THE CONTRIBUTORS

GULNAHAR (NAHAR) ALAM, has been an organizer in the United States and Bangladesh for 28 years. She works towards a vision in which all workers are treated with respect and their rights are enforced. She has been organizing South Asian immigrant workers in New York City since 1993 through several grassroots Asian-Pacific Islander community organizations. Alam was instrumental in founding Andolan in 1998, a community group focusing on organizing low-wage South Asian women workers. She provides presentations and trainings to workers, law students and other organizations serving the community. Alam represented Andolan at the World Conference against Racism in South Africa (2001) and Switzerland (2005). She received the Susan B. Anthony Award from NOW (1996). In June 2010, New York State passed a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights with the advocacy of Andolan. Since 2008, Alam has worked as a ommunity health worker at the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH) at NYU Grossman School of Medicine on interventions to improve diabetes management and breast cancer screening. She participates in mentorship and training opportunities with her peers to share best practices and provide social support.

SHAHMIR H. ALI, BA, is a doctoral student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the NYU School of Global Public Health. His current research focuses on interpersonal and community level factors involved in the eating behaviors of young and second-generation Asian Americans, and how these factors can be integrated into innovative intervention designs to address non-communicable disease disparities. His past publications and work have spanned projects in the United States, Australia, Pakistan, and China on topics ranging from innovative approaches in health promotion (such as mHealth) and understanding cultural, environmental, and social influences on health. Ali completed his bachelor's degree in public health and political science at Johns Hopkins University where he was a recipient of the Woodrow Wilson research fellowship. During this time, he was employed with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (US), Griffith University Centre for Environment and Population Health (Australia), and George Institute for Global Health (China) on various research projects.

LARISSA R. BURKA, BSN, RN, is a registered nurse currently working in New York City. She graduated from New York University with degrees in Nursing and Global Public Health. Her research has focused on health disparities among immigrant populations and language barriers in the healthcare field. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served on the frontlines and is currently involved in several research projects associated with the psychological impact of the pandemic on healthcare workers. She is presently serving as the EU Coordinator on a global COVID team project. She plans to pursue a Master's in Public Health and a PhD in the near future.

ANDREA CARACOSTIS, MD, MPH, has been the Chief Executive Officer at the Asian American Health Coalition dba HOPE Clinic since 2007. HOPE Clinic is a Federally Qualified Health Center that provides care at four locations to the large multicultural and multilingual community in southwest and northeast Houston. A unique characteristic of HOPE Clinic is its capacity to provide services in more than 25 languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean, Burmese, Arabic and Spanish. Caracostis' career has centered on quality healthcare access and passion for eliminating disparities and improving the health status of minorities and other underserved communities. She has made tremendous contributions to HOPE Clinic's success, and her important work has made a transformative difference to the community. Caracostis has served as a board member of the Susan G. Komen Medical Board, the Asian American Pacific Islander Community Health Centers, and the MD Anderson Institutional Review Board. She is currently a board member of Harris Health System and the Texas Association of Community Health Centers.

NADINE L. CHAN, PhD, MPH, is the Assistant Chief of Assessment, Policy Development, and Evaluation at Public Health - Seattle and King County and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health. She has over 20 years of experience using participatory approaches to evaluate multi-level and multi-sector strategies to improve health equity. Chan is currently a co-Principal Investigator of the Racial Ethnic Approaches to Community Health and a co-Principal Investigator of a mixed-methods evaluation of Seattle's sweetened beverage tax. She previously was a co-investigator of several community health interventions funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as a natural experiment of the King County menu labeling policy. She leads a team of senior level epidemiologists and social research scientists and launched a study team to develop the evaluation for the Best Starts for Kids Initiative, which includes the Communities of Opportunity initiative, a public/private partnership with The Seattle Foundation. Chan previously served as Chair, Program Chair, and Secretary for the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus for Public Health.

PERLA CHEBLI, PhD, MPH, is a postdoctoral researcher at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Section for Health Equity. Her research leverages community engagement strategies to explore cancer disparities in underserved immigrant communities and facilitate the adaptation and implementation of evidence-based interventions. Her current work includes examining cultural and contextual determinants of HPV vaccine acceptance and hesitancy in Arab and Mexican communities in New York City to inform the development of a culturally adapted multilevel campaign. Chebli is a Social Determinants of Health Emerging Scholar with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded training program at Scholars Strategy Network and a Dissemination and Implementation Scholar with the Cancer Prevention and Control Network. She earned her master's in public health at New York University and PhD in public health sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

IONA CHENG, PhD, MPH, is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a cancer and genetic epidemiologist, and Principal Investigator of multiple NIH- and foundation-funded projects aimed at examining genetics, lifestyle factors, and neighborhood characteristics in relation to cancer risk. Cheng has an extensive research program investigating racial/ethnic differences in cancer risk and has expertise in leading population-based cancer surveillance studies that document the variation in cancer incidence and mortality patterns across race/ethnicity.

JOHN J. CHIN, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College, City University of New York. His research focuses on access to social and health services for under-served urban communities, including immigrant communities and communities of color. His NIH-funded research has examined the role of immigrant-led community institutions in delivering HIV prevention and stigma-reduction messages. He recently completed an NIH-funded study of HIV risk, working conditions, and experiences with law enforcement for Asian immigrant women working in sexually oriented massage parlors. Prior to his academic career, Chin helped to found the Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (now a Federally Qualified Health Center known as Apicha Community Health Center), where he served as Deputy Executive Director. Chin was a member of the National Institutes of Health Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council and is currently the chair of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health Policy Research Scholars Program. Chin has a PhD in Urban Planning from Columbia University, an MS in Urban Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research, and a BA from Cornell University.

MATTHEW K. CHIN, MPH, is a Research Coordinator at the NYU Center for Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH) at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. His work entails conducting community-centered research projects that examine disparities among Asian American subgroups and other underserved racial and ethnic minority groups in order to inform policy and programs. His recent projects have entailed investigating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Asian American subgroups, conducting a community needs assessment for older adult immigrants in New York City, and exploring methods for retrospectively improving race/ethnicity classification in secondary datasets. Previously he worked at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, where he conducted research and evaluation projects to improve culturally tailored care and services for the Chinese American community. Chin completed his MPH with a concentration in epidemiology and biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow and earned his BA in Health, Behavior & Society and History of Medicine at the University of Rochester.

JULIET K. CHOI, JD, is the president and Chief Executive Officer of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF), a national health justice organization which influences policy, mobilizes communities, and strengthens programs and organizations to improve the health of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. She served in the Obama administration as the former chief of staff and senior...