Lisa Asare

Assistant Commissioner of Family Health Services at the New Jersey Department of Health (and 2021 YW Tribute Honoree!)

Lisa Asare is the Assistant Commissioner of the Division of Family Health Services in the NJ Department of Health. She has worked for the Department for 22 years.

She oversees three service units which provide extensive public health services to NJ families promoting and protecting health. They include Maternal & Child Health, Special Child Health & Early Intervention Services, and the state WIC Program. In this capacity, she has led the Division’s work in addressing the social determinants of health through multi-sector collaborations and public-private partnerships, designed to address maternal and child health, and specifically black infant mortality and maternal mortality.

She received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Toronto and a Master’s in Public Health from the Rutgers School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, formerly the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Rutgers School of Public Health and the President’s Award from the NJ Public Health Association.

Dr. Nathalie Edmond

Owner and Director of Mindful and Multicultural Counseling (and 2021 YW Tribute Honoree!)

Nathalie Edmond, PsyD, RYT-500 is a licensed clinical psychologist and experienced yoga teacher who takes an integrative perspective to her consultations and trainings.  She believes that transformation happens when we integrate mind-body-spirit and have an embodied dialogue.  She is trained in multiculturalism and intersectional feminism and takes a trauma informed approach to her work.  She believes that anti-racism work includes addressing all marginalized groups and identities and working towards liberation of all beings. She regularly leads anti-racism and diversity trainings for clinical practices, libraries, school districts, corporations, nonprofits, activism groups and yoga communities.  She also owns a group practice called Mindful and Multicultural Counseling.

Dr Edmond completed her Bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology from Rutgers University (1998). She completed her doctorate in clinical psychology at Wright State University School of Professional Psychology (2003).

Ryan P. Haygood

President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice

Ryan P. Haygood is a nationally respected civil rights lawyer. As President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, he leads a majority-women of color team of racial justice advocates whose cutting-edge work – powered by grassroots organizing, research, writing, policy and legislative advocacy, and litigation – seeks to build reparative systems that create wealth, justice and power for Black, Latina/Latino and other people of color in New Jersey.

Under Ryan’s leadership, the Institute’s advocacy has led to the historic restoration of the vote to 83,000 people on parole and probation, a right New Jersey previously denied since 1844; automatic and online voter registration; ending prison-based gerrymandering for state legislative redistricting; a $15 minimum wage; a package of racial equity apprenticeship laws to expand New Jersey’s workforce; the development of Newark 2020 – a Newark initiative to connect 2,020 Newark residents to employment by 2020; the reporting of COVID-19 racial data; and New Jersey becoming the first state to test all of its incarcerated youth for COVID-19.

The Institute’s advocacy has also led to the historic announcement that two of New Jersey’s youth prisons would close; community engagement in the development of 15 policing reforms in Newark; an independent state prosecutor for cases involving police misconduct; and the introduction of the first-of-its-kind bill for a reparations task force in New Jersey.

Prior to leading the Institute, Ryan served as Deputy Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where he worked for more than a decade. At LDF, Ryan litigated some of the most important civil rights cases of our time. In two of those cases, he defended a core provision of the Voting Rights Act, widely regarded as one of the nation’s greatest pieces of civil rights legislation, before the United States Supreme Court. Ryan also led a successful challenge to Texas’s racially discriminatory photo ID law, under which a voter could present a concealed-handgun license as a form of identification to vote at the polls but not a student ID. In the first ruling of its kind, a federal district court struck down Texas’s photo ID law as intentionally racially discriminatory, a violation of the Voting Rights Act and an unconstitutional poll tax.

A passionate advocate, Ryan speaks and writes regularly on issues concerning race, law, social justice, democracy and power. Ryan received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and B.A. in American History and Political Science cum laude from Colorado College, where he was nominated for the Rhodes scholarship and earned academic and athletic All-American and hall of fame honors as a football player.

Gwendolyn Krol

Vulnerable Population Outreach Coordinator for the Municipality of Princeton

Gwendolyn Krol is the Vulnerable Population Outreach Coordinator for the Princeton Department of Health. Her role is to assess, mitigate, and respond to the social and health impacts of COVID-19 on at-risk populations in Princeton. Through targeted outreach to Princeton’s most vulnerable individuals, her goal is to navigate the pandemic more equitably and ensure that all residents receive appropriate care and resources. Before coming to Princeton, Gwen graduated from The College of New Jersey in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, specialization in Diplomacy, and double minor in Spanish and Business & Society. At TCNJ, Gwen focused her studies on human rights, nonviolence and peace action, and transitional justice in newly democratic countries. In Fall 2018, she spent a semester in Viña del Mar, Chile practicing her Spanish skills and studying business and human rights at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.