Alejandra Salemi, MPH, MTS
Alejandra Salemi is the creator and founder of Healing Theology. She is a Doctoral student in Population Health Sciences at Duke University and is passionate about the intersection of public health and religion. Her PhD studies focus on how religion is a social determinant of public health and the ways religion acts as both a protective and risk factor for health outcomes.
She is a graduate of Harvard University, with a Master of Theological Studies with a focus of Religion, Ethics, and Politics and also holds a Bachelor and Master of Public Health from the University of Florida.
She is a candidate for ordination in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Ellen Idler, PhD
Ellen Idler, PhD is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Sociology, and Director of Emory’s Religion and Public Health Collaborative, with additional Emory appointments at the Rollins School of Public Health, the Center for Ethics, and the Graduate Division of Religion. She earned her PhD from Yale University and held a fellowship at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Dr. Idler is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She served as Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Aging and the Life Course and received its 2021 Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar Award. She studies the influence of attitudes, beliefs, and social connections on health, especially in the context of faith communities. Her work emphasizes that it is important to think of the impact of religion on health at both the individual and the organizational level, and to consider how the partnerships of faith communities with other nongovernmental organizations can be facilitated for the improvement of public health. Her research papers have been cited over 20,000 times. She is an Academic Editor for PLoS One and Editorial Board member for Innovation in Aging and Palliative Care and Social Practice. She was the Editor and a contributing author to Religion as a Social Determinant of Public Health (Oxford, 2014).
Gabriel Benavidez, MPH, PhD.
Gabriel Benavidez is an assistant professor of epidemiology in the Department of Public Health at Baylor University. Growing up in the rural Central Valley of California, he witnessed the immense influence that poverty, rurality, and racism had on the health of his community. Today, he focuses his research on identifying disparities in access to healthcare services using a variety of traditional and spatial epidemiological methods, with a specific focus on examining these disparities among socially marginalized populations. As an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded Health Policy Research Scholars program, he aims to not only identify disparities but also translate his work into actionable policy change at the local and national levels.
Omari Richins, MPH
Omari Richins, MPH is a public health thought partner and equity agent. He is a Program Officer at the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, CEO & Founder at The Public Health Millennial, and VP, Community & Co-Founder of Brothers in Public Health. As a Health Improvement Program Officer for Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, he works in the community to improve health and well-being of marginalized communities using an equity and population health lens. At The Public Health Millennial, he created a platform to help public health people learn, navigate, and transform their career journeys. At Brothers in Public Health, he supports all things community to create a world where marginalized men are change agents for the liberation and full health realization of their communities. Omari got his Master of Public Health degree from the University of Florida.
Lesedi Graveline, MTS
Lesedi (she/her/hers) is a proud Motswana-American who is passionate about expanding her leadership through mentoring and empowering young people to be conscientious and responsible citizens. She is dedicated to fostering spaces where youth can explore inwards, think critically about the world around them, and establish a deeper understanding of the reality of our interdependence and multilayered ecology that bind us to one another.
In 2021, Lesedi earned a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School where she explored the history and narratives of the African diaspora, Black cultural production, and womanism. Graduate school challenged her to reassess what it means to embody ethical leadership and navigate the connection between personal transformation and social change. Lesedi also earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Connecticut where she double majored in Human Rights and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
A few words to describe her: passion fruit fanatic, unapologetic radical lover, storyteller, mother earth protector, sister, daughter, and auntie.
Healing Theology 