Challenging Public Health: Michelle Holder

Michelle Holder is President and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth as well as Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York. Prior to joining the John Jay College faculty, she worked as an applied economist for a decade in both the nonprofit and government sectors.  Her research focuses on the Black community and women of color in the American labor market, and her economic policy reports have been covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Amsterdam News, El Diario, and Dollars & Sense magazine.  Michelle has also appeared on, or been quoted in, media outlets such as CNN, the Washington Post, NPR, The New Yorker, Black News Channel (BNC), PBS, MSNBC, Al Jazeera-English, Marketplace, and Vox.com.  Her second book, Afro-Latinos in the U.S. Economy, co-authored with Alan Aja, was released May 2021 by Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield.  Michelle received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from The New School for Social Research, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Fordham University.

Sandro Galea, a physician, epidemiologist, and author, is dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. He previously held academic and leadership positions at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He has published extensively in the peer-reviewed literature, and is a regular contributor to a range of public media, about the social causes of health, mental health, and the consequences of trauma. He has been listed as one of the most widely cited scholars in the social sciences. He is past chair of the board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Galea has received several lifetime achievement awards. Galea holds a medical degree from the University of Toronto, graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow.