Health Advocacy Faculty

Vicki Breitbart (Current director of the Health Advocacy Program)  Vicki teaches Capstone: Pro Seminar
BA from Sarah Lawrence College, MS in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College of Education,  MSW from New York University Graduate School of Social Work and EdD in Organization Development and Leadership from Columbia University.  She has taught at CUNY School of Public Health, the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University and New York University.  Her publications include books on education and articles on reproductive health and intimate partner violence for peer-reviewed journals.

She is an accomplished public health leader who has dedicated her career, spanning 40 years to improving health services for underserved New Yorkers.  As a researcher and program manager, she has led efforts to assure that reproductive health services and practices are solidly evidenced-based and demonstrate an understanding of the need for collaboration between disciplines and sectors.  Many of the programs, partnerships and policies she helped to initiate serve as models for other urban centers across the country.

She recently served as Vice President of the Department of Planning, Research and Evaluation that she created at Planned Parenthood of New York City (PPNYC) and served as Senior Vice President and Director of the Clinician Training Initiative at PPNYC as well.  She has also held positions as Project Director at the Columbia School of Public Health for a national study funded by the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to review and formulate policies regarding infant mortality, HIV prevention and substance use among pregnant women. She also served as Deputy Director of the Office of Women’s Health at the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation where she monitored all the city hospital programs for substance-using women and pregnant adolescents. Prior to that, she developed the Women’s Healthline, a public information system for NYC Department of Health and then served as Program Management Office at the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health at the NYC Department of Health where she managed the 300 staff city initiative to reduce infant mortality.

Working with community and government partners, her accomplishments include founding the first Bereavement Program in New York City for families experiencing perinatal loss; establishing the Brooklyn Perinatal  Network, and developing the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Healthy Teen Initiative. In recognition of her work and leadership abilities, she was elected as President of the Public Health Associate of NYC in 2010 and has served as Chair of the Board of the National Abortion Federation.

Bruce Berg – Associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Fordham University. Author of New York City Politics: Governing Gotham (2007) and published articles and book chapters on the delivery of health care to the elderly, interest group politics, bureaucratic politics, program evaluation, and New York City politics; teaches courses on health policy, intergovernmental relations, interest groups and group theory, social policy, and New York City politics and government; involved with several committees at Fordham University dealing with structuring health benefit packages and programs for full-time and retired faculty; has served as president of Fordham’s Faculty Senate. SLC, 1999-

Kimberly (Kim) Christensen - Ph.D. (economics) University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Taught economics and women’s/gender studies at SUNY/Purchase College. Among other honors, she is the recipient of the President’s Award for Innovative Pedagogy, the Purchase Students’ Union Letters and Sciences Teaching Award, and the state-wide SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. At Purchase, Christensen founded and chaired the SUNY/Purchase AIDS Task Force, working extensively with the Westchester Department of Health to inaugurate the first on-campus HIV test site in the SUNY system and to organize the Westchester County College Summit on HIV/AIDS in the fall of 1999. Christensen has worked with ACT UP’s Women’s Committee, Health Care Access Committee, and as the group’s co-Treasurer. She has also been active around issues of welfare, serving on the Executive Committee of the Women’s Committee of One Hundred/Media Campaign for Fairness on Welfare. Christensen’s research has been intertwined with her activism. The topics of her publications include the particular problems of women in the AIDS crisis, a critique of current proposals for campaign finance reform, and an examination of discrimination by race in the labor market. Her current research centers on the position of women, particularly low-income women, in the financial/economic crisis. She teaches in both the Health Advocacy Program and the undergraduate college, where she currently holds the Joanne Woodward Chair of Public Policy. SLC, 2008-

Sayantani DasGupta – AB, Brown University. MD/MPH, Johns Hopkins University. Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Core Faculty in the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Faculty member of the summer writing seminar “Writing the Medical Experience” and editorial board member, Literature and Medicine. Co-author of The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folktales (1995), author of a memoir about her education at Johns Hopkins, Her Own Medicine: A Woman’s Journey from Student to Doctor (1999), and co-editor of an award-winning book of women’s illness narratives, Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write their Bodies (2007). Her writing has been included in many anthologies, and has appeared in JAMA, Lancet, Hastings Center Report, Teaching and Learning in Medicine, and the Journal of Medical Humanities and Literature and Medicine. SLC, 2001-

Jean Kahler — BA, Smith College.  MFA, Sarah Lawrence (Nonfiction). Writing Instructor at Purchase College, SUNY.  Writer for health projects at Columbia University, including HIV prevention and treatment adherence interventions for heterosexual couples in long-term relationships, for women in alternative-to-incarceration programs, and for clients of South African township clinics, as well as pediatric dental health outreach programs for urban immigrant communities.  Areas of interest include nutrition, LGBT health, and sexual and reproductive health.  Published writing includes The End of New York, monograph with photography by Jessica Rowe, published by Furnace Press.

Cora de Leon -- MSW, LCSW, New York University; MPH, Columbia University. During 14 years of clinical and research experience, her clinical work has focused primarily on bereavement, while her research experience includes such topics as effectiveness of depression treatments and a testing a cognitive behavioral intervention among active drug users. Ms. de Leon is currently involved in the management of data sets for several environmental health studies involving inner city children. She teaches research methods to graduate level students and has trained and supervised professionals for over 6 years. SLC 2011-

Rachel N. Grob – BA, Wesleyan University. MA (health advocacy), Sarah Lawrence College. PhD (sociology), City University of New York Graduate Center. Research focus on interface of genetics and advocacy and the social impact of technological innovation. Currently Scholar in Residence and Director of National Initiatives, Center for Patient Partnerships, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Formerly associate dean of graduate studies and director, Child Development Institute, Sarah Lawrence College. Investigator in health policy research, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2006-11. Prior positions include director of policy analysis and planning, Andrus Children’s Center (responsibilities included development of services for children and families and spearheading an Early Childhood Initiative in Yonkers, NY) and assistant to the Deputy Commissioner of Health, Westchester County Health Department. Author of Testing Baby: The Transformation of Newborn Screening, Parenting and Policymaking, forthcoming 2011 and co-editor of Patients as Policy Actors, 2011 and of numerous articles and book chapters about advocacy, parenting, newborn screening, and genetics. SLC, 1998-. Currently on 2 year leave.

Catherine Handy – PhD, New York University. Oncology clinical nurse specialist, St. Vincent’s Cancer Center, New York City. Nationally certified as an Advanced Oncology Certified Nurse; 30 years’ experience in nursing in such areas as bone marrow transplantation, home care, AIDS care and education; special interests include pain management and ethical issues; frequent speaker on oncology and AIDS nursing issues; recipient of New York State Liberty Award, 2002. SLC, 2000-

Jacqueline Hart - Ph.D. (Sociology) University of Pennsylvania (1999), and postdoctoral fellowship in health services research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Department of Veterans Affairs.  She is a sociologist, ethnographer, and activist who has worked in health and social justice in the United States and internationally for over 20 years.  She has applied her skills and political commitments to teaching, research, training, program development and evaluation, organizational learning and strategic development, direct service and political activism.  She was the Director of the Ford Foundation funded Steps to Transforming Evaluation Practice for Social Change Initiative (STEPS), at Margaret Sanger Center International, PPNYC, where she developed a planning, monitoring and evaluation  resource for organizations around the world (www.stepstoolkit.org).   Prior to that position she was the Director of Planning, Research, and Evaluation at Planned Parenthood of New York City.  Jacqueline has collaborated with organizations on issues of social justice program planning and evaluation.   For example, the Ford Foundation Office for Southern Africa, the Solidarity Center, the World Bank,  and the World Health Organization.  In addition to social justice program learning, her work focuses on: women's and girl's empowerment and well-being; inequality; and health programs and policy.  Jacqueline is very committed to thinking about and developing new ways for us to "see," value, and productively utilize information about how social justice change happens.   She is exploring how to incorporate visual methodologies and art into purposive research and planning around ameliorating entrenched social inequalities and social problems.   This direction comes about in large part due to a strong commitment to hearing people's voices and respecting lived experiences.  Jacqueline is currently collaborating on a project with the Center for Social Innovation at Adelphi University on food security among poor communities on Long Island using participatory and visual techniques.  She has been funded by: the Ford Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania, The National Institutes of Mental Health, the Soloman Asch Center for Ethno-Political Conflict; and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Alice Herb – BA, Syracuse University. JD, LLM, New York University School of Law. Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Practice and Humanities in Medicine, SUNY Downstate Medical Center; ethics consultant to New York Methodist Hospital. Formerly ethics consultant to the Brooklyn Hospital Center (1994-2003); formerly TV news and cultural affairs producer, director, and writer; special interest in clinical ethics, particularly in channels/barriers between health care professionals and patients/families, cultural diversity and its effect on physician/patient interaction, the role of palliative care in a high-tech environment, and the continuing dilemma in human subject research; currently involved in an initiative to change the guardianship law in New York State. Author: Autonomy, the Encyclopedia of Care of the Elderly (Springer Publishing Company, 2007); co-author with Burke and Swidler, “Three Stubborn Misconceptions About the Authority of Health Care Agents,” NYSBA’s Health Law. SLC, 1996-

Rebecca O. Johnson – BA, Southern New Hampshire University. MS (community economic development), Southern New Hampshire University. MFA (nonfiction), Sarah Lawrence College. Founder and Executive Director of Cooperative Economics for Women, Boston, MA. Expertise in community organizing, participatory action research, oral history, and other forms of community history research; published works include, most recently, Lonesome Refugees (Callaloo, 2007); We Want To Be At The Table: Helping Environmental Groups Rebuild After Katrina (Environmental Support Center, 2006); The History of Charity (Grassroots Fundraising Journal Conference, 2006); New Moon Over Roxbury, Ecofeminism and the Sacred, Carol Adams, ed. (Continuum, 1993). SLC, 2007-

Constance Peterson – BS (sociology/anthropology), Southwest Missouri State University. MA (health advocacy), Sarah Lawrence College. Currently Administrative Manager and Patient Services Specialist in the Emergency Department of New York-Presbyterian Hospital Cornell Weill Medical Center. Faculty appointments: Weill Medical College Cornell University Department of Public Health and Department of Medical Ethics and Sarah Lawrence College/Health Advocacy Program. SLC, 2001-

Karen Porter – B.A., Yale College, M.S. New York University, J.D., Yale Law School. Karen is an assistant professor of Clinical Law; the Executive Director of the Center for Health, Science, and Public Policy; and runs the Health Law Clinic at Brooklyn Law School. She has taught courses at Washington University Law School on law and medicine, and AIDS and the law, and she has authored numerous publications related to AIDS policy. Her areas of expertise are AIDS Policy, Law and Medicine, and Public Health Law. Prior to teaching, Professor Porter held a post-doctoral fellowship at Montefiore Medical Center/The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine. Her background also includes work as a senior policy analyst and staff counsel to the National Commission on AIDS.

Laura Weil – BA, State University of New York. MA (health advocacy), Sarah Lawrence College. Area of specialization is the rights of participants in clinical trials, assuring they are adequately protected and explained. Member of Beth Israel Medical Center’s Committee on Scientific Activities and Institutional Review Board, reviewing applications for approval of clinical trials using human subjects. Consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health, serving as a grant reviewer assessing applications for federal grant funding for mental health research involving human subjects. Director of Sarah Lawrence College’s Health Advocacy Program from 2007-2011. Former Director of the Patient Representative Department of Beth Israel Medical Center, serving as a resource for staff, patients, and family members on issues involving patients’ rights and surrogate medical decision-making, with a focus on improvement of patients’ hospital experiences and safety. Past president of the New York State Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy, and a former board member of the national Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy of the American Hospital Association. Member of the Metropolitan New York Ethics Network, and has taught Clinical Ethics in the Physician Assistant program of Touro College of Health Sciences. Co-author of “Educating for Advocacy in Settings of Higher Learning,” in Patient Advocacy for Health Care Quality: Strategies for Achieving Patient-Centered Care (Jones and Bartlett, 2008. SLC, 1999-