ISI Alums Speak
Community. It’s a word we use often at the Intersectionality Training Institute (ITI). We are serious about and committed to fostering a diverse, international, multidisciplinary community of intersectionality scholars, researchers, and practitioners.
The salonistes who frequently return to our monthly Intersectionality Salons are members of our ITI Community, so too are the members of the Intersectionally Collective, our digital community where we chat and share intersectionality resources. Our ISI Alums? Our ISI Alums are the bedrock of the ITI Community.
As many of our ISI Alums will attest, there’s just something so wonderful and bonding about spending five days in-person together deeply immersed with a small cohort of people who share an interest in learning about applied intersectionality research to do more transformative social justice and equity work.
The magic of ISI is that beyond the intensive focus on applied intersectionality research, ISI is the place where the ITI community blossoms. At ISI we learn, grow, share meals, laugh, and chill, and we do so in community.
People meet new friends and collaborators at ISI and form relationships that last long after ISI ends. ISI Alums have coauthored articles and served as multiple PIs or co-investigators on intersectionality grant proposals and grants, they’ve reviewed each others’ graduate school applications and working drafts, they’ve sought and shared professional development information and advice, they’ve presented at national conferences — ITI sponsored panels at the 2024 and 2025 American Public Health Association annual meetings to showcase the work of ISI Alums — and many ISI Alums have returned to ISI to meet, mentor or network with the current cohort or listen to keynote speakers.
And something organic and magical is happening with our community of ISI Alums. ISI Alum such as Elle Lett, MD, PhD, MBiostat, MA and Marie-Fatima Hyacinthe, PhD, and Jennifer Gómez, PhD have been salon guests. Dr. Lett has the distinction of being the ITI’s only three-time salon guest!
Most of the facilitators of ITI’s virtual trainings, many of the ISI 2025 facilitators and all of the ISI 2026 and ISI 2027 facilitators — other than ITI’s Founder and CEO, Lisa Bowleg, PhD, MA — are ISI Alums! At ISI 2027, Ariel Beccia, PhD and Dougie Zubizaretta, PhDc (ISI 2022) and Stephanie Cook, DrPH (ISI 2022) will each make their third annual appearance as facilitators; Gary Harper, PhD, MPH (ISI 2024) will make his second. Jennifer Gómez, PhD is dropping pearls of wisdom in our Tried and True Tactics for Academic Career Success Series. Watching this brilliant, engaging, and accomplished band of ISI Alums emerge as intersectionality experts is such a wonderful evolution to behold.
We claim our ISI Alums forever! Any mention of an ISI Alum in any ITI communication will always bear their cohort year (e.g., ISI 2022). If we’re short on space, we’ll lop off their educational or other organizational affiliations in a heartbeat, but never their ISI Alum affiliation.
We are immensely proud of our ISI Alum. It thrills us to see our ISI Alums innovate and shape the field of intersectionality applied intersectionality research, policy, and practice, and be good stewards of intersectionality. Indeed, the only thing we relish more than claiming them is boasting about their post-ISI accomplishments. Kudos to our community of ISI Alums!
Below you’ll find ISI Alums’ reflections about their ISI and post-ISI experiences and accomplishments grouped chronologically by cohort. It gives us great joy to claim these ISI Alums as the heart of our wonderful ITI Community.
ISI 2022
The Intersectionality Summer Intensive (ISI) 2022 was the inaugural Summer Intensive organized by the Intersectionality Training Institute (ITI).
The 2022 cohort included doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and research scientists.
A major feature was building a community of researchers working on intersectionality. Two 2022 participants, Lindsay Taliaferro, PhD and Stephanie Cook, DrPh, MPH met through ISI and subsequently became co-PIs on an NIMH-funded study of suicide prevention among Black sexual- and gender-minority youth. The cohort also included Elle Lett, MD, PhD, MBioStat and Marie-Fatima Hyacinth, PhD, who collaborated on a published paper, the subject of which was “intersectional joy”.
Dr. Lett has returned to ISI as a guest speaker, and Dr. Cook is one of ISI's facilitators, delivering session on Quantitative Intersectionality Research (QIR).
Elle Lett, MD, PhD, MA, Biostat (ISI 2022)
Dr. Lett (ISI 2022) is a two-time salon guest (July 2022 and June 2025), is a Black, transgender woman, statistician-epidemiologist and physician currently doing her residency in emergency medicine. A powerful voice in the intersectionality, health equity and medicine space, she has been in the vanguard of physician-researchers advancing knowledge about the implications and risks algorithmic fairness in clinical prediction models and how to mitigate systems of inequity in health services provision. She is a co-author on the American Health Association’s Scientific Statement on the use of AI for improving heart disease outcomes.
Dr. Lett, after attending ISI 2022:
ISI 2023
The program brought together researchers, doctoral students, practitioners, and community advocates to learn how to use intersectionality as a framework for research, policy, and health-equity practice. The program featured Patricia Hill Collins.
Another particularly notable session featured Elle Lett (ISI 2022), whose presentation, “Not On My Watch!”: Guarding Against the Flattening of Intersectionality and Health Equity Tourism, was followed by a roundtable with Greta Bauer, Ange-Marie Hancock, and Lisa Bowleg. The discussion was framed around the question “Yeah, But is Your Work Intersectional?”
Leah M. Marcotte, MD, MS (ISI 2023)
Dr. Leah Marcotte is a primary care physician and health services researcher in the Division of General Internal Medicine. Her research focus is to develop and test innovative primary care delivery approaches among populations who face barriers to access and health inequities. She is interested in learning health systems research—working with health systems to directly integrate research methods and evaluations into healthcare operations. She is currently part of an interdisciplinary research team working to address inequities in breast cancer screening using human-centered design and implementation science approaches. She is the lead author in the 2021 article Toward gender equity in academic promotions, and a recent winner of the Fredrick L. Brancati Mentorship and Leadership Award awarded by the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM).
“The summer intensive exceeded all of my expectations (and I had heard it was amazing!). The content was exceptional — I now feel like I can apply intersectionality to grant proposals and do research more responsibly that benefits communities. I enjoyed the connections with each other. I appreciated the thoughtful and helpful feedback and learning about everyone’s incredible work. I also loved how much we laughed and had fun amid all the learning and growth.”
"It is impossible to express in a few sentences how much Dr. Bowleg and the ITI have supported and influenced my work. Following the Intersectionality Summer Intensive in 2023, I wrote a proposal for an NIH K award — my conceptual frameworks and research strategies flowed readily from the inspiring ISI sessions and reading list. I was so energized by the ISI experience that I signed up for the ITI writing retreat in Great Harbour Cay in 2025 which was nothing short of magical (and was when coincidentally I received news that my K award was funded, full circle!). The writing retreat was an unparalleled experience providing the most gorgeous and serene environment for writing and more importantly fostering connections and conversations that have continued and developed over a year later. For example, after meeting Chioma Nnaji MEd, MPH at the retreat, she consulted for our research team to help develop trainings for community members and researchers partnering in community-based research — she is now considered part of our team 3,000 miles away. I've continued to engage with ITI Collective at Scholar Tier and have benefited from ongoing consultation with Dr. Bowleg about research. I go to Salons whenever I can and appreciate the community and calls to action. Finally, at ISI 2023, Dr. Bowleg told us all that to do intersectionality research we need to do the work for our academic portfolios but we must maintain alongside social justice portfolios — and that work is distinct. I keep this as a regular mantra and reflection to make sure our work truly promotes health equity and benefits communities."
ISI 2024
Giselle Day, MPH (ISI 2024)
Giselle Day, MPH, is a public health researcher and general health science specialist affiliated with the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (a major Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center - VAMC) and the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) in Houston, Texas. Her work largely focuses on expanding telehealth access, telemental health, and addressing healthcare disparities for veterans.
Her latest publication is entitled Demographic and Mental Health Predictors of HIV Care Outcomes Among Women Veterans.
“This training has been really transformative and a confidence booster in my ability to apply intersectionality frameworks to my current and future research. I am beyond excited to continue to build friendships and working relationships with the amazing people I have met here!”
Gary W. Harper, PhD, MPH (ISI 2024)
Gary W. Harper, PhD, MPH is a Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Equity, as well as a Professor of Global Public Health. Dr. Harper's research and community work focuses on the mental health and sexual health needs of adolescents and young adults who experience varying degrees of oppression and marginalization, especially Black gay/bisexual young men, transgender and non-binary youth, and youth living with HIV.
His most recent article is entitled Overlooked, misunderstood and at-risk: Exploring the lives and HIV risk of ethnic minority male-to-female transgender youth.
“The ISI was a transformative experience. It gave me the opportunity to deeply reflect on my research and community work, and to think about ways in which I can better incorporate intersectionality into my research, teaching and community work. It also gave me the chance to connect with a diverse group of scholars with whom I can collaborate in the future. Nice to be in a space where others get it!”
Aaron Koay, BSc (Pharm), MPharm, MSc, Sch, MPSI (ISI 2024)
Aaron C. C. Koay (he/him) is currently a PhD Candidate at the UCL Institute for Global Health. Funded by the UCL-Birkbeck MRC DTP (Health of the Public) and UCL International Scholar Award for Doctoral Training, Aaron's interdisciplinary PhD draws on critical social theories, epidemiology and policy studies to explore how intersectionality can be operationalized in policymaking to promote health equity, using obesity in Malaysia as a case study.
He is a co-author of a recently published article in The Lancet on intersectionality in climate and health equity research.
“The ISI was undoubtedly the most rewarding training I have completed in my academic career thus far. I had an incredibly stimulating, energising and inspiring experience learning from – and learning with – intersectionality experts. The opportunity to engage with scholars at the vanguard of intersectionality scholarship and to meet peers who are similarly committed to social justice was simply unparalleled. Thank you to Dr Lisa Bowleg and all the facilitators for building such a wonderful network of scholar-activists!”
ISI 2025
Dovie Watson, MD
Dovie Watson, MD, MSCE is an infectious diseases physician-scientist whose clinical HIV research program focuses on accelerating equitable HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) service delivery and eliminating stigma and discrimination in sexual health, with particular attention to Black LGBTQ+ adults in the United States. She has particular expertise in clinical ID epidemiology, health equity, HIV prevention research, LGBTQ+ Health, and community-engaged research. Dr. Watson’s work has led to several publications delineating provider-level, structural, and systemic barriers and facilitators to PrEP equity for patients with multiple marginalized identities. She is the recipient of institutional and federal grants from the National Institutes of Health, including a Career Development Award (K23) from the National Institute of Mental Health, which is an equity-focused implementation science grant to design and pilot a novel multifaceted implementation strategy to address provider behaviors and organization-level practices that affect PrEP equity for Black patients in Philadelphia. Dr. Watson’s long-term goal is to eliminate behavioral and structural barriers to PrEP implementation within clinical and community settings in order to achieve PrEP equity among Black and LGBTQ+ populations.
"If you have any intention of conducting equity-focused research, you should apply. There are very few opportunities to participate in such an engaging, thought-provoking, fun, and incredibly informative research intensives focused on this topic."
ISI 2026
One striking feature of ISI 2026 was its keynote by Professor Dorothy E. Roberts, the renowned legal scholar, sociologist, civil-rights scholar, and intersectionality theorist. Roberts’s keynote brought a particularly powerful legal, historical, and structural perspective to the Intensive. Her scholarship has examined the intersections of race, gender, reproduction, science, family regulation, and the law, including in Killing the Black Body, Shattered Bonds, Fatal Invention, and Torn Apart.
Her participation was especially significant because it connected contemporary intersectionality and health-equity research to questions about state power, racialized institutions, reproductive justice, family separation, and the ways law and policy produce unequal health and social outcomes. Her newest book, The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family, published in 2026, also brings a deeply personal dimension to her longstanding analysis of race, gender, and class. ISI 2026 therefore offered participants an opportunity to engage directly with a scholar whose work spans legal scholarship, sociology, public policy, civil rights, and intersectionality. Attendees had the opportunity for an Ask Me Anything session with Professor Roberts, as well as a book signing.
ISI 2025 brought together leading researchers—including Lisa Bowleg, Stephanie Cook (ISI 2022), Ariel Beccia (ISI 2023), Dougie Zubizarreta (ISI 2023), and Gary Harper (ISI 2023)—for an intentionally small, highly interactive five-day program. Sessions combined large-group presentations with small-group research clinics, qualitative and quantitative research sessions, academic-community partner conversations, dissertation and “pain point” clinics, and individual mentoring. Particularly noteworthy was a dedicated interactive session on the Framework for Applied Intersectionality Research (FAIR) led by Lisa Bowleg. This represented an important evolution from the earlier ISI years: the 2023–2025 cohorts had helped shape FAIR in its early development, while the 2026 Intensive provided an opportunity to engage with the framework in a more developed and explicitly applied form.
Attendees were not only learning what intersectionality means, but working through how to conduct rigorous qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research; formulate stronger grant proposals and articles; engage communities; and translate intersectional theory into critical praxis. The presence of Roberts, alongside Bowleg and the other senior facilitators, made the 2026 Intensive particularly compelling as a meeting point between the history and theory of intersectionality, contemporary health-equity research, and the practical work of transforming institutions and systems.
Ceryl Davies, PhD (ISI 2026)
Ceryl is an experienced social worker, social work manager, and social work educator. She a first language Welsh speaker and is professionally qualified as a Solicitor and a Social Worker and has a Master level degree in both work areas. She also has a postgraduate diploma in Community and Criminal Justice and qualifications in project management [Prince 2] and Mental Health.
After many years of combining professional social work with academic roles Ceryl joined Bangor University on a full-time basis in May 2020. This role is focused on developing research and a new Post-doctorate framework for social care and social work professionals. Ceryl also teaches on the MA in Social Work, specifically research methods and Social Policy. She also undertake research through the University with Local Authorities in North Wales.
She combines her academic career with independent consultancy projects through the University or with Alder Advice. Recent projects have included performance evaluations for local authorities, serious case reviews, adult protection reviews, domestic homicide reviews, a review of child sexual exploitation and bespoke research projects including into dementia care.
Read Dr. Davies' blog post about her time at ISI 2026.
"From the moment I arrived, there was a genuine sense of warmth and welcome. The ISI community is one built on curiosity, generosity and a shared commitment to tackling inequities and power disparities through better research. Whether during expert led learning sessions, networking over coffee (and amazing food!) or conversations at the end of the day, everyone was willing to share experiences, ideas and practical advice. The environment was set where learning was genuinely collaborative, with everyone encouraging one another to share ideas, ask questions and learn together. This spirit of openness has left a lasting impression."