Featured Speakers- conference
G. Rumay Alexander, EdD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor at the School of Nursing. Rumay joined the School of Nursing in 2003 and has held a variety of leadership positions, both within and outside of the school. In addition to serving on the faculty, she was director of the School of Nursing’s Office of Inclusive Excellence, Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion for UNC-Chapel Hill, and provided leadership and resources for the Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Adams School of Dentistry. She also taught a multi-session training program at Faculty Council meetings and continues to lead the Faculty Governance Committee on Community and Diversity.
Her nursing career spans over 21 years in the areas of public policy, advocacy, teaching, and health careers development with an emphasis on cultural diversity issues. At a national level, she has served on the AHA’s Workforce Commission, the board of The American Organization of Nurse Executives, The National Quality Forum Nursing Care Performance Measures’ Steering Committee, Chairperson of the AONE Diversity Council, and a member of the AHA’s Leadership Circle of Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. She frequently speaks to groups across the country on the issues of the healthcare workforce, diversity, and strategic planning.
Erica T. Sosa, PhD, MCHES, Associate Dean for Research Success in the College for Health, Community and Policy and an Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She coordinate the multi-disciplinary research portfolio for the college, facilitating research collaborations and supporting researchers in their work. Her research focuses on psychosocial, environmental and cultural factors that influence health outcomes as well as health equity and Latino health. She is also the Director for the Center for Community Based and Applied Health Research, whose mission is to connect faculty to community based organizations and other stakeholders to develop, implement and evaluate research focused on improving health equity.
Melissa Irene Maldonado Torres, Ph.D., received her Masters of Social Work and Ph.D. at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work where she is adjunct faculty and co-founder of the college’s Latin American Initiative, which provides summer learning abroad programs to Latin America in conjunction with local universities and NGOs.
Torres served as the subject matter expert on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ healthcare professional’s response to human trafficking program, an initiative of President Obama’s Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services for Victims. She developed and teaches a class on human trafficking and social work at the University of Houston and has served as the human trafficking expert for various academic studies in the U.S. and Latin America.
Torres’s research has included the trafficking of women from Latin America for sexual exploitation, policy analysis on the protection of domestic minor sex trafficking survivors, labor abuse and exploitation faced by undocumented immigrants, assessments on displacement and knowledge of trafficking risks in indigenous communities, and exploring the demand side of sex trafficking. She has conducted training on forced migration and exploitation for legislators, investigators, healthcare professionals, and social service providers in the U.S., Mexico, El Salvador, Bolivia, Colombia, and the Netherlands.
Torres has been recognized by the U.S. Congress with a Certification of Congressional Recognition for her presentation to the U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau. She has presented before state legislatures and the delegates to the United Nations on the intersectionality of lacking policies and the risks faced by migrant Latinxs in the Americas, and is a delegate of the Academic Council of the United Nations System to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. She serves as faculty for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s UN Practicum on Advocacy in New York City and the WILPF delegate for the Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights of the United States at the UN, Geneva. For her research and work on the exploitation of displaced Latinas, she was awarded the University of Houston Commission on Women’s Student Award for Distinguished Service to Women. She is an alumna of the Council on Social Work Education’s Minority Fellowship Program.
Brandi D Farrell, DNP, APRN, CPNP-AC, PC an Assistant Professor/Clinical in the School of Nursing and double board certified as both a primary and acute care pediatric nurse practitioner (PNP) for the department of Pediatric Critical Care in the School of Medicine. During her career, Dr. Farrell has taught at several universities and practiced at several of the nation’s premier pediatric hospitals. Dr. Farrell’s specialty focus is pediatric critical care, trauma, and emergency care. Her current research interests include child maltreatment/trafficking; pediatric trauma/burns; and NP scope of practice. Dr. Farrell is a local board member of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, and the APP Co-Chair for the Pediatric Trauma Society. Dr. Farrell describes her teaching philosophy as being based on an influential educator/mentor early in her career. “This scion of pediatric medicine once told me he learns something new every day, and this premise of lifelong learning guides my teaching philosophy and highlights the mutual benefits of student/instructor interaction. I believe that if instructors are open to new information, students can teach as well as receive information. I have based my professional and academic career on the premise that I will continue to grow and learn from anyone in any possible situation.