Thanks to our full community for another wonderful conversation on the issues keeping students up at night. Your questions are at the heart of our work. Never stop asking hard questions!

Did you miss the event? Check out our recording!

Event Description

With passionate speakers from public health, sociology, ethnic studies, geography, and history, we’ll explore how communities respond to systems and events that disrupt relationships to place (like colonialism, war, climate change, or global pandemics); explore how people and communities sustain themselves in the face of such displacements through creative adaptation and collective care; and find opportunities to honor the radical placemaking work of vulnerable communities and coalitions who are leading the way.

This year’s conversation will be moderated by Honors junior and public health-global health and neuroscience major, Brandon Wu. The Q&A portion will be coordinated by Honors senior and neuroscience major, Shannon Hong.

About our speakers

Our speakers bring perspectives from decades of research, teaching, writing, activism and a range of meaningful experiences. 

Martine Pierre-Louis (she/her), Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Harborview Medical Center, has spent more than 20 years promoting health equity for patients from marginalized communities and fostering curiosity and cultural competence in clinical settings. 

LaShawnDa Pittman (she/her), Associate Professor at UW in American Ethnic Studies and Sociology, addresses poverty that stems from families being funneled into criminal and juvenile justice systems and adapting to stratified labor markets, affordability crises and gentrification.

Megan Ybarra (she/her), Associate Professor at UW in Geography, American Indian Studies, GWSS, and Environmental Politics, proposes ideas of abolition geographies that center on community placemaking where no person and no land is disposable.

Stephanie Smallwood (she/her) is the director of UW Honors, Associate Professor at UW in History and Comparative History of Ideas (CHID), and Dio Richardson Endowed Professor in History. Dr. Smallwood brings perspective on the histories of slavery, race and colonialism in the early modern Atlantic world.