Premiered on the historic Juneteenth, this installment of the Black Voices in Research storytelling event series offers a unique glimpse into what it is like to be Black, a scientist, and a member of UF’S research community.
About the event
As part of our mission to cultivate and engage each other in honest and vulnerable conversations about race, the UF CTSI Diversity and Cultural Competence Council (DC3) introduces its second Black Voices in Research Storytelling Event. This event underscores the inherent value of telling our stories. Our goals of this event are to create a platform for black biomedical researchers and research professionals (faculty, staff, post-docs, and graduate students) to amplify their stories, to bring awareness to their experiences that have shaped how they show up in their field, and to build and enrich UF’s diverse research community. Innovation, collaboration, and problem-solving in science include the voices of all of us. This is how we usher in a new era of research diversity.
To make this event a reality, we are partnering with Guts & Glory, a Gainesville-owned company run by Taylor Williams. The Black Voices in Research Storytelling Event will feature a cast of five Black voices who will share their stories in a live stream format via the Heartwood Soundstage. These stories will be recorded, resulting in evergreen, shareable videos that can help to highlight the unique experiences of Black biomedical researchers and research professionals and contribute to the growing conversations about race, research, and academia throughout UF and other institutions across the United States.
inaugural voice | Graduate Research assistant | UF College of Medicine
Samuel Inkabi
"Having found our voices, we minorities are capable of telling our stories better and one way of telling our stories is through the various research studies we do because our stories have a great contribution in solving the problems we have as a people and that is 'why is diversity in research important to me?'."
Meet the voices
E. Stanley Richardson
Poet Laureate of Alachua County | Founder and Director | ARTSPEAKS Gainesville
Duane Mitchell, MD, PhD
Phyllis Kottler Friedman Professor | Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery | UF College of Medicine
Director | UF CTSI
Co-Director | Preston A Wells, Jr. Center for Brian Tumor Therapy
Assistant Vice President for Research | UF
Brittany Southern, DVM
Clinical Assistant Professor | UF Animal Care Services
Joseph A. Tyndall, MD, MPH
Chair and Professor | Department of Emergency Medicine | UF College of Medicine
About Joseph A. Tyndall, MD, MPH
Dr. Joseph A. Tyndall, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of emergency medicine and has served as chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine since 2008. He is also the Associate Vice President for Strategic and Academic Affairs for UF Health. On July 1st 2021 , he will join the Morehouse School of Medicine as Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean.
He was appointed interim dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Florida in 2018, the 13th physician and only person of color to lead the college as dean, and served in that position for two and a half years before transitioning to his current system-level role. He is the first chair of color of an academic department in the UF College of Medicine’s history and was the second African American in the U.S. to be named chair of an academic emergency medicine department at a U.S. medical school.
Dr. Tyndall is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the emergency medicine residency program at the University of Maryland Medical System. In addition, he received his master’s degree in Health Services Management and Health Policy from Columbia University in the City of New York.
He served on the Board of Directors of UF Health Shands Hospital at the University of Florida for a decade and was chair of the Board of Trustees for the UF Health Proton Therapy Institute during his tenure as interim dean. Dr. Tyndall also represented the UF College of Medicine as the senior medical school representative to the Council for Faculty and Academic Societies of the Association of American Medical Colleges from 2014 to 2018. In 2018, he was named a fellow of the Council of Deans of the AAMC. His extensive service and activities on boards and foundations include his service as immediate past president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians, and his current role as a trustee and president-elect of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Foundation, emergency medicine’s national foundation supporting education and research in emergency care.
Dr. Tyndall is an elected member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. He has wide ranging academic interests in emergency medicine and is an editor of the upcoming 10th edition of emergency medicine’s most authoritative reference text book “Rosen’s Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice.” He has continuing academic interests in health services research and traumatic and ischemic brain injury and has written extensively and lectured nationally and internationally in the field of emergency medicine. He is board certified in emergency medicine by the American Board of Emergency Medicine, is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and is a practicing emergency physician at the UF Health Shands Level 1 Trauma Center.
Dr. Tyndall is married with three daughters, is an avid cyclist and an amateur classically trained pianist.
About Brittany Southern, DVM
Dr. Brittany Southern works for the UF Office of Research as a Clinical Assistant Professor with Animal Care Services. As a laboratory animal medicine veterinarian, she provides care for animals used in research and supports investigators with their animal models. She is a proud graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine, and completed her specialty residency at North Carolina State University.
She is embracing her current season of life with her husband, who is also a veterinarian, and two young children. They have blessed her with the opportunity to learn how to choose adventure, continuous self-reflection, and to seek peace throughout chaos. Brittany enjoys discovering Gainesville with her family, exploring new restaurants, and dancing in her car.
About Duane Mitchell, MD, PhD
Duane A. Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D. is the Phyllis Kottler Friedman Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. He serves as Director of the UF Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and Co-Director of the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy. He graduated from the Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) at Duke University Medical Center and completed post-graduate training in pathology and neuro-oncology research prior to joining the faculty at Duke in 2005 as an Assistant Professor.
During his tenure at Duke, Dr. Mitchell served as the Director of Preclinical Research at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center and as the Associate Director
of the Duke Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program. In 2013, Dr. Mitchell was recruited to the University of Florida and leads a comprehensive neuro-oncology program focused on translational brain tumor research within the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy. In collaboration with the center’s founder and Co-Director, Dr. William A. Friedman, the Wells Brain Tumor Center has grown to one of the largest brain tumor centers in the United States, with over 100 full-time employees dedicated to brain tumor research and clinical care and drawing patients from over 35 states and internationally for novel brain tumor treatments.
Dr. Mitchell is a leading expert in the development of innovative immunotherapy treatments for adults and children with malignant brain tumors. He has pioneered many novel brain tumor immunotherapies that have been translated into first-in-human clinical trials and multi-center phase 2 studies. Dr. Mitchell has received numerous awards and recognition for his work, including a 2016 Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award from the Clinical Research Forum in Washington, D.C., induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2019, and induction into the Academy of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics of Florida in 2020.
Dr. Mitchell has received over $40 million in research awards as principal investigator and has been continuously funded by the NIH for his cancer research since 2009. His research has been supported by the NIH, Department of Defense, and numerous private foundations, and he is inventor on over 25 patents for novel cancer therapeutics. Dr. Mitchell has served on several national and international advisory boards for industry, academia, and government agencies, including the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Scientific Review Board, and as gubernatorial appointee and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Florida Center for Brain Tumor Research (FCBTR).
He currently lives in Gainesville, Florida with his wife, Michelle Mitchell, and their three sons, Anthony, Brandon, and Austin.
About Mr. Richardson
E. Stanley Richardson is an American poet, actor, playwright, social/political commentator and lecturer.
He is an accomplished actor, some of his many on stage theatrical performances include “Fences” (Troy) August Wilson, “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” (Big Daddy) Tennessee Williams, “The Royale” (Wynton) Marco Ramirez, “Satchmo At The Waldorf” (Louis Armstrong) Terry Teachout, “Tambourines To Glory” (Buddy Lomax) Langston Hughes, “Jesus Hopped The A Train” (Lucius Jenkins) Stephen Adly Guirgis, and “In Splendid Error” (Frederick Douglass) William B Branch
Each of these particular productions explore the theme of race, class and culture in American society.
He is the author of the award winning book of poetry “Hip Hop Is Dead – Long Live Hip Hop: The Birth, Death And Resurrection Of Hip Hop Activism” (2017) and is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Alachua County, Florida (2020 – 2022). His poetry has appeared in various literary publications in the United States and abroad.
His social/political commentary and lectures typically probe the intersections of race, media, artistic expression (specifically music) and popular culture, including the exploration of organic African American Art Forms in a colonial environment.
He is the Founder/Director of ARTSPEAKSgnv. A non-profit organization dedicated to promoting literacy in youths and adults, encouraging creativity, bringing awareness through Art Activism, expanding ideas and opportunity, by providing a medium for expression through the Art of Poetry, Spoken-Word and Storytelling.
He is the Director of the Alachua County/North Central Florida Youth Poet Laureate Program, in partnership with the National Youth Poet Laureate Program, Urban Word NYC, and Alachua County, Florida.
E. Stanley Richardson is a Florida native and currently resides in Alachua County, Florida.
About the DC3
Parallel to the appointment of UF’s first Chief Diversity Officer in 2018, the UF CTSI began to establish its Diversity and Cultural Competence Council (DC3). The goal of the DC3 has been established to intimately examine long-standing and unspoken issues of racial injustice, equality, and diversity within the working environment of the Clinical Research Professional workforce.
The DC3 persists to convene on issues of racism and injustice, meeting monthly since its inception with guest speakers, program planning, and in-depth discussions. Building a supportive, engaged community for research professionals, the DC3 is committed to its mission:
“…to help UF clinical research professionals become competent communicators and actors in the intersectional areas of diversity and culture. With the clinical research professional and community member in mind, this council seeks to develop opportunities in raising awareness of distinct needs for diversity and inclusion, while identifying and disseminating best-practice information in the UF clinical research community.”
Council Advisory Committee
Tiffany Danielle Pineda
Chair | UF CTSI DC3 n| Research Navigator | UF CTSI
Bob Kolb, RN, MS, CCRC
Assistant Director of Clinical Research | UF CTSI
Gailine McCaslin, MS
Senior Project Manager | Office of the Dean | UF College of Medicine
Denise Long
Administrator | Social and Behavioral IRB (IRB02) Committee
Justine Nicholas, MS
Clinical Research Coordinator II | Department of Pediatrics | UF College of Medicine
This event is supported by the UF CTSI and the UF Racial Justice Research Fund. The UF CTSI is supported in part by NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards UL17RRO01427, KL2TRO01429, and TL1TR001428.