Nikole Hannah-Jones, MA

Nikole Hannah-Jones, MA is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. The book version of The 1619 Project was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times. She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she is founding the Center for Journalism & Democracy. Hannah-Jones is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color, and this year she opened the 1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. Hannah-Jones holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her BA in History and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.

Maranda C. Ward, Ed.D, MPH

Maranda C. Ward, Ed.D, MPH, is an assistant professor and director of equity in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership in the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Ward is an expert in advancing anti-racism efforts within health professions education and in designing curricula to enable students and faculty to competently promote health and racial equity in practice. Her research focuses on diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and antiracism educational interventions as well as stakeholder-engaged community-focused studies on HIV, Black women's health, and youth identity. As a member of the DC Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR), she is the principal investigator on Two in One: HIV and COVID Screening & Testing Model that allows her to lead a national research-based educational intervention for primary care practitioners to routinize screenings for HIV, PrEP/PEP, and the COVID vaccine. This research will lead to a set of policy recommendations for overall practice-based changes for all patients and culturally responsive messaging for racial, ethnic, sexual and gender minoritized patients. She is also skilled in the application of participatory action research methods.

We would like to acknowledge the significant contributions of Nikhil Kalita, BS and Sadhana Matheswaran for their roles in researching, compiling, and editing content for this 9-part course series.