I am a tenured professor at our college — and a Newmark/CUNY J alum, class of 2013. Shelby Boamah is our teaching assistant this semester. She’s a multimedia journalist, teaches craft and Intro to Journalism at CCNY and is also a Newmark alum. You can learn more about her on linked-in.
I am also a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, where I cover race, inequality and public health. My 2018 cover story, “Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis,” was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. My 2017 article, “America’s Hidden HIV Epidemic,” won a National Lesbian and Gay Journalists’ award for Excellence in Journalism. That organization inducted me into its Hall of Fame in 2020. My essay on medical myths was included in the New York Times’s 1619 Project in August 2019 and is published in the 1619 Project Book which came out in 2021. I covered the toll covid-19 has taken on Black communities in America and the environmental justice movement in Philadelphia in 2020 and wrote an essay about life expectancy in Chicago in 2021. I contributed to a special section on gun violence and children in December 2022. Last year I wrote about the dangers of chemical hair relaxers.
For several years, I edited the health pages for the New York Times, working on health coverage for Science Times and for the newspaper at large. I was also the executive editor of Essence Magazine—two different times–where I wrote or edited a number of award-winning articles that I am extremely proud of.
I am the author or co-author of three books, including Body & Soul: The Black Women’s Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being. My first (and only) novel, Passing for Black, was released in 2008 and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. My book, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation, was published in June 2022 by Doubleday. It was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, Publisher’s Weekly, The Atlantic, Time Magazine and NPR and one of the top 10 books of 2022 by the New York Times — and was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize.
For ten years, I ran the undergraduate journalism program at City College, where I continue to teach reporting, writing, pre-med, Black Studies and English. In my spare time I like fishing.
Me fishing and catching in Puerto Rico.
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