Felipe Jain - Tech and Mental Health Speaker

Felipe A. Jain, MD, is Director of Healthy Aging Studies in the Depression Clinical Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  He is also a faculty member of the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Health Sciences and Technology program, where he serves as Associate Director of the Psychopathology and Introduction to Clinical Psychiatry course for second-year medical students.  Dr. Jain graduated from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology with honors in a special field in 2008.  He completed psychiatry residency training and a postdoctoral fellowship in psychobiology at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital.  His research focuses on guided imagery and mindfulness skills for the treatment of depression and anxiety, and biomarkers that may be used to personalize treatment.  To reduce the accessibility to therapy gap for those living far from psychotherapy sites and to improve overall measurement of behavioral change, Dr. Jain developed the CareDoc mobile smartphone platform, a high-throughput, customizable precision psychiatry platform capable of delivery psychotherapeutic information, obtaining ecological momentary assessments, and monitoring passive behavioral data such as accelerometer and geolocation.

Michael P. Kincade Sr. - Tech and Mental Health Speaker

Michael P. Kincade, Sr., is the Director of Diversity Recruitment at the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease and Research Center.  He conducts numerous programs and outreach events to educate and recruit those underrepresented in Alzheimer’s research.  From 2005-2013, he served as Chairperson of The Health and Long-Term Care Task Force for the city of Boston. Upon his stepping down, March 13, 2013, was declared Michael Kincade Day in the city of Boston by Mayor Thomas Menino.  In 2014 he accepted a seat on the Board of Directors for The Dimock Center and was voted Chairman in 2020. In 2018 The Massachusetts Chapter of The National Association of Social Workers named Michael their Public Citizen of The Year. In 2023 he was selected to be the National host of the internet TV program Brain Info Live!

Arnetta E. Ferguson - Tech and Mental Health Speaker

Arnetta E. Ferguson has been a Dementia Friends of Massachusetts Champion since 2019.  In this role, she organizes and leads online and in person educational workshops on dementia for people in the Black communities in the Dorchester and Roxbury areas.  She has served as a community leader in the Collaboration for Research Equity, Sustainability, and Trust (CREST) at Tufts Medical Center, and a senior computer trainer for community classes at Technology Goes Home, which aims to increase digital equity in minoritized communities in the Boston area.

Zeinab Bakhiet JD - Health Policy Speaker

Zeinab Bakhiet joined the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation as a Clinical Fellow with the Health Law and Policy Clinic in August 2024. She previously worked as a child health policy researcher at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and with several community-based organizations in Houston and Chicago on issues related to health, housing, economic development, food access, and community violence. She advocates for an expansive and holistic view of health and wellness and is particularly interested in using art, community organizing, and restorative justice to advance racial equity. Additionally, she is a certified mediator and has conducted pro bono mediations through the Center for Conflict Resolution. During law school, Zeinab was a capital habeas intern with the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of Texas and an intern with the Incarcerated Survivors Program, a joint initiative between Ascend Justice and the Women’s Justice Institute. She served as the president of Northwestern Law’s Student Mental Health Alliance and co-founded the International JD Support Group. She received Northwestern Law’s Service Award, given by the graduating class to the student who has shown the greatest dedication and commitment to public service and the practice of law.

Djoulissa Louis-Jean, MSPH - Maternal Health Speaker

After receiving a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies, Djoulissa realized that she was interested in the intersection between communities, the environment, and public health, prompting her to pursue a Master of Science in Public Health from Tulane University. Her studies and community health work in New Orleans during the pandemic helped define her interests in eliminating the impacts of environmental injustices on community health, particularly that of Black communities. This May, she will be graduating with an additional degree in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Currently, Djoulissa works as the Environmental Justice Coordinator with the Resilient Sisterhood Project (RSP), a nonprofit organization that provides awareness on the reproductive and maternal health conditions that disproportionately impact Black women. In her role, Djoulissa performs research on the impacts of climate change and neighborhood structure and access on Black maternal health. Her continued goal is to use her knowledge and passion to improve health outcomes for Black women.

Heather Olden, DrPH, MPH - Maternal Health Speaker

Dr. Olden is the new Postdoctoral Research Fellow tackling racial disparities in severe maternal mortality at the Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice at Tufts University School of Medicine. She recently matriculated from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with a dissertation focused on hospital readiness for Medicaid expansion covering doula services in Massachusetts. She specializes in qualitative data collection and analysis, organizational strategic planning, and community and patient engagement. Her work has already been instrumental in several currently funded research projects including an R01 multi-year study on maternal mortality and morbidity funded by the National Institutes of Health, an interdisciplinary grant on maternal health equity funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Massachusetts Attorney General Maternal Health Equity Grant which, in anticipation of MassHealth’s plan to cover doula services, provides funding for the creation of an interactive toolkit to support doulas and enrolled MassHealth members in achieving equitable doula care.

Vivien Morris - Community Health and Nutrition Speaker

Vivien received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University, a Master of Science degree in nutrition from Framingham State University, and a Master of Public Health degree from Boston University. She received an honorary Public Health Doctorate from Merrimack College in 2021. She is a dietitian and public health professional with extensive work in Boston’s communities. She is a founder and chair of the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition, an organization that she is most proud of. She is a founder of the Boston Organization of Nutritionists and Dietitians of Color (BOND of Color). BOND of Color is a professional organization devoted to increasing the number of African American and Afro Caribbean nutritionists and dietitians and providing nutrition education in the community. Vivien coordinates the Kennedy Community Garden and chairs the Edgewater Neighborhood Association, both utilizing the passions of local residents to make the Edgewater neighborhood a wonderful place to live.  She serves as chairperson of the Advisory Board of Massachusetts Food System Collaborative, a statewide effort working towards a sustainable and equitable food system. Vivien has been a community activist throughout her life and gets the greatest joy from seeing the coming together of community members of all ages to strengthen relationships and use collective power to improve our village.

Vivien M. Morris, MSN,MPH,LDN, Honorary Doctorate of Public Health

Darian Leta - Community Health and Nutrition Speaker

Community Preservation Committee Member

Darian Leta, MPH (She/Her/Ella) is an Afro-Dominican and Puerto Rican community health advocate born and raised in Boston. A Community Health Worker by training, Darian currently serves as the Senior Manager for Substance Use Disorder and Recovery Initiatives, supporting Community Health Centers in building capacity for equitable substance use service delivery.  She is committed to providing the best health services in Boston, nationally and globally, focusing on infectious diseases, community health education, and patient-centered program development.  Her community work includes coalition building around food insecurity, affordable housing/anti-gentrification, violence prevention, abolition, and other social determinants of health.  Darian was selected as an at-large voting committee member to the Boston Community Preservation Committee,e providing affordable housing, open space, and preservation projects for the city, and most recently voted as the Co-President of the Dorchester Food Coop Board.