International Conference on Social and Environmental Justice Conference Program

May 1-2, 2023 
Fordham School of Law, 150 West 62nd Street, NYC 
Costantino Room 

Organized by: Fordham University, Fordham Office of the Provost, Fordham Office of Research

Sponsored by Fordham Strategic Research Consortia on: Digital Scholarship, Disability, Global Studies, Science and Justice 

Supported by: Columbia University, New York University,  Georgetown University 

Monday, May 1, 2023 

10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Opening Ceremony (Costantino Room) 

Chair: Dennis Jacobs, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs (Fordham University) 

Remarks: 

  1. Tania Tetlow, President (Fordham University) 
  2. Nina Gray, Assistant Vice Provost for Research Planning and Analysis (New York University) 
  3. Billy Jack, Vice Provost for Research (Georgetown University) 
  4. Skyller Walkes, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Bias (DEIA), Climate School (Columbia University)

10:30 a.m. -12 p.m. Keynote Address (I) (Costantino Room A) 

Co-Chairs: Aseel Sawalha (Co-Director of the Strategic Research Consortium on Global Studies and Associate Professor of Anthropology, Fordham University) and Nicholas Paul (Co-Director of the Strategic Research Consortium on Digital Scholarship, Associate Professor of History, and Director of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University) 

Speakers: 

1) Molly Doane, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Fellow, Institute for Environmental and Social Policy (University of Illinois-Chicago), “Climate Stories: Gardening at the City's Edge in Chicago” 

2) Alex Gil, Senior Lecturer II and Associate Research Faculty, Department of Spanish and Portuguese (Yale University), “Minimal Computing and Environmental Justice: A Humble Offering” 

12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch (Law School lobby - mezzanine level) 

1:15 – 3:15 p.m. Panel Discussion Session I 

Panel 1: Access to Healthcare and Social Protection for Persons with Disabilities (Costantino Room A) 

Chair: Ji Seon Lee, Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, Office of the Provost (Fordham University) 

  1. Ezekiel Kumwenda (Malawi Union of the Blind, Malawi), “Access to Health Care for People with Disabilities in Malawi: What are the Barriers?” 
  2. Mónica Pinilla-Roncancio (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia), “Disability as a Determinant of Access to Health Care Services in Colombia” 
  3. Md Khademul Basher (Disabled Child Foundation, Bangladesh) and Most Jahan Ara Begum (Alliance of the Urban DPO’s in Chittagong, Bangladesh), “Disability Justice In Bangladesh” 
  4. Divya Goyal (Centre for Evidence in Disability, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK), “Gender Responsive Inclusion in Social Protection: Towards an Intersectional Framework for Disability Inclusive Development” 
  5. Zachary A. Morris (Stony Brook University), “Preventing Catastrophe: The Welfare State and Disaster Risk for People with Disabilities” 

Panel 2: Ecological Justice and Climate Change 

(Costantino Room B) 

Chair: Robert H. Beer, Fordham College at Rose Hill Associate Dean, Associate Professor of Chemistry (Fordham University) 

  1. Loic Giaccone (Georgetown University), "Dynamic Coupling of Economic Inequalities and Climate Change" 
  2. Gael Giraud (Georgetown University), “Extreme Climate Risks and Financial Tipping Points: A Case for Financial Justice” 
  3. Usha Sankar (Fordham University), “Mobile Air Quality Measurement” 4. Massaro Thomas (Fordham University), “What Precisely Did Pope Francis Contribute? Parsing Key Terms and Claims in Laudato Si’” 
  4. Massaro Thomas (Fordham University), "What precisely did Pope Francis Contribute? Parsing Key Terms and Claims in Laudato Si" 
  5. Carlos S. Zepeda (University of Oxford, UK), “Challenging Socio-Ecological Injustice with Integral Ecology” 

Panel 3: Immigration Justice: Crossing Borders and Boundaries 

(Costantino Room C) 

Chair: Robert J. Hume, Professor of Political Science, Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Fordham University) 

  1. Julie Kleinman (Fordham University) and Alassane Dicko (Afrique-Europe-Interact), “Migrant Rights and Land Rights in Contexts of Conflict and International Humanitarianism”
  2. Clémence Démurger (Ecole Normale Supérieure), “Climate Migration as a Challenge for Justice: Understanding Earth as a Home and Sharing Its Hospitality” 
  3. Auel Aidan (Fordham University), “Hostile Terrain 94: Bridging Academia and Art to Deliver Effective Activism” 
  4. Salman Hafisat and Rasheed Adeniyi Tiamiyu (Department of Bursary, the Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria), “Effect of E-governance on Socio-Economic Development in Africa, a Case Study of Nigeria” 

Panel 4: Digital Tools and Data Analysis: 

Challenges and Opportunities for Social Justice 

(Bateman Room) 

Chair: Fr. Kevin Spinale, Assistant Professor in the Division of Curriculum and Teaching (Fordham University)  

  1. Robin Reich (Fordham University), Adam Matthews (Cornell University), Claire Dillon (Columbia University), Sarina Kuersteiner (Union College), “Academics but Not Activists: The Medievalist Toolkit for Building Bridges Between Disciplines”
  2. Shawn Hill (Fordham University), “Reinforcing Structural Inequality: New York City’s Non-Random Shelter Geography” 
  3. Lauri Goldkind (Fordham University) and Jessica Baldwin-Philippi (Fordham University), “LOVE-AI - A Jesuit Approach to Studying, Teaching, and Doing Data Ethics” 
  4. Meiping Sun (Fordham University), “Is It Expensive to Be Poor? Public Transit in New York City” 
  5. Olena Nikolayenko (Fordham University), “Struggle for Justice in Europe's Last Dictatorship: Women's Marches in Belarus” 

3:15 - 3:30 p.m. Coffee Break (Law School lobby - mezzanine level) 3:30 – 5 p.m. Panel Discussion Session II 

Panel 5: Environmental Justice in New York City 

(Costantino Room A) 

Chair: Marie Thomas, Associate Professor of Chemistry & Co-Director of the Environmental Science Program (Fordham University) 

  1. Alex de Sherbinin, Thinus Venter, Muye Huang, Jane Roschen, Anwulika Molokwu, Yousif Adam, and Tricia Chai-Onn (Columbia University), “An Index of Flood Risk and Environmental Justice in New York City” 
  2. Paul Gallay, Aya Morris, Bernadette Baird-Zars, Jacqueline M. Klopp, Annel Hernandez, Lexi Scanlon, and Hannah Su-An Lin (Columbia Climate School, Center for Sustainable Urban Development), Victoria Sanders (New York City Environmental Justice Alliance), “Advancing Equitable Partnerships: Frontline Community Visions for Coastal Resiliency Knowledge Co-Production, Social Cohesion, and Environmental Justice” 
  3. Stephen Holler (Fordham University), “Project FRESH Air: A Community Engagement Project about Health and Climate” 
  4. Che Cooper (Bronx Green-Up), Audrey Jenkins (The New School; NYBG Mellon Fellow in Food Humanities), Samrah Shoaib (Humanities Institute, New York Botanical Garden), "Food, Knowledge, and Place: Community Gardens as a Tool for Healing and Justice in NYC" 

Panel 6: Environmental Economics, Justice, and Policy 

(Costantino Room B) 

Chair: Marc N. Conte, Professor of Economics (Fordham University) 

  1. R. Jisung Park (University of Pennsylvania), “Climate Change, Human Capital, and Labor Market Inequality” 
  2. Beia Spiller (Resources for the Future), “Charging Stations and the City” 3. Marc N. Conte (Fordham University), “The Challenges of Studying Air Pollution's Health Effects” 
  3. Lanessa Owens-Chaplin (New York Civil Liberties Union), “A toolkit for Environmental Justice Advocacy, The SIGH Act” 

Tuesday, May 2, 2023 

10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. Keynote Address (II) (Costantino Room A) 

Chairs: Sophie Mitra, Professor of Economics, Founding director of the Research Consortium on Disability (Fordham University) and Steven Franks, Professor and Chair, Department of Biological Sciences and Founding Director of the Strategic Research Consortium on Science and Justice (Fordham University) 

  1. Fushcia-Ann Hoover, EcoGreenQueen, Founder, and Assistant Professor (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), “Planning with Green Infrastructure, Myth, Mystery or the Future?” 
  2. Michael Ashley Stein, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School (Harvard University) "“Disability-Inclusive Climate Justice”

12 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch (Law School lobby - mezzanine level) 

1:15 – 3:45 p.m. Panel Discussion III 

Panel 7: Local and Community-based Data and Research for Disability Justice (Costantino Room A) 

Chair: Ruhul Amin, Assistant Professor, Computer and Information Science (Fordham University) 

  1. Elizabeth Lockwood (Inclusion Advisory Group) and José Viera (International Disability Alliance), “Citizen-Generated Data and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities: Ensuring Inclusion and Representation” 
  2. Joerg Weber (CBM Christoffel-Blindenmission, Germany & University of Cape Town,South Africa) and Shaun Grech (CBM Christian Blind Mission & University of Cape Town, South Africa), “Localization of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD): from rhetoric to practice.” 
  3. Pradeep Kumar Bagival (Humanity and Inclusion, Lao PDR), “Access to Justice through Effective Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Asia-Pacific Region” 
  4. Ben Mayala, Katherine Theiss, and Sophie Mitra (Fordham University), “Zooming in on Disability Rights within Countries” 

Panel 8: Global Perspectives on Environmental Justice 

(Costantino Room B) 

Chair: Rachel Annunziato, Professor of Psychology; Associate Dean, Fordham College at Rose Hill (Fordham University) 

  1. Kevin Aviles-Rodríguez (Fordham University), “In Search of Resilience: Informing Biological Conservation in Puerto Rico Through the Perspective of Environmental Justice” 
  2. Dena Montague (University of California at Santa Barbara) and Stewart Isaacs (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “Energy Justice: Green Hydrogen Production and Distribution in Namibia” 
  3. Eni Onyekachi (Alex-Ekwueme Federal University, Nigeria), “Stemming the Tide of Environmental Injustice in Africa's Mining Industry through Judicial Activism: The Case of Nigeria and South-Africa” 
  4. Clara Rodriguez (Fordham University) and Carmen E. Collins (St. John’s University), “Puerto Rico and Efforts to Address Climate Change and Environmental Justice”
  5. Meiyan Zhang (Sanming University, China), Recep Ulucat (Erciyes University, Turkey) and Yaoqi Zhang (Auburn University), “Social Justice for Ecological Conservation and Easement for Household's Forestland in China” 

Panel 9: Immigration Justice from Global Perspectives 

(Costantino Room C) 

Chair: Lisa Lancia, Director, Office of International Initiatives (Fordham University) 

  1. Pavel Kantor (Center for Curative Pedagogics, Moscow, Russia), “Living Independently and Being Included in the Community for Individuals with Mental Disorders in Russia”
  2. Nicole Spicer (Victorian Government Solicitor's Office, Australia), “Voice, Truth, and Treaty -- What is this and Why Does it Matter? What does it have to do with Justice?” 4. Yingyan Gong (Ningbo University, China), “Religious Faith vs. Social Justice: A Chinese Catholic in Ming-Qing Transition” 
  3. Yingyan Gong (Ningbo University, China), “Religious Faith vs. Social Justice: A Chinese Catholic in Ming-Qing Transition”
  4. Volha Shalkouskaya (University of Manchester, UK and Saint Philaret's Institute, Russia), “Spacewalk: First Steps of a Russian NGO in Organizing Assisted Living for Ex-Residents of Welfare Institutions” 

Panel 10: Digital Storyworlds: Recovery and Discovery 

(Bateman Room) 

Chair: Nicholas Paul, Associate Professor of History (Fordham University) 

  1. Roger Panetta (Fordham University), “Shadows On Stone: The Sing Sing Admission Registers 1860-1925 - An NEH Digital Crowdsourcing Project” 
  2. Christina Bruno (Fordham University) and Katherina Fostano (Fordham University), “Medieval New York: Immersive Digital Storytelling and the Global Middle Ages” 3. Tianai Ren and Vineha Ramesh (Columbia University), “Counter-Narratives: A Digital Reimagination of Marginalized Stories” 
  3. Brian Reilly (Fordham University), “Rutebeuf's Brouhaha: A Data Analysis of the Construction of Difference in Thirteenth-Century French” 
  4. Christina Bruno (Fordham University) and Katherina Fostano (Fordham University), "Medieval New York: Immersive Digital Storytelling and the Global Middle Ages" 

3:45 – 4 p.m. Coffee Break (Law School lobby - mezzanine level) 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Closing Discussion (Costantino Room A) 

Moderator: George Hong, Chief Research Officer and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs (Fordham University) 

Participants: Steven Franks; Nicolas Paul; Aseel Sawalha; and Sophie Mitra (Fordham University) 

5 p.m. Closing Remarks: 

George Hong, Chief Research Officer and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs (Fordham University) 

The Conference organizing committee consists of Tihana Abiala, Steven Franks, George Hong, Sophie Mitra, Nicholas Paul, and Aseel Sawalha. The conference organizing committee is grateful for the considerable support received from the following colleagues: Su-Je Cho, Marc N. Conte, David Heston, Elizabeth Munnelly, Tripat Rihal, and Rafael Zapata. Financial support provided by the Office of Research, Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, and Department of Biological Sciences.