To achieve the profound socio-economic, environmental and political changes we so desperately need, many of our societal systems will require intensive re-visioning. Key professions such as medicine, architecture/design, and the law (among many others) will need to embrace far more socially engaged worldviews and on-the-ground practices. In this dynamic dialogue, two leading figures who have been cutting-edge, exemplary models of how passion for social justice can inform professional life share their thoughts on what it will take to radically transform professional paradigms.

With: Rupa Marya, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF, one of the nation’s leading figures working at the intersection of medicine and social justice, and co-author of the brand new: Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice; and Deanna Van Buren, M.Arch, groundbreaking activist architect, a major thought leader in advocating a complete rethinking of the criminal justice and incarceration system, and Executive Director of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces. Hosted by: Sonali Sangeeta Balajee, founder of Our Bodhi Project.

This discussion took place at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.

Panelists

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee is the founder of Our Bodhi Project, which promotes practices at the intersection of Belonging, Organizing, Decolonizing, Health, and Interconnectedness. Sonali previously spent 13 years in government in Portland, OR, leading equity-based projects, has been an activist in HIV/AIDS work, environmental justice, and racial equity for 30 years, has 20 years’ experience in dance and music performance and 35 years’ practicing yoga and mindfulness. She sits on the boards of Bioneers and Worldtrust.

Rupa Marya

Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, Dr. Rupa Marya is one of the nation’s leading figures working at the intersection of medicine and social justice (including in investigating the health effects of police violence on communities and helping set up a free clinic under Lakota leadership at Standing Rock). She is also singer and musician who leads the internationally touring band Rupa and the April Fishes and the co-author (with Raj Patel) of the brand new book: Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice.

Deanna Van Buren

A widely-traveled, award-winning, groundbreaking activist architect with 16 years’ experience designing projects internationally and a major thought leader in advocating for restorative justice centers (a radical transformation of the criminal justice system), Deanna Van Buren is Executive Director of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, an architecture and real estate development firm innovating in the built environment to end mass incarceration; and serves on the national board of Architects/ Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility.