021 from 2 - 3 pm EDT using #CovidIVP.