Reserve Your Tickets!

San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility’s
2024 Virtual Gala: Protect Our Downwind Communities
Wednesday, September 25, 6:30 pm PT

This year’s gala, Protect Our Downwind Communities, will present Keynote Speaker Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and a cancer survivor.

• Ms. Cordova is featured in the new award-winning documentary First We Bombed New Mexico. She has catalyzed a national movement to draw attention to the impact of the world’s first nuclear bomb detonation on thousands of New Mexicans, mostly Hispanic and Native American.
• The program will include a local update by J. Michelle Pierce, a lifelong resident of Bayview Hunters Point and executive director of the Advocates, SF’s oldest environmental justice nonprofit, who will discuss the state of legacy environmental issues in her community.
•  And we will celebrate our Emerging Health-Activist awards.

The US first bombed New Mexico. Then we bombed Japan. Then we bombed a number of islands in the Pacific, and the ships that were made radioactive in these nuclear blasts were brought back home to contaminate our San Francisco Bayview Hunters Point community. Now, more than 75 years later, this radioactive contamination continues to harm our communities and environment. What can we do about it? How can we prevent this from happening again while protecting our people here and throughout the world who were victimized by the crimes of the atomic era?

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Allan Ndovu, MD, is an emergency medicine resident at Highland Hospital. While in medical school at UCSF, Allan worked on numerous climate and health initiatives, focusing primarily on incorporating climate health topics into the medical school curriculum both at UCSF and nationally. Allan also took a year during medical school to examine the effects of extreme heat on pediatric populations. As a physician, Allan hopes to continue exploring the relationships between climate and health, educating healthcare professionals and policymakers about these crucial connections, and integrating his climate work into his patient care.

Aminta Kouyate MD, is an emergency medicine resident at Highland Hospital and a dedicated advocate for health equity, has over eight years of experience with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, Alameda County Public Health Department, and Children’s Hospital Oakland. In medical school, she focused on antiracism and health equity through her role as a scholar in the Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved and as a graduate student instructor, culminating in a master’s thesis which developed a curriculum on antiracism in medical education for a national training organization. Her leadership includes co-founding the UC Berkeley chapter of White Coats for Black Lives, securing a $65,000 grant for the Pathway Development Program, and creating the “Garden of Their Dreams” with the Dream Youth Clinic in Oakland.

Kavya Nambiar is a current third-year medical student at UCSF by way of the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. A true Bay Area native, she grew up in San Jose, the daughter of immigrants from India, before attending UC Berkeley to study public health. She has developed an interdisciplinary lens that she brings to medicine through experiences working in health policy as a senate intern in Washington, DC, human rights with the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, and global health through her MS thesis that explored practitioner perspectives on “decolonizing global health” at a US-Mexico refugee clinic. She hopes to become a future family medicine physician who continues to explore the intersections of human rights, social sciences, and medicine from a global perspective, using her privilege and training to create spaces where equity and justice are not just ideals but lived realities.

Katie Lichter, MD, MPH, is a resident physician in Radiation Oncology at UCSF and a Climate Health Research & Policy Fellow with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Her work focuses on the intersection of climate change and healthcare, advocating for healthcare decarbonization and influencing oncology societies to adopt climate policies. She founded UCSF’s GreenHealth Lab, leading over 20 members on projects such as life cycle assessments (LCAs), OR waste audits, and research on climate events’ impact on cancer care. Her recent LCA and carbon footprint analysis of cancer care, published in The Lancet, underscores her research expertise. She has received several national grants, including for wildfire impacts on cancer care and the carbon footprint of medical conferences. Her work also led to the “Network Greener” carbon calculator tool (https://networkgreener.com/), developed in collaboration with SF Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility.

THANK YOU to our Individual Sponsors!

We are so grateful for your generosity and commitment!
With your contributions, together, we are able to work toward preventing what we cannot cure.

SUSTAINERS
Barbara Erny, MD*
Robert M. Gould, MD, and Patrice Sutton, MPH
Janice L. Kirsch, MD, MPH
Tom Newman, MD, MPH, and Johannah Newman, PharmD

SUPPORTERS
Peter M. Elias, MD, and Mary L. Williams, MD
Rohini Haar, MD, MPH
Michael J. Martin, MD, MPH, and Jeannee P. Martin, RN, MPH**

ADVOCATES
Henry L. Abrons, MD, MPH
Bret Andrews, DO
Tom Bush, MD
Michael Geschwind, MD, PhD
Camilla McCalmont, MD, and Timothy McCalmont, MD

CONTRIBUTORS
Sarah Janssen, MD, PhD, MPH
Penelope Knapp, MD
Jeff Ritterman, MD, and Viv Jen Feyer

We are so grateful to our Institutional Sponsors!

Our generous sponsors make it possible for SF Bay PSR to combine the power of community activism with the knowledge and credibility of health professionals to promote public policies that support human and environmental health.

Learn more about our GALA SPONSORS’ outstanding work to improve climate, health, and equity!

• University of California, San Francisco, Innovating health care solutions to serve all people. — Center for Climate, Health and Equity – Environmental Research and Translation for Health Center (EaRTH Center) – Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment
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• Stanford Medicine:  A leader in the biomedical revolution, Stanford Medicine has a long tradition of leadership in pioneering research, creative teaching protocols, and effective clinical therapies. — Stanford Climate and Health
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• The Permanente Medical Group, Physician-led care that puts patients first.
  Podcast: Putting equity, inclusion, and diversity at the center of care delivery
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• LifeLong Medical Care provides high-quality health, dental, and social services to underserved people of all ages and advocates for continuous improvements in the health of our communities.
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• James Dahlgren Medical, treating and studying people with toxic chemical exposures since 1971.  
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• San Francisco Marin Medical Society Foundation: Uniting dedicated physicians to champion quality health care and innovation for our patients and community and serve the professional needs of physicians in San Francisco and Marin.
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• UC Berkeley School of Public Health, innovating solutions to the most pressing public health threats of our time: climate change, pandemic threats, chronic diseases, and social inequity.  
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• Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter, working around the clock to get stronger environmental and energy laws that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, protect our oceans and fragile coastal environments, and help protect millions of jobs.
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• American Lung Association, California: California continues to have the worst air in the United States for both ozone (smog) and particle pollution (soot). The American Lung Association’s mission is to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease, through education, advocacy, and research.
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• Plumbline Coaching and Consulting: Strengthening Nonprofits for Social Change

SF Bay PSR is grateful to work with our GALA SPONSORS below toward a just transition to healthier, all-electric buildings in the Bay Area.

What is Community Choice Energy?

Community choice energy programs are administered by local governments with a mission to provide competitive alternatives to for-profit, investor-owned utilities such as PG&E. On top of providing cleaner power, Community Choice programs are a great way to accrue benefits locally — rather than to the shareholders of a monopoly, for-profit utility. Choosing a local power provider is an easy, economical way to reduce your home or business carbon footprint and help create a healthier environment. Check out their resources at the links below!

• Peninsula Clean Energy

• Silicon Valley Clean Energy

Why give to the gala? As health professionals, institutions, and environmental activists, we have a responsibility to not only care for our patients and the planet, but to also support health-protective public policies to protect our most vulnerable communities. One policy change, such as improving air quality standards, can improve health inequities and potentially save more lives than the work of any singular physician or hospital. The acute and long-term effects of toxic and radioactive pollution on the poor and communities of color remains a public health crisis. PSR members are committed to advocating for policies most protective of our climate and health, as well as working diligently to prevent future environmental catastrophes.

* Dr. Barbara Erny’s donation was made in honor of Environmental Health Committee Chair Patrice Sutton.

** Dr. Michael Martin and RN Jeannee Martin’s donation was made in honor of SF Bay PSR President Dr. Robert M Gould.