The Visible Voices

Kathleen Brandenburg Co-CEO and Co-Founder IA Collaborative Design

Selected by Fast Company as a Master of Design and one of 50 Most Influential Designers, Kathleen Brandenburg is an internationally recognized founder, thought leader, educator and speaker. Named a “Creative Maverick,” Kathleen has devoted her career to elevating design as a strategic value for business, organizations, and society. An early pioneer and advocate of human-centered design, she was one of the first to link design, business strategy, and innovation when she co-founded IA Collaborative, the global design and innovation consultancy, in 2000.Today, Kathleen is leading the conversation to elevate design’s impact even further, championing it as the way solve our world’s most urgent problems. A Harvard Visiting Professor of Design for Social Innovation, she is at the forefront of a movement to change the way healthcare understands and applies design, and is the author of Design for Health: The Beginning of a New Dialogue Between Design and Public Health.Kathleen leads work at the forefront of design and business strategy at IA Collaborative. An expert in cross-pollination, she draws from the varied industries IA serves to uncover unexpected connections and opportunities for innovation. She co-developed the company’s 7 Elements of Design Innovation™ process that has driven record success for the world’s largest brands.Kathleen serves on the Innovation Council at Northwestern University and is on the Board of Directors at IIT Institute of Design.

Brickson Diamond and The Blackhouse Foundation

Brickson Diamond is a partner in the Technology, Media, Telecommunications and Services practice of the leadership advisory firm, Spencer Stuart. He has a specific focus on supporting media clients and advising across the firm’s Americas region on client-facing diversity equity and inclusion efforts. Brickson also serves on the board of Gentreo, an early-stage private company that provides technology-enabled solutions for estate planning sold to businesses as a benefit to employees, members and affiliated individuals. Prior to joining Spencer Stuart in late 2021, Brickson was CEO of Big Answers, LLC, an independent human capital advisory firm focused on helping leaders evolve enterprises by setting diversity strategy, sourcing senior-level diverse talent and instituting governance excellence in the fields of entertainment, technology, investment management and philanthropy. He previously served for five years as COO of The Executive Leadership Council, the preeminent member organization of Black executives in the Fortune 1000. Brickson began his career and spent 15 years as a marketing and client services executive with The Capital Group Companies, a $2.6 trillion global asset management firm.Brickson is a founding board member and chair of The Blackhouse Foundation, which provides pathways for Black multi-platform content creators into career opportunities within film, television, digital and emerging platforms. Brickson is a trustee of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the Middlesex School and Tides. He serves on the investment committee of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, is an advisor to VC Include, a platform that was created to accelerate investment into diverse emerging managers, and Smashcut, an online education platform for the visual arts. Brickson is a graduate of Brown University and the Harvard Business School. 

Paula Scher: Master of Design

Paula Scher is one of the most acclaimed graphic designers in the world. She has been a principal in the New York office of the  international design consultancy Pentagram since 1991, where she has designed identity systems, environmental graphics, packaging and publications for a wide range of clients that includes and is not limited to, the Public Theater, the Museum of Modern Art, the High Line, the Metropolitan Opera, the United States Holocaust Museum, Tiffany & Co., Citibank and Microsoft. Scher has been the recipient of hundreds of industry honors including the National Design Award and the American Institute of Graphic Arts medal. She is an established artist exhibiting worldwide, and her designs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Library of Congress, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and other institutions. Scher is the author of many books including and not limited to Paula Scher: Twenty-Five Years at the Public: A Love Story (2020),  Paula Scher: MAPS (2011), and Make It Bigger: (illustrated monograph on the design process and work of Paula Scher) (2005). Her #HealthDesign projects have included Period Equity,  Planned Parenthood, and Square Peg Round Hole. A must watch documentary on Scher and her work can be seen in the Netflix series “Abstract: The Art of Design.”

Michelle Lin CEO and Founder Academic Life in Emergency Medicine

Michelle Lin MD is the Founder and CEO of AliEM. She is a Professor and Digital Innovation Lab Director in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, San FranciscoALiEM started out as an educational blog in 2009 for Dr. Michelle Lin to store Tricks of the Trade notes, has now evolved into an umbrella organization, housing online educational platforms and virtual communities. Our dynamic, globally distributed team continues to grow now with over 100 volunteer members, comprised of physicians, residents, students, pharmacists, nurses, and paramedics. We value dedication and creativity over experience and welcome all like-minded torchbearers in healthcare.Books Michelle suggests:Flash Foresight by Daniel Burrus and John David Mann [Amazon]Radical Candor by Kim Scott [Amazon]Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang [Amazon]Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey [Amazon]Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon [Amazon]The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan [Amazon]

Yoruba Richen Storyteller and Award Winning Documentary Filmmaker

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has been featured on multiple outlets including Netflix, MSNBC, FX, HBO, Frontline, The Atlantic and Field of Vision. Her recent films The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, the Emmy nominated How It Feels to Be Free which premiered on PBS’s American Masters and the Peabody and Emmy nominated The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show which is streaming on Peacock.Her film The New York Times Presents: The Killing of Breonna Taylor won an NAACP Image Award and is streaming on HULU. Her film The Green Book: Guide to Freedom was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel to record-setting viewership and was awarded the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking.Yoruba is a featured TED speaker, a Fulbright fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, and a 2016 recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker Award. She was chosen for The Root 100’s Most Influential African Americans Under 45 among the year’s most significant moments and themes. She also directs the documentary program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Jay Baruch Doctor and Author of Tornado of Life Short Story Collection

Jay Baruch, a practicing emergency room physician, is Professor of Emergency Medicine at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School and the author of two award-winning short fiction collections, What's Left Out and Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers. His latest book is Tornado of Life: A Doctor’s Journey through Constraints and Creativity in the ER (MIT Press, August 2022). He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Alister Martin and A Healthier Democracy

Alister Martin MD MPP is  the CEO of a healthier democracy. He works at the intersection of public policy and medicine as research faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School Behavioral Insights Group and clinical faculty at HMS in the Center for Social Justice and Health EquityPrograms like Link Health, Vot-ER, Get Waivered and others are just a few key concrete examples of how healthcare settings and providers can be leveraged to help create A Healthier Democracy!

Soledad O’Brien on Storytelling, Mrs. Rosa Parks, and Realizing One’s Own Voice

Soledad O’Brien is a journalist, documentarian, podcaster, working mom, dog mom, news anchor, and producer. She champions the stories of marginalized communities, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including three Emmy awards, the George Foster Peabody Award, and the Alfred I. DuPont Award.

Jenna Lester and Susan Chon on Skin of Color Program and Representation in Dermatology Textbooks

We Need More Illustrations of People of Color in Medical Textbooks— The lack of diversity perpetuates health inequality and stereotypes"The consequences of primarily depicting White, lighter skinned individuals with Eurocentric features in medical images supports the persuasive concept of White supremacy. It perpetuates the belief that the White male body is "the standard" to which all other bodies should be compared. It leads to inequality in medical education and further perpetuates harmful stereotypes of Black individuals. As a result, this issue plays a role in inappropriate diagnosis and health management of Black individuals. Furthermore, medical care becomes subjective, discriminatory, and filled with speculatory assumptions based on stereotypes."Jenna C. Lester is founder of the Skin of Color dermatology program at UCSF, which addresses the  persistent issues that arise from the exclusion and marginalization of non-white patients in medical  research and practice. She is combatting medical disparities due to racial inequality, working to fill education gaps in textbooks and curriculum about non-white skin and training a new generation of  doctors. A graduate of Harvard University and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, she is an assistant professor of dermatology at UCSF where she practices and teaches general dermatology.Jenna's TedX TalkSusan Y. Chon, a 1991 Brown graduate with an independent concentration in children’s literature, is a professor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Prior to joining the faculty, she earned her M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine. She then completed her internship in internal medicine and her dermatology residency at Stanford University Hospital. Chon specializes in treating patients with skin cancers, melanomas and skin disorders from cancer treatments. She is a medical educator and an active mentor for medical students and dermatology residents. She is also director of the Skin Cancer Screening and Prevention Program and founded the volunteer physician program for the Brookwood Community, a residential and vocational program for adults with disabilities. Chon is the president of the Brown Club of Houston, helping to maintain the connection between Brown and its graduates throughout the world, and serves as a member of the Women’s Leadership Council, Women’s Launch Pad and Philanthropy Advisory Group.

Louise Aronson on Elderhood and Redefining Aging with Robbie Felton

Louise Aronson, MD MFA, is a leading geriatrician, writer, educator, professor of medicine at UCSF and the author of the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Louise has received the Gold Professorship in Humanism in Medicine, the California Homecare Physician of the Year award, and the American Geriatrics Society Clinician-Teacher of the Year award. Her current work is focused on expanding geriatric care and public perceptions of old age to more accurately attend to the decades and diversity of elderhood, developing innovative programs and practices to empower older adults to retain agency and maximize wellness as they age. At UCSF, Louise has served as director of the Pathways to Discovery program, the Northern California Geriatrics Education Center, the Optimizing Aging Project, and as Chief of Geriatrics Education. Her writing credits include the New York Times, Atlantic, Washington Post, Discover, Vox, JAMA, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine, and she has been featured on TODAY, CBS This Morning, NPR’s Fresh Air, Morning Edition, Politico, Kaiser Health News, Tech Nation and the New Yorker. Robbie Felton is the Co-founder and CEO of Intus Care. Intus Care provides data and services to help integrated care programs improve outcomes for their patients in Medicare managed care. The company serves 25 health plans and care programs nationwide with tens of thousands of patients. Prior to Intus Care, he studied Public Health at Brown UniversityProgram of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) is a type of  home and community based service HCBS that provides medical services and supports everyday living needs for certain elderly individuals, most of whom are eligible for benefits under both Medicare and Medicaid. These services are provided by an interdisciplinary team of professionals. For example, a primary care physician, nurse, social worker, physical therapist, and dietitian are a few of the necessary members.