Center Staff

Mindi is the founder and director of SOURCE, the community engagement and service-learning center, serving the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Schools of Public Health, Nursing, and Medicine. In this capacity, she leads the team and supports the creation of strategies to integrate public health practice and community outreach activities into academic training in the health professions. These efforts are accomplished in partnership with approximately 100 Baltimore community-based organizations, as well as faculty, staff, and students. Mindi provides programs and services that embrace the values of public service, social justice, citizenship, ethical decision-making, activism, civic professionalism, human rights, diversity, and reciprocity.

Additionally, she holds faculty appointments in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society (primary), the Department of Health Policy and Management (joint), and the JHU School of Nursing (joint). She teaches and supports a variety of service-learning and experiential learning courses on campus. She developed and teaches the Baltimore Community Practicum course (JHSPH) and Topics in Interdisciplinary Medicine: Health Care Disparities (SOM). She created and serves as the faculty co-sponsor of the certificate program in Community-Based Public Health. Mindi also coordinates the JHU School of Nursing’s Community Outreach Program. She worked with colleagues to develop several key SOURCE initiatives, including SOURCE Service-Learning Faculty and Community Fellows Program, SOURCE Service Scholars, Connection Community Consultants, Baltimore Action Projects, HIV Counseling and Testing, and the Identity Clinic.

A Baltimore native, Mindi earned a bachelors degree in Community Health Education from the University of Maryland, College Park and a masters degree in Health Administration from Towson University. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist.

R. Tyler Derreth, PhD. is the associate director of SOURCE and faculty in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His administrative work centers on collaborations faculty, staff, and students as they develop community partnerships that address social issues through various academic and co-curricular experiences. These efforts include leading the SOURCE Service-Learning Fellows program, supporting service-learning course development, community partnership outreach and establishing SOURCE’s research agenda. His research concentrates on the role of universities in cities, urban community–university partnerships, critical pedagogies, and social justice-oriented educational practices. In particular, he is focused on developing equitable urban university–community partnerships through service-learning and other academic practices that center marginalized voices in a critical educational environment.

Tyler earned a BA in English at Dickinson College before returning to his hometown of Baltimore to teach middle school English. He then went on to earn his doctorate in higher education at Penn State University where his dissertation focused on developing a sociocultural framework of community-based learning that breaks down institutional hierarchies. He is thrilled to once again be home in Baltimore working with its communities.

Rosemary F. Riel is assistant director of academic service-learning for SOURCE and a longtime resident of Baltimore since 2004. She seeks ways to elevate interprofessional education through critical reflection, narrative practice, and academic-community collaborations that strengthen capacity for social change and health equity. Trained in applied anthropology, Rosemary centers community-identified assets and impacts in the administrative and programmatic aspects of her work. For nearly two decades her expertise in program design, monitoring and evaluation of experiential education initiatives has emphasized mentoring students and multidisciplinary professional learners. Rosemary envisions a world where higher education institutions examine on-going and historical oppressive practices, commit to critical understanding of identities and positionalities, and prioritize mission-driven partner engagement to grow solidarity work with Baltimore communities and transformational leadership models with health professionals.

Previously at Loyola University Maryland’s Center for Community, Service + Justice and University of Maryland School of Nursing’s Office of Global Health, Rosemary worked at the intersections of place-based justice, social determinants of health, adolescent reproductive health, and HIV prevention. She earned a Masters of Applied Anthropology from University of Maryland and B.A. in Anthropology from the Ohio State University. Outside of work, Rosemary hikes, runs, cooks, meditates, and loves to travel and plan adventures with her family.

Ezzat Shehadeh joined SOURCE in 2018 as our inaugural Communications and Events Specialist. In this role, Ezzat manages SOURCE's Weekly Service Scoop newsletter, social media accounts, website content, event advertising and e-mail marketing campaigns.

Ezzat comes to SOURCE from George Mason University after serving as the Program and Communications Coordinator in the Center for Global Islamic Studies. Ezzat is a bi-lingual (Arabic and English) communications, marketing, programming and editing professional with over ten years of communication experience in media outlets and higher education. He earned his bachelor's degree in communication from George Mason University.

Glenn Ross serves as a Community Consultant to SOURCE. His primary functions with the center include: conducting tours of the East Baltimore community, speaking in a variety of academic settings, assisting with orientation activities for new students, and serving as a member of SOURCE’s Governing Board and Community Council. Glenn is active in a variety of local groups, and provides SOURCE with important updates and news from the surrounding communities. He has been a valuable member of our SOURCE team since the center was founded in 2005.