COVIDCalls

EP #275 - 05.12.2021 - COVID-19 in Zuni Pubelo

Today I welcome Mallery Quetawki, Artist-in-Residence with the Community Environmental Health Program at the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy.

Mallery Quetawki is from the rural Pueblo of Zuni in western New Mexico.  She is the mother of two and shares residence in both Albuquerque and Zuni Pueblo. She received her B.S. in Biology with a minor in Art studio in the summer of 2009 from UNM-ABQ.  She is currently the Artist-in-Residence with the Community Environmental Health Program at the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy.  Her work with CEHP has focused on tailoring scientific concepts into culturally relatable art and graphics for Native American communities affected by abandoned uranium mines in the United States specifically in the Southwest region of the country.  Her work has recently shifted into creating Covid-19 PSA's and videos for Indigenous communities.

EP #274 - 05.10.2021 - A Public Hospital in the Pandemic w/ Dr. Shereef Elnahal

Today I welcome Shereef Elnahal, President and CEO of University Hospital in Newark, NJ the principal academic hospital of Rutgers NJ Medical School.

Shereef Elnahal is an American physician who has served in various health care leadership capacities in both the public and private sectors. He was the 21st Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health in the State of New Jersey, as a Cabinet official under Governor Phil Murphy. He now serves as the President and CEO of University Hospital in Newark, NJ the principal academic hospital of Rutgers NJ Medical School.

Previously, Elnahal was appointed to the White House Fellows program by President Barack Obama in 2015. In this capacity, he served in the US Department of Veterans Affairs, where he co-founded the Veterans Affairs Innovation Ecosystem, a network of innovators and implementation professionals across the United States who develop and scale best practices that have improved health care quality, women’s health, mental health and substance treatment, and other areas, the results of which have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

He also served as the Chief Quality and Patient Safety officer of the Veterans Health Administration, the largest health system in the United States.

EP #273 - 05.06.2021 - Climate Change and the Pandemic w/ David Wallace-Wells

Today I welcome David Wallace-Wells, journalist and author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming to COVIDCalls.

David Wallace-Wells is editor at large of New York magazine and the author of the international best-seller The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, which the New York Times called both "brilliant" and "the scariest book I've ever read," the Guardian called "an epoch-defining book," and the Washington Post called "this generation's Silent Spring." He is a national fellow at the New America Foundation and writes frequently about the near future of science and technology.

EP #272 - 05.05.2021 - Vaccine Hesitancy Among Black Americans: History & Myth

Today I welcome Tope Fadiran for a discussion of the history and myths related to vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans.

Tope Fadiran is a commentator on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality with religion and popular culture. She has a research background in the history of medicine and has contributed writing on race and gender in American evangelical Christianity and portrayals of Black girls and women and Black communities in American pop culture.

EP #271 - 05.04.2021 - Primary Immune Deficiency and COVID-19

Today I welcome Pat and Bob Carroll to talk about Primary Immunodeficiency Disease and COVID-19.

Pat Carroll is a registered respiratory therapist and a registered nurse. She has clinical experience in critical care, emergency/trauma nursing and home health care, and she has taught a variety of health professionals in clinical and classroom settings. Ten years ago, she was diagnosed with primary immune deficiency which completely changed her life (and her husband's). Once she regained her health, she became an active volunteer with the Immune Deficiency Foundation, leading the Get Connected Group in CT. She also became involved with the National Organization for Rare Disease in CT, which has developed a coalition to work on common legislative issues and to make sure that none of our efforts would clash with other groups of people with serious, rare diseases. 

Bob Carroll began his career as a sales representative in technical, industrial sales. He was a sales consultant developing innovative marking techniques in various industries when his company was bought, and all of the sales consultant positions were eliminated. He took this opportunity to take a break and do some substitute teaching to fill his days.  A principal where he was subbing asked him to be a one-to-one paraprofessional for a challenging kindergartener entering the school. He agreed, and worked with this special little boy while going to school at night to get his teaching credential. He then became the first special ed, vocational ed, transitional planner for an alternative high school that served multiple school districts. He taught life skills, job skills and prepared students for a future after high school. He retired from teaching 3 years ago. 

EP #270 - 05.04.2021 - CoronaLag: Time and the Virus with Malka Older

Today I welcome disaster researcher and novelist Malka Older back to COVIDCalls to continue our discussions about disasters and time, language, governance, and disaster justice.

Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and academic. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more a decade of experience in humanitarian aid and development.

Her research interests include intra-governmental relations in crises; the paradox of well-funded disaster responses; measurement and evaluation of disaster responses; and the effects of competition among actors in humanitarian aid.

Malka Older’s  science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post. She is also the author of the sequels, Null States (2017) and State Tectonics (2018). Her short story and poetry collection And Other Disasters came out in late 2019.

EP #269 - 04.29.2021 - Honoring the Life and Work of Dennis Mileti w/Lori Peek & Amanda Ripley

Today is a discussion of the life and work of legendary disaster researcher Dennis Mileti, who passed away due to COVID-19 in January.  I will be joined by Lori Peek and Amanda Ripley.

Lori Peek – who has been a guest three previous times on COVID Calls! – is a professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. She studies marginalized populations in disaster and is author of Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans after 9/11, co-editor of Displaced: Life in the Katrina Diaspora, and co-author of Children of Katrina. Lori received her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2005 from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she studied under Dennis Mileti and worked as his research assistant at the Natural Hazards Center.

Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist for The Atlantic and other magazines and a New York Times bestselling author. Her newest book, released just this month, is High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. She also wrote The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, about education, and The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why, about the lessons of disaster survivors. In that last book, The Unthinkable, she featured Dennis Mileti, one of her favorite sources during the many years she spent covering disasters and homeland security for Time Magazine in New York, Washington, and Paris. Her stories have helped Time win two National Magazine Awards.

Dennis Mileti was a giant in the natural hazards field and impacted many researchers (including me) as well as practitioners with his insights as well as his clear vision. He was interested in other people’s ideas and responded with constructive comments that reflected his views on the topic without indicating that he expected you to adopt them. For these reasons, Dennis was admired and respected in the hazards field by everyone I have known.

EP #268 - 04.28.2021 - Obituaries for the COVID era w/Dan Wakin

Today is a discussion of obituaries and writing about a year of loss with Dan Wakin of the NYTimes.

Dan Wakin has been a journalist at The New York Times since 2000.  He currently is an editor on the Obituary News desk, where he has been editing the series "Those We've Lost" on Covid dead. Previously, he was deputy editorial director of NYT Global, a strategic team focused on international audience, and a deputy editor of the Culture desk.

As a reporter, his beats included religion, classical music and dance, and general assignment. He has covered stories in more than a dozen countries in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. He helped lead the team that produced the Emmy-nominated multimedia project “Inside the Quartet.”

A graduate of Harvard University with a degree in the classics, Dan is an avid amateur clarinetist. He is the author of “The Man With the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of a New York City Block” (Arcade, 2018).

EP #267 - 04.27.2021 - Obituaries for the COVID-Era w/Paige Cornwell

Today is a discussion of obituaries and writing about a year of loss with Paige Cornwell of the Seattle Times.

Paige Cornwell is a reporter at The Seattle Times. She attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is originally from Kansas City, Kan.

EP #266 - 04.26.2021 - Obituraries for the COVID Era w/Chris Megerian

Today is a discussion of obituaries and writing about a year of loss and conflict with journalist Chris Megerian of the LA Times.

Chris Megerian covers the White House from the Los Angeles Times’ D.C. bureau. He previously wrote about the Russia investigation, the 2016 presidential campaign and the 2015 United Nations summit on global warming in Paris. While based in Sacramento, he reported on Gov. Jerry Brown, climate change policies, California politics and state finances. Before joining The Times in January 2012, he spent three years covering politics and law enforcement at the Star-Ledger in New Jersey. He grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Emory University in Atlanta.