Health Equity Community Visiting Scholars

The program is designed to enhance YSM’s community engagement and partnership by drawing on the expertise of community leaders who have demonstrated a profound impact on community development and well-being and to increase the capacity of community partners by providing protected time to develop lasting relationships with academic partners, establish best practices in community-engaged research, and leverage activities for scholarship and improved health outcomes.

This program builds trusted and bidirectional relationships between YSM and community partners in advancing health equity through partnered research. The program identifies and invites Health Equity Community Visiting Scholars to participate in activities, including sharing lived experiences relevant to research, best practices from their field, and identified-health priorities of their communities, advising current and proposed initiatives, sharing their effective strategies for trusted and sustainable community outreach and engagement of community stakeholders, and designing educational materials or bolstering the science of dissemination. The scholars also discuss individual research projects and spend time on Yale’s campus learning about our health equity related research & initiatives.

Director, New Haven Healthy Start

Natasha J. Ray is the Director for New Haven Healthy Start (NHHS) at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. Her commitment to women, children and families can be traced to when she was president of Mothers for Justice, engaging in advocacy on policies impacting their lives of families and communities. Ms. Ray has served on the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program Steering Committee at Yale University School of Medicine, where she has helped to guide scholars in community-based participatory research for more than 15 years. She is also co-chair of the Center for Research Engagement at Equity Research and Innovation Center. Prior to her current role at NHHS, Natasha led the Community Consortium, which is the heart of the NHHS program, focusing on broad stakeholder and community engagement. She helped establish NHHS as a premier community-based program in New Haven helping to reach families in New Haven. Ms. Ray holds a MS in Organizational Management and Leadership from Springfield College.

Founder & Visionary, I Am More Than

For nearly 35 years, Michelle Browder has used art, history, and “real talk” conversations to mentor marginalized and disfavored students through visual arts and spoken word. Michelle is a renowned artist and activist whose art has been shown in galleries across the country. She is known for her outdoor sculptures, including the Mothers of Gynecology Monument which calls attention to the historical injustices Black women have faced, shining a light on racial disparities that remain in healthcare today. The monument stands as a symbol of the enslaved women who were experimented upon in the pursuit of a modern “science” of gynecology, by Sims and many others. Today, Michelle continues to push for change, organizing conferences and educational activities aimed at advancing health equity for all women.