2022-23 Events

Panelist bios:

JANVIEVE WILLIAMS COMRIE is the founder and current Executive Director of AfroResistance, an organization dedicated to educating and organizing for human rights, democracy and racial justice throughout the Americas. Janvieve is a human rights strategist, trainer and organizer with a deep commitment to assist in the building of powerful social movements for racial justice and human rights. She is internationally recognized for her work with African Descendent communities and has worked for the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights Regional Office Central America, grassroots organizations, NGO’s, and the United Nations. Her work has spanned the southern-based United States, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, and more. Janvieve’s work around race and racism has been highlighted on international networks such as CNN en Español, Al Jazeera, TeleSur, and BBC Radio, and as national media outlets such as The Nation, The Laura Flanders Show, and ColorLines magazine.

ARIELLE V. KING is an environmental educator passionate about making environmentalism and law inclusive and accessible to all people. Arielle’s work is focused on storytelling and amplifying the voices, work, and legacies of those traditionally overlooked in mainstream environmentalism. She has a background in environmental racism analysis, developing anti-racism policies for municipalities and school districts, political ecology, civil rights law, and centering community input in environmental governance. Arielle is the Programming Director at Black Girl Environmentalist and the Season 1 host of The Joy Report, a podcast dedicated to sharing positive, intersectional climate solutions. Arielle has earned a BA in Environmental and Sustainability Studies, a Master’s in Environmental Law and Policy, and a Juris Doctor focused on environmental justice and civil rights law.

NAA OYO KWATE is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Ecology and Africana Studies. Prior to coming to Rutgers, she was on the faculty of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from St. John's University and a B.A. in psychology from Carleton College. Dr. Kwate's research centers on social determinants of African American health. She has conducted research on racial identity, the effects of racism on health, and neighborhood resource inequalities in African American communities. Her work has been funded by the Department of Defense (Breast Cancer Research Program), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Kwate is the author of White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation (University of Minnesota Press, expected 2023).

JT ROANE is an Assistant Professor of Geography and Africana Studies at Rutgers University – New Brunswick. His research interests include Black geographies, Black ecologies, Black Gender and Sexuality Studies, urban and rural geographies, African American and African Diaspora History, and political ecology. Dr. Roane is the author of Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place (NYU Press, 2022), which explores how Black communities built a significant if under-appreciated terrain of geographic struggle shaping Philadelphia between the Great Migration and Black Power. For the 2022-23 academic year, Dr. Roane is serving as a Member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, where he is working on a new project about the political ecology of fire and social incineration from 1980 to 1995 in Philadelphia.