SOURCE Service-Learning Academy Leadership Team

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 is responsible for creating 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) and the Department of Health Policy and Management (joint). She is adjunct faculty at the JHU School of Nursing. 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 co-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, and HIV Counseling and Testing.

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. 

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 at Penn State University in Higher Education 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.

Jenai Johnson is a Houston, Texas, native and an experienced higher education professional with a background that spans K-12 and postsecondary education. She began her career teaching elementary students in grades 3 through 5, covering all core subjects and building a foundation in student-centered learning. Jenai is working towards a PhD in Higher Education Administration from Morgan State University, where she has served as a Graduate Research Assistant, an Academic Advisor, and Assistant Director at the Center for Academic Success and Achievement. Known for her dedication to student success, she has developed impactful programs that enhance learning environments, support academic advising, and prioritize inclusivity. She holds a Masters in Higher Education Administration from Louisiana State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Texas State University.

Kelly Bower’s research and her public health nursing practice focus on the elimination of racial disparities in women’s health. Using a lens of social justice, she aims to understand why these disparities exist and to develop interventions to reverse them. Her research examines the role of racism and respectful maternity care in maternal and child health outcomes. She also studies women’s involvement in maternal, infant and early childhood home visiting programs and the impact childhood trauma has on involvement. She applies a community-engaged approach to her research that comes from her 18 years of experience practicing as a public health nurse in Baltimore, currently with the Baltimore City Health Department and the B’More for Healthy Babies Initiative. She has received funding from the Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Scholars (NIH KL2) program and the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. She earned her PhD from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where her dissertation focused on the relationship between residential segregation, food store availability and racial disparities in obesity among women.

My research interests include understanding the role of policy in improving the health of populations, with particular attention to the implementation of public health policies and the role of advocacy and communities in the policy process. Current projects include: addressing the opioid epidemic through innovative injury prevention approaches, understanding residential sprinkler policies as a strategy for preventing house fire death and injury, and maximizing the revolution in auto safety currently underway with the advances in automation and safe systems design. I am also very involved with research and practice efforts to implement firearm dispossession provisions of domestic violence restraining orders and the new extreme risk protection order laws in several states across the country. Much of my work involves the use of qualitative methods.

Haneefa Saleem, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the social, behavioral, and structural aspects of substance use and HIV in the U.S. and globally. Through her research, Dr. Saleem is advancing our knowledge of the social and structural vulnerabilities faced by people who use drugs and other marginalized groups, resulting in disproportionately high health burdens. She conducts research that identifies programmatic strategies to increase access and adherence to HIV prevention and treatment and substance use disorder treatment options for marginalized populations. Dr. Saleem was a 2018-19 SOURCE Service-Learning Faculty Fellow and co-instructs a service-learning qualitative research practicum course, where students collaborate with community organizations in Baltimore to address community-identified needs while gaining practical public health experience. She is also actively involved in the School’s Baltimore Community Engagement Committee as representative from the Department of International Health. Dr. Saleem received a BA in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She also has an MPH and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and son.

Nicole Warren is a certified nurse midwife with more than two decades of combined research, clinical practice, and teaching experience in reproductive health. Her work is guided by a commitment to Respectful Maternity Care and eliminating mistreatment of childbearing persons. Current projects include addressing disparities in maternal health in Maryland, evaluating the impact of educational interventions to improve care of women affected by female genital cutting, and group antenatal care in Mali, West Africa. Dr. Warren is an award-winning teacher with specialized training in service-learning pedagogy and has collaborated with the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Women’s Health.

Tashi-Kali M. Acket is a 34-year-old black lesbian powerhouse and disabled Veteran. She graduated with honors from the University of Michigan in 2018 with a Master’s in Social Work and moved to Baltimore shortly after. Currently, she is the Executive Director for Clay Pots, a small neighborhood community center in South Baltimore.  Her work focuses on education, harm reduction, and the distribution of Naloxone. Previous to her position with Clay Pots, Tashi-Kali was a HIV program specialist. Her work in activism spans   LGBT rights, Women's Rights, Civil Rights of people of color and immigrants, intimate partner abuse, HIV prevention, and sexual abuse survivor support. When she is not working on ending the stigma associated with substance use, Tashi-Kali writes poetry and creates doll furniture. 

Pamela Bohrer Brown a resident of Baltimore, MD, resided in Venezuela for 17 years and is a member of a bilingual/bicultural family. She has been active in the Latino community of Baltimore for over 15 years and worked in a number of health education programs. Cultural competency in health care and access to health care for immigrants are areas of particular interest. As the Prenatal Coordinator of Planned Parenthood of Maryland from 1999 through 2002, she had the opportunity to accompany many immigrant women through labor and delivery as a doula (labor companion). She is a trained medical interpreter and trainer of interpreters. Pamela has worked on increasing access to health care for immigrants with Baltimore HealthCare Access and Baltimore Medical System. She is a member of the Board of Education-Based Latino Outreach; formerly served on the Baltimore City Commission of Social Services and was an Associate Editor for “Progress in Community Health Partnerships”, a journal dedicated to Community-Based Participatory Research. She currently is Director of Maternal and Child Health and Multicultural Programs for Baltimore Medical System and coordinates the activities of B’more for Healthy Babies in Patterson Park North and East.