Moderator

Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, our inaugural Sarah Brady Fellow, works to ensure that Brady's programs are designed and implemented to meet Brady's mission and that national and field assets work together for pragmatic success. A U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an AH-1W “Super Cobra” attack pilot, Dr. Hunter's actions in combat were awarded seven Air-Strike Medals. Dr. Hunter also served as the Marine Corps’ legislative liaison officer to the U.S. House of Representatives and the military liaison for the U.S. House Democracy Partnership. A long time gun violence prevention advocate, she co-founded Veterans for Gun Reform and has appeared on multiple national and international media outlets speaking on the issue. She recently gave a TED talk on the American problem of weapons of war in places of peace. Dr. Hunter is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Masters’ in National Security Studies program. She also serves as the chair of the Employment and Integration subcommittee of the Secretary of Defenses’ Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.

Panelists

Dr. Emmy Betz is a board-certified emergency physician and injury prevention researcher. She is currently an associate professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she directs the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative. Dr. Betz’s areas of research expertise are provider-patient communication about difficult topics in injury prevention, including “lethal means safety” (i.e., limiting access to guns and other lethal methods for those who are suicidal). She co-founded and leads the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition, a collaborative effort between public health and medical professionals and firearm retailers to reduce firearm suicides. She serves on multiple national workgroups related to firearm injury prevention, and her research has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and numerous foundations. In 2015 she gave a TEDxMileHigh talk on firearm suicide.

Dr. Michael Anestis is the executive director of the New Jersey Center on Gun Violence Research. He is also an associate professor of Urban and Global Public Health at Rutgers University. His research focuses on suicide prevention, with a particular focus on the role of firearms and he is the author of Guns and Suicide: An American Epidemic.

Robert Kinscherff, Ph.D., JD, is a clinical/forensic psychologist and attorney who currently serves as the associate vice president for Community Engagement and Professor (Doctoral Clinical Psychology Program) at William James College in Newton, Massachusetts. He is also the associate program manager for the Juvenile and Young Adult Justice Project for the Center for Law. For the American Psychological Association (APA), Dr. Kinscherff’s service has included working as the chair of the ethics committee and the committee on legal issues, a member of the committee on Professional Practices and Standards, and the chair of the APA Gun Violence Policy Task Force. In Massachusetts, he is currently a collaborator with an initiative to implement a coordinated statewide suicide prevention network. His areas of research and practice include a public health approach to gun violence, ethics and law in behavioral health practice, legal and policy implication of developmental neuroscience, and risk assessment/management.

About 90% of guns recovered at crime scenes can be traced back to just 5% of gun dealers. We'll discuss how the Biden-Harris administration can take meaningful action in the First 100 Days to create oversight in the gun industry to save lives.

Moderator

Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, our inaugural Sarah Brady Fellow, works to ensure that Brady's programs are designed and implemented to meet Brady's mission and that national and field assets work together for pragmatic success. A U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an AH-1W “Super Cobra” attack pilot, Dr. Hunter's actions in combat were awarded seven Air-Strike Medals. Dr. Hunter also served as the Marine Corps’ legislative liaison officer to the U.S. House of Representatives and the military liaison for the U.S. House Democracy Partnership. A long time gun violence prevention advocate, she co-founded Veterans for Gun Reform and has appeared on multiple national and international media outlets speaking on the issue. She recently gave a TED talk on the American problem of weapons of war in places of peace. Dr. Hunter is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Masters’ in National Security Studies program. She also serves as the chair of the Employment and Integration subcommittee of the Secretary of Defenses’ Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.

Panelists

Having previously represented victims of gun violence in lawsuits against the gun industry, Josh Scharff brings a specialized perspective to Brady’s Programs and Policy teams. Josh is the director of Brady’s Combating Crime Guns Initiative, which takes a supply-side approach to curtail the flow of crime guns into impacted communities and works to shift the burden of gun violence from those communities to the suppliers of crime guns, including irresponsible gun industry businesses. Josh also leads Brady's government transparency projects and advocates for gun violence prevention legislation and initiatives. Josh graduated from Rutgers University in 2005 and received a joint J.D./M.A from The George Washington University Law School and The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 2010. Prior to joining Brady, in 2017, he practiced law at a private firm in Washington, D.C., specializing in arbitration, civil litigation, and negotiations.

Daniel Webster, ScD, MPH is the inaugural Bloomberg professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he directs the Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy and serves as co-lead of the Violence Prevention Workgroup of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. Dr. Webster is one of the nation’s leading experts on the prevention of gun violence and has published pieces widely on gun policy, violence prevention, youth violence, intimate partner violence, suicide, and substance abuse. He is the lead editor and a contributor to Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Dr. Webster’s research has informed policies to reduce gun violence at the local, state, and federal levels. He previously led Baltimore’s Homicide Review Commission and the Johns Hopkins-Baltimore Collaborative for Violence Reduction. His awards include the American Public Health Association’s David Rall Award for science-based advocacy (2015), Baltimore City’s Health Equity Leadership Award (2016), Pioneer Award from the Injury Free Coalition for Kids (2017), and Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni Award (2017).

Roseanna Ander serves as the founding executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab (since 2008) and the Education Lab (since 2011), which are part of UChicago Urban Labs. In January 2010, she was appointed to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Research Advisory Committee, and she formerly served on the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission. Ms. Ander also served on the public safety transition teams for both Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner. Prior to joining UChicago, she oversaw the Joyce Foundation’s gun violence program and led the foundation’s grantmaking in early childhood education. Before working at Joyce, she was a Soros justice fellow with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and also worked for the Harvard Injury Control Center and the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children. Ms. Ander holds an MS from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Shani Buggs is an assistant professor with the Violence Prevention Research Program at UCDavis Health. Her primary areas of research include community-level gun violence prevention programs and policies, firearm access and availability, comprehensive approaches to reducing violence through policies and programs at the local, state, and federal levels, and intersections between drugs, drug law enforcement, and gun violence. She completed her master’s degree in Public Health and her doctorate in Health and Public Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Gun violence is a public health crisis that claims the lives of nearly 40,000 Americans each year. We know that a public health approach is crucial to addressing America's gun violence epidemic, and, that a public health approach begins with research.

Researching gun violence is not about "proving" the existence of a problem, it's identifying the urgently needed solutions to address all forms of gun violence, like family fire, intimate partner violence, everyday gun violence, and more.

Co-hosted by This is Our Lane, we're convening experts from the medical community to discuss how research can inform policy decisions that decrease and prevent firearm injuries and fatalities. By the end of our virtual event, you will know tangible actions that the Biden-Harris administration can take to begin to address gun violence through a public health approach.

Moderator

Dr. Joseph V. Sakran is a trauma surgeon, coalition builder, policy advisor, public health practitioner, and nationally recognized advocate for gun violence prevention. He is currently the director of Emergency General Surgery, assistant professor of Surgery, and associate chief of the Division of Acute Care Surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

A survivor of gun violence himself, Dr. Sakran’s interest in medicine and trauma surgery began after a stray bullet nearly killed him during his senior year of high school. He has subsequently dedicated his life to treating the most vulnerable, reducing health disparities among marginalized populations, and advancing public policy that alleviates structural violence in low-income communities.

Panelists

Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, our inaugural Sarah Brady Fellow, works to ensure that Brady's programs are designed and implemented to meet Brady's mission and that national and field assets work together for pragmatic success. A U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an AH-1W “Super Cobra” attack pilot, Dr. Hunter's actions in combat were awarded seven Air-Strike Medals. Dr. Hunter also served as the Marine Corps’ legislative liaison officer to the U.S. House of Representatives and the military liaison for the U.S. House Democracy Partnership. A long-time gun violence prevention advocate, she co-founded Veterans for Gun Reform and has appeared on multiple national and international media outlets speaking on the issue. She recently gave a TED talk on the American problem of weapons of war in places of peace. Dr. Hunter is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Masters’ in National Security Studies program. She also serves as the chair of the Employment and Integration subcommittee of the Secretary of Defenses’ Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.

Dr. Chethan Sathya, MD, MSc, is a pediatric trauma surgeon and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded firearm injury prevention researcher. He serves as the director of Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention and oversees the health system’s expansive approach to firearm injury prevention. Northwell Health, the largest health system in New York State, has taken a public health approach to gun violence prevention, focusing on key areas such as research, medical education, clinical screening, advocacy and community engagement. Under Dr. Sathya's leadership, the center has leveraged Northwell’s diverse patient population and wide reach to implement groundbreaking preventative strategies and perform high-level research.

In addition to being a surgeon, Dr. Sathya is an associate trauma director at Cohen Children’s Medical Center and an assistant professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He completed medical school and general surgery training at the University of Toronto, followed by Pediatric Surgery Fellowship at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. He also holds a Master’s in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto, in addition to completing a fellowship in Global Journalism at the Munk School of Global Affairs and a Global Public Health program at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Colleen Creighton joined the American Association of Suicidology in June 2017. Previously, she served as executive director of the Alliance for Consumer Education (ACE), a nonprofit foundation dedicated to the safe and responsible use of consumer household products. She also served as the director of CHPA Educational Foundation, where she was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day management of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association’s educational foundation.

Prior to her work in the nonprofit foundation arena, Ms. Creighton worked in the educational field, having taught civics education at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. Additionally, she spent three years in Lancut, Poland, working for the International World Teach program, an organization based out of the Harvard University Center for International Development. Before that, she studied NATO and the European Union at the Irish Institute for European Affairs in Leuven, Belgium. Colleen holds a B.A. in Political Science from the Catholic University of America and an M.A. in East European Studies from the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany.

Dr. Susan L. Polan, PhD, is the associate executive director for Public Affairs and Advocacy with the American Public Health Association. She oversees the Association's departments of government relations and affiliate affairs, communications, and membership. She is responsible for planning and directing APHA's legislative, regulatory and legal activities, communicating those initiatives and association news to members and the public, and overseeing membership recruitment and retention and affiliate, caucus and section relations.