8th Annual Asian Health Symposium
Speaker Biographies
Keynote Speaker
Akil Vohra, JD
Director of Policy, AAPI Data
Akil Vohra serves as the Director of Policy for AAPI Data, overseeing federal and state strategies to ensure collection, analysis, publication, and utilization of data to advance understanding and support of AANHPI communities. Akil has held numerous positions in support of AANHPI communities including serving as the Executive Director of Asian American LEAD, and as Senior Advisor at the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI). At WHIAAPI, Akil led the team that guided federal government policy on a range of areas including data, education, civil rights, bullying and harassment, workforce diversity, religion, language access, and My Brother’s Keeper. Akil also served as counsel at Muslim Advocates where he created the national Muslim Charities Work Campaign to advocate for reforms on the USA PATRIOT Act and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).
Akil has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, Irvine; and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. Akil is also a Rothschild Fellow, and studied international human rights law at the University of Oxford.
Welcome & Opening Speakers
Harry Selker, MD, MSPH
Dean, Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute
Dr. Harry P. Selker is Dean of Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and Executive Director of the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center. As Dean, he provides leadership for programs and infrastructure that support clinical and translational research at the Tufts University schools and affiliated hospitals, and other academic, community-based, and industry CTSI partners. He practices medicine at Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Selker‘s research focuses on the development of treatment strategies, aimed at improving medical care, including the development of “clinical predictive instruments,” mathematical models that are used as decision aids. He also has run large national clinical trials and has done research to advance clinical study design and execution, and the repurposing of drugs for major public needs.
Dr. Selker has provided advice about healthcare delivery and medical research to policymakers, including to the US House and Senate authors of the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Selker has served as President of the Society of General Internal Medicine, the Society for Clinical and Translational Science, the Association for Clinical Research Training, and the Association for Clinical and Translational Science, and is currently Chair of the Clinical Research Forum.
Erin Gibson, MPH
Executive Director, Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute
Ms. Erin Gibson joined Tufts CTSI as executive director in January 2024. She previously worked at Boston Medical Center as the associate director of research operations for the Healing Communities Study, a $350M National Institutes of Health study aiming to reduce opioid overdose deaths in 67 communities in four states. Prior to that role, Ms. Gibson was a program manager at Boston Children’s Hospital for the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED) and the Center for Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Research (CeASAR).
Ms. Gibson has extensive team leadership experience, having managed research operations for a large, multidisciplinary staff and affiliated academic, community, and government partners, while collaborating with institutions across several states. Her research experience and publications span projects supported by NIH and private and foundational grants in the areas of maternal and child health, women’s sexual health, and substance use addiction treatment and overdose prevention. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.
MyDzung Chu, PhD, MSPH
Director, Addressing Disparities in Asian Populations through Translational Research (ADAPT); Assistant Professor, Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute; Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies (ICRHPS); Tufts University School of Medicine
Dr. MyDzung Chu is an assistant professor in the Departments of Medicine and Public Health and Community Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine. As an environmental epidemiologist, she is invested in community-engaged research on social, structural, and environmental determinants of health for Asian and immigrant populations, particularly in the built environments. She is currently collaborating with community partners to investigate acculturation and environmental risk factors of gestational diabetes for Asian immigrants; air pollution, heat stress, and urban design disparities across open spaces in Boston’s Chinatown; and the cultural responsiveness of mental health resources for Asian populations. Prior to joining Tufts, she was a postdoctoral scientist at the George Washington University, where she examined the impact of federal housing assistance on residential environmental hazards. She has also worked at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Dr. Chu is a JPB in Environmental Health Fellow, a former Agents of Change in Environmental Justice Fellow, and one of Popular Science’s Brilliant 10. She received her PhD in Population Health Sciences from Harvard University, an MSPH in Environmental Health and Epidemiology from Emory University, and a BA in Neuroscience from Smith College.
Dawn Sauma, MSW, LICSW
Co-Executive Director, Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence; Co-Chair, ADAPT
Dawn Sauma, MSW, LICSW has been the Co-Executive and Clinical Director of Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence (ATASK) since 2010, overseeing direct services, collaborating with stakeholders and community partners, and authoring grants. She has worked in social services for over 30 years, serving Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communities in Hawaii and Massachusetts as a provider, educator, manager, and administrator within the mental health, crisis intervention, academic and non-profit systems.
She is a Board Member and President of Jane Doe, Inc. (JDI), the MA Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence; Community Co-Chair of Addressing Disparities in Asian Populations Through Translation Research (ADAPT); member of the Tufts CTSI Stakeholder Expert Panel; and partner in Asian Center for Addressing Research, Education and Services (CARES).
Panelists: The Data Equity Movement – Gaps and Opportunities
Co-Moderator: Carolyn Chou
Executive Director, Homes for All Massachusetts
Carolyn Chou (she/her) is the Executive Director of Homes for All Massachusetts. Formerly, she was Co-Executive Director of the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW) and a steering committee member and interim director of the Asian Pacific Islander Civic Action Network (APIs CAN). APIs CAN is a statewide coalition of Asian-serving organizations that led the effort for data equity in Massachusetts. Through her work at AARW, Chou helped build the leadership capacity and organizing skills of Vietnamese American young adults in Dorchester, and supported projects to tell the stories about communities that are often invisible. Alongside the young adult organizers, she helped build the Dorchester Not for Sale coalition, which brings together a diverse set of neighborhood residents to fight for good jobs, truly affordable housing, and equitable planning.
Co-Moderator: Tsung Mou, MD
Urogynecologist, Tufts Medical Center; Assistant Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
Tsung Mou, MD is an Attending Urogynecologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Tufts Medical Center. He completed his Obstetrics & Gynecology residency in 2019 and Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery fellowship in 2022. Dr. Mou is also a health equity researcher who focuses on understanding and addressing patient-reported experience disparity among Asian American women seeking ageing-related genitourinary care.
Paul Watanabe, PhD
Director, Institute for Asian American Studies, UMass Boston
Dr. Paul Y. Watanabe is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund; Board of Directors of the South Shore Health System; Board of Directors of North Hill Communities; Board of Trustees of the Harry H. Dow Memorial Legal Assistance Fund; Board of Trustees of the Town of Weymouth Libraries Foundation; and the Massachusetts Health Equity Compact. He was appointed by President Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and served as the first Chair of the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations. He currently serves as the Chair of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Asian American Foundation’s STAATUS Survey. Paul was awarded the Order of the Rising Son by the Emperor of Japan. He is the author of Ethnic Groups, Congress, and American Foreign Policy and principal author of A Dream Deferred: Changing Demographics, New Opportunities, and Challenges for Boston. His scholarly articles on ethnic studies, Asian Americans, public policy, political behavior, foreign policy, and health disparities have appeared in major academic journals and edited volumes. Paul received a B.S. degree in Political Science from the U. of Utah and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.
Bethany Li, JD
Executive Director, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Bethany Li has used a movement lawyering model to fight for social justice in Asian American communities and advance racial equity. Using an innovative and multi-faceted approach in collaboration with community organizers, Bethany has litigated cases and led advocacy work on a range of civil rights issues, including housing and displacement, workers’ rights, immigration, education equity, language access, and hate violence. Bethany represented Southeast Asian communities fighting against deportation, including the first Cambodian American to return to the East Coast after deportation. In collaboration with community organizers, she co-produced the documentary “Keep Saray Home” about Southeast Asian families fighting deportations. She served as co-counsel to a multi-racial coalition of organizations and families intervening in a lawsuit in support of Boston Public Schools’ shift in exam policy. Bethany has won millions in back wages for low-wage workers along the Northeast corridor. She has led a variety of initiatives to increase low-income and limited- English proficient Asian Americans’ access to resources. She also published a report documenting the gentrification of Chinatowns on the East Coast and guided the launch of RAISE, the first undocumented Asian American youth group on the East Coast.
Bethany was also the Director of the Asian Outreach Unit at Greater Boston Legal Services. Bethany graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and Amherst College. She serves on Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Well Being and the Massachusetts Governor’s Task Force for Hate Crimes.
Cheryl Clark, MD, ScD
Associate Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Senior Vice President, Institute for Health Equity Research Evaluation & Policy, Inc. Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers
Cheryl Clark, MD, ScD is the Executive Director and Senior Vice President of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers’ Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation & Policy (IHE). As the inaugural leader of IHE, Dr. Clark is committed to advancing emancipatory research as part of a health equity movement led by people most impacted by health injustice. Dr. Clark is also Associate Chief for Equity Research and Strategic Partnerships for the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Clark is a physician of Hospital Medicine and a Social Epidemiologist with a research focus on social determinants of health and health care utilization in diverse populations, including preventive care for cancer and cardiovascular disease prevention. She has extensive experience in Community-Based Participatory Research, and in the implementation and evaluation of innovative strategies to address social determinants of health and care utilization in communities with high burdens of cardiovascular and cancer risk factors. Dr. Clark led efforts to implement social needs screening and closed loop referral operations in partnership with the two hospital-licensed community health centers of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She received the inaugural Quality and Innovation Award from Partners Healthcare for this work.
Dr. Clark is the PI of the Mass General Brigham Jackson Heart Study Vanguard Center where her group studies multilevel social determinants of cardiovascular risk factors. Dr. Clark is PI for engagement of the New England NIH All of Us Research Program where she serves as chair of the Social Determinants of Health Task Force for survey development and has led the demonstration project to validate data on obesity in All of Us. Dr. Clark has recently joined the NIH PhenX Toolkit consortium as a steering committee member to facilitate harmonization of metrics. Dr. Clark earned an AB in human biology and an MS in Health Services Research from Stanford University. She also earned an ScD in social epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, followed by an MD in medicine from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Robert Goldstein, MD, PhD
Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Robbie Goldstein, MD, PhD, was appointed Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) by Governor Maura Healey in April 2023. A physician specializing in infectious diseases, Dr. Goldstein oversees a workforce of more than 3,200 individuals committed to health equity and dedicated to promoting the health and well-being of people across the state, preventing illness and injury, and maintaining strong and vibrant communities. This work is carried out through a network of bureaus and offices responsible for priorities that include maternal and child health, nutrition, infectious diseases, injury prevention, climate and environmental health, substance use disorders, emergency preparedness and response, and problem gambling. In addition, DPH licenses health professionals and health care facilities, and operates the state public health laboratory and four public health hospitals.
Dr. Goldstein previously served as Senior Policy Advisor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he focused on public health emergency response, infectious diseases, and strategic policy initiatives. Prior to his work at CDC, he founded and was Medical Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Transgender Health Program, a clinical resource offering a safe and affirming environment for the transgender and nonbinary community. His clinical interest involved caring for those living with and at risk for HIV, an experience that continues to drive his passion to identify and eliminate barriers to equitable access to care. Dr. Goldstein is a graduate of Tufts University, where he also earned his MD and PhD.
Jenny Chiang, MD, MS, FAAFP
Senior Vice President, Community Engagement and Market Growth, Tufts Medicine Integrated Network
Dr. Jenny Chiang is Senior Vice President of Community Engagement and Market Growth at Tufts Medicine Integrated Network (TMIN). She is a Family Medicine and Geriatric physician with a passion for population health. She has a diversity of experiences having worked in academics, federally qualified health centers, skilled nursing facilities, PACE (Program for All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly), and spent a year abroad in New Zealand as a rural General Practitioner.
Most recently, Dr. Chiang served as the CEO of MetroWest Healthcare Alliance, an independent physician organization that supports primary care doctors and specialists in both private practice and employed models to improve quality of care and patient outcomes under TMIN value-based contracts. She also served as the Medical Director for the TMIN Medicaid ACO, WellSense Care Alliance, which has over 60,000 adult and pediatric members across the eastern half of Massachusetts. The Medicaid ACO has been a leader in alternative payment and innovative care delivery methods, while championing patient-centered, team-based care, centered around health equity. Dr. Chiang serves on the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians, and is Chair of the Physician/Hospital Integration Collaborative Committee of the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband and two daughters.
Breakout Group Facilitators
Jaya Aiyer
Director, Asian and Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network
Jaya (she/her) is the Director of the Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network (APIs CAN), the statewide network in Massachusetts, coalescing over 20 AAPI and primarily working class-serving organizations. Started in 2016, APIs CAN came together in order to build the political power of working class, immigrant and refugee pan-Asian communities, particularly in areas where there is now a concentration of Asian community but lacking political representation. APIs CAN’s mission is rooted in a commitment towards racial and wealth equity for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities while representing the pan-Asian perspective. Over the past eight years, the coalition has had significant wins in advancing progressive policy in Massachusetts and working on the ground with partners to counter rising anti-AAPI hate.
Prior to APIs CAN, Jaya was the Campaign Director at Ultraviolet where she ran campaigns focused on corporate accountability and countering gendered and racialized hate online. As the daughter of immigrants, Jaya is passionate about building solidarity and kinship across communities to achieve a more equitable society.
Catherine Chung
Senior Program Manager, Asian Women for Health
CC (Catherine Chung, she/her) is a strategist with extensive experience in program management and partnership development at mission-driven organizations and high-growth tech companies. With a background in organizational development and human-centered design, she is passionate about building inclusive, equitable, and sustainable communities.
CC values transparency, accountability, and systems thinking in community engagement and advocacy. As the Senior Program Manager of Asian Women for Health, she works to advance health equity for Asian women and marginalized communities. She leads the Parkinson’s disease research program with Tufts University and the Racial Justice in Health advocacy program by the Blue Cross Blue Shields of Massachusetts Foundation.
Previously, she managed R&D programs and enablement at Twilio, led economic and community development for the RI design sector at DESIGNxRI, and managed a national network of student innovators using design for social impact at Design for America. She is a board member at Community MusicWorks and has volunteered at the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and Rhode Island Council for the Humanities. She has a B.S. in Social Policy and Education and a minor in International Studies from Northwestern University.