the NUANCE // a community health podcast.

Professor Megan Mayhew Bergman is an award-winning fiction writer, conservation journalist, filmmaker, and cultural critic. She serves as Director of Creative Writing at Middlebury College and Director of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. She is the author of four books and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Harper’s Bazaar...

Born in Scotland at 318ppm CO2, Manda Scott trained as a veterinary surgeon, but is now an award-winning novelist, host of the Accidental Gods podcast and co-creator of the Thrutopia Masterclass. Best known for the Boudica: Dreaming series, her latest novel, Any Human Power, is a mytho-political Thrutopian thriller that explores the potential for a future we'd be proud to leave as our legacy....

We had the honor to speak with Jo and Yvonne. Jo Bjorgaard DNP, RN, PHN, CSSBB (she/her) is the Operations Director at the Planetary Health Alliance (PHA) North America Hub. She is a nurse leader based in St. Paul, Minnesota, specializing in health innovation, leadership, and planetary health. She earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice at the University of Minnesota and has extensive experience in...

In this conversation we speak with four incredible guests from the BLIS (Black Liberation-Indigenous Sovereignty) Collective, Savannah Romero, Trevor Smith, George Galvis, and Lisa Holder. Trevor Smith (he/him) is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the BLIS Collective. He is a writer, researcher, and strategist focused on racial inequality, wealth inequality, reparations, and narrative chang...

In this conversation, we speak with Chenoa Scippio who is Santa Clara Pueblo and Navajo (Naschitti), and a proud daughter, granddaughter, and sister. She holds bachelors degrees in Population Health and Native American Studies from The University of New Mexico. Chenoa has years of formative experience in community organizing through working with non-profit organizations and student groups while at...

In this podcast, our guest is Rachel Donald, who investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Her independent journalism work reaches 30,000 subscribers in 184 countries. She leads Planet: Critical and Planet:Coordinate , two media projects offering podcasts, newsletters and films documenting stories from the frontline of the crisis. Rachel speaks internationally and her work h...

Today's guest is Professor Heba Gowayed ( click here for pronunciation ) who is a writer and associate professor of sociology at CUNY Hunter College and Graduate Center , and a current Carnegie Fellow (2025-2027). She will have an opportunity to introduce herself, but to briefly summarize her work: she research and writings center the lives of people who migrate across borders and the unequal and...

Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International (WECAN). She works nationally and internationally with grassroots, Indigenous and business leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a clean energy future. Osprey is Co-chair of International Advocacy for the...

Today's guest is Shavanna Spratt, who is the owner of Da Hood Talks Entertainment and also Da Hood Doula, LLC as a Certified Full spectrum Doula and Birth Advocate. The show she launched December 12, 2020 addresses many topics that educate, inspire and represent the community that she has been a part of for years. Shavanna has spent the majority of her early years living in the county of Saint...

In this podcast episode, we speak with Dr. Jessi Gold. Jessi Gold, MD, MS is the Chief Wellness Officer of the University of Tennessee System and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.  This inaugural leadership position encompasses all five University of Tennessee campuses and includes over 62,200 students and 19,0000 faculty a...

Nina Simons  is Co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at  Bioneers , and leads its Everywoman’s Leadership program. Throughout her career spanning the nonprofit, social entrepreneurship, corporate, and philanthropic sectors, Nina has worked with nearly a thousand diverse women leaders across disciplines, race, class, age and orientation to create conditions for mutual learning, trust and leade...

Dr. Beverly L. Wright is an award-winning environmental justice scholar, advocate, author, civic leader, professor of Sociology, and the Founder and Executive Director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ), the first-ever environmental justice center in the United States.  Born and raised in New Orleans, Dr. Wright has experienced and witnessed the polluting effects of Cancer...

Disclaimer: The term woman is frequently used in this episode and Kanwal’s book Taking Care of You, to refer to the target audience, although the material discussed applies to anyone with a uterus, cervix, or vagina. We recognize that not all people with these body parts identify as a woman and that not all people who identify as a woman have these body parts Kanwal Haq is dedicated to improving h...

We had a beautiful community gathering for Sun Day, celebrating the power of green energy while centering environmental justice in the green energy transition. Thank you to all of the community members and organizations that made it possible! We had 3 speakers at the event:  Chedaya Brown, PhD student: Investigating dual-use solar initiatives and renewable energy policy and implementation through...

Artist Shelley Bruce is a 4th generation, Black Los Angelino, sharing her service work with a focus on the arts, healing and activism. With two Bachelors in Ethnic Studies and Fine Art, for nearly 20 years, Shelley has performed poetry at hundreds of shows, directed nonprofit organizations, and organized social justice programs throughout Southern California. She has most notably traveled to Washi...

Jeff Share’s research and practice focuses on preparing educators to teach critical media literacy and environmental justice. He was an award-winning photojournalist and bilingual elementary school teacher. Since 2007 he has taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the School of Education and Information Studies. Jeff has written several books including:  Media Literacy is Ele...

Patricia Plude, D.Min. is a teacher, musician, organizer, and pastor. She is an educational consultant for Radical Listening with Health In Harmony, a certified leader of Interplay, and a leader with Faith in Action, a network of congregations and community leaders organizing to uphold the dignity of all people in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more than forty years she has taught people across t...

Gem Montes is a Policy Analyst and Advocate at the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice (PCEJ) in the Inland Empire. Upon realizing that the City of Colton, which experiences some of the worst air in the nation, has little to no public access air monitoring information, she partnered with PCEJ to create a Community-Based Participatory Research project called The Air I Breathe. Gem is a le...

Dr. Wendy Johnson is a family physician, writer, photographer and community activist whose career includes stints scaling up HIV treatment in Mozambique, overseeing a large urban public health department and, most recently, directing a community clinic in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work has been published in McSweeney’s, The Nation, and newspapers in Cleveland, Seattle and Santa Fe. She spends most...

Dr. Emily Schutzenhofer, MD MPH is a Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Fellow at the University of Washington, in Seattle, WA.  She will be joining as junior faculty in July 2024.  She is dedicated to promoting global mental health through action including climate advocacy.  She joined the Early Career Network early in her residency and rapidly grew into leadership as Co-Chair.  She developed and co...

Wendy Miranda is a Wilmington community member. She has lived in Wilmington most of her life and has experienced the impacts of oil drilling near her neighborhood. She is currently a Policy Associate at Esperanza Community Housing where she supports policy work  through advocacy and outreach in multiple coalition spaces in a wide range of issues such as affordable housing, environmental justice, e...

Stefan Wheat, MD is an emergency physician and faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Washington, practicing at both Harborview Medical Center and UWMC—Northwest Hospital emergency departments. With the Center for Health and the Global Environment (CHanGE) at the University of Washington, Dr. Wheat works to understand the scope of the health threats posed by climate c...

Shaneeta Johnson, MD, is an Associate Professor of Surgery, Director of Minimally Invasive, Robotic, and Bariatric Surgery, and Program Director, General Surgery Residency Program at Morehouse School of Medicine and Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. She is also a Senior Fellow of Global Health Equity in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute. She is an experienced surgeon, clinician, educator,...

Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining) is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. She is a voice for global peace, and her paintings are created as tools for individual, earth and global healing. She draws upon the Indigenous sciences of Thriving Life to reframe questions about sustainability and balance, and she is...

Brianna VanNoy is a public health scholar interested in environmental chemical exposures and reproductive health outcomes among Black women and other populations marginalized by social inequities. She earned her B.S. in Environmental Public Health from The Ohio State University and her M.P.H. in Environmental Health Science and Policy from George Washington University. She Is now a fourth year med...