Black History Program at St. Philip’s Episcopal

Former White House Fellow Under President Obama
Guest Speaker at Black History Month Program
Greenville, S.C. – St. Philip’s Episcopal Church is excited to announce former Obama administration White House Fellow Wizdom Powell, Ph.D. as the Black History Month Program speaker. Her presentation Saturday, February 22, at 2 p.m. is entitled “Breath, Eyes, Memory” – Reimagining racial trauma exposure, response and resiliency among African American boys and men. The Greenville community is invited to attend the free event at the church on 31 Allendale Lane, Greenville, S.C.
Powell is director of the Health Disparities Institute and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut Health. Formerly, Powell was an associate professor at Health Behavior at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and research associate professor in UNC’s Department of Social Medicine. Powell also served as associate director of the Center for Health Equity Research, a faculty member at UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and director of the UNC’s Men’s Health Research Lab.
In 2011-2012, Powell was appointed by President Obama to serve as a White House Fellow to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. In this role, she provided subject matter expertise on Military Mental Health –PTSD, suicide and military sexual trauma. Her community-based research focuses on the role of modern racism and gender norms on African American male health outcomes and healthcare inequities.
In addition to being a White House Fellow, she is an American Psychological Association (APA) Minority, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Permanente Burch, Institute of African American Research, and Ford Foundation Fellow who received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Clinical Psychology and M.P.H. from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She serves as chair of the APA’s work group on Health Disparities in Boys and Men and co-chair of the Health Committee for President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative in Durham County.
In recognition of her public service to boys and men, she received the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Professional Service Award. In 2015, she received the prestigious Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Outstanding Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty. Powell was awarded a 2017 academic writing residency at the Bellagio Center from the Rockefeller Foundation. Most recently, she was selected as a Health Innovator Fellow by the Aspen Institute.