In this episode, Syreeta Nolan shares what it looks like to claim your full identity and build systems that honor every body and mind — even when those systems were never designed for you.

This is a conversation about disability justice, prevention, and power — and what becomes possible when we stop asking people to fit broken systems and start redesigning systems to fit people.

You're listening to the Courageous Public Health Podcast, Episode 44.

Meet Syreeta Nolan

Syreeta Nolan is a Black Disabled, bisexual, kink-friendly systems thinker and relentless advocate for equity in higher education. She didn't just return to college after a decade away — she returned demanding change and not to be taken for granted.

Her journey through fibromyalgia and mental health trauma didn't silence her. It lit a fire.

She co-founded Disabled In Higher Ed to build the space she'd never had: where disabled students could be seen, heard, and equipped to lead. As Principal CEO, she has partnered with institutions, policy leaders, and community organizers to reimagine access from the ground up — centering storytelling, trauma-informed systems, and collective accountability.

Now, she's in a new season — one where rest is resistance, prevention is power, and healing is a form of design.

She is in the midst of writing BOOK, a poetic memoir for the soul-centered grievers and radical feelers. And she's developing a national credentialing pathway for BSW-level professionals focused on preventive, relational mental health care.

She researches mental health prevention and trauma care. She speaks truth in spaces that weren't built for people like her.

She leads from the grey: between light and shadow, pain and purpose. That's where the real work happens.

Conversation Highlights

• Disability as identity, not luggage — Syreeta explains why she claims "disabled" as an identity, not something she "has," and how person-first language can erase lived reality rather than honor it.
• From broken systems to preventative care — She shares how years of living with severe mental disability led her to design the Mental Health Preventative Care Act — shifting mental health from crisis response to lifelong, upstream support.
• Turning pain into policy — Syreeta walks us through the moment she left a 1 a.m. voicemail for a U.S. Senator's office… and how it led to a next-day briefing with the Senator's health policy team.
• Generative AI as disability infrastructure — She reframes ChatGPT not as cheating or replacement, but as "generative, augmentative cognition" — the same kind of access technology as curb cuts or texting.
• Intersectional courage in hostile systems — As a Black, disabled, bisexual woman in higher education, Syreeta names how ableism shows up even inside equity spaces — and what it takes to stay visible, proud, and politically powerful anyway.

"My disabilities are not something I carry like luggage. I am a disabled woman — that is my identity."— Syreeta Nolan

Stay in Touch

With Syreeta Nolan:

Email: syreeta_nolan@brown.edu

Request the MHPCA one-pager, share feedback, or connect about disability justice, mental health prevention, and policy advocacy.

With Dr. Kristi McClamroch:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristi-mcclamroch/

Website: www.CourageousPublicHealth.com

Subscribe to Weekly Courageous Public Health Podcast Updates: http://eepurl.com/jcgQv6

Public Health Consulting to Support You

We partner with public health, healthcare, nonprofit, philanthropic, and government organizations to design workshops and facilitated sessions that help women leaders recognize, strengthen, and intentionally use courage as an organizational skill — especially in times of uncertainty, burnout, and systems under strain.

If your organization would benefit from this kind of support, we'd love to connect. Reach out on LinkedIn or through our website.

In this episode, Dr. Zupenda Davis shares what it looks like to choose yourself — in your work, your relationships, and your health. From setting boundaries that protect her peace to speaking openly about women's health and menopause, Dr. Davis brings a vision of public health that centers the whole person.

This is a conversation about courage, freedom, and what becomes possible when women stop shrinking and start naming what they need.

Meet Dr. Zupenda Davis

Dr. Zupenda Davis is the Assistant Vice President of Student Health and Wellness at Stockton University, where she has strategic and operational oversight of four areas: Student Health Services, Health Outreach, Promotion and Education (HOPE), Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), and the Learning Access Program (LAP).

With over 25 years of experience in public health, she has worked across nonprofit, academic, research, and local government settings. Dr. Davis holds a DrPH from Drexel University, an MPH from UMDNJ School of Public Health, and a BS in Public Health from Rutgers University. She is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES).

Dr. Davis is a Board Member of AVANZAR and an Advisory Board Member of Our View. She is also a proud member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., Kappa Pi Sigma (Atlantic County Alumnae) Chapter.

Conversation Highlights

• Visionary + Whole-Person Health — Dr. Davis introduces herself as "a visionary at heart," rooted in mental health, physical health, and equity, with a commitment to creating spaces where people can say the hard things out loud — and feel less alone.
• Courage to Start — and Sunset — a Business — She shares how she turned her natural gift for event planning into an eight-year business (Shining Moments Event Planning), and why it took real courage to close it when the demands began to threaten rest, joy, and leadership presence.
• COVID Leadership Under Misinformation — From her role in local government public health, she reflects on navigating confusion, distrust, and political interference — and why effective public health depends not just on the message, but the messenger.
• Naming Emotional Abuse + Turning Pain into Advocacy — Dr. Davis speaks about leaving an emotionally abusive relationship and becoming a domestic violence advocate, supporting survivors through police, hospital, and court systems with compassion and clarity.
• Choosing Child-Free + Claiming Full Womanhood — She names the lifelong courage of deciding not to have children, rejecting the idea that womanhood requires motherhood, and pushing back on workplace assumptions about availability and worth.

"Deciding to be child-free doesn't make me any less of a woman." — Dr. Zupenda Davis

Stay in Touch

With Dr. Zupenda Davis:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drzdavis/

With Dr. Kristi McClamroch:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristi-mcclamroch/

Website: www.CourageousPublicHealth.com

Subscribe to Weekly Courageous Public Health Podcast Updates: http://eepurl.com/jcgQv6

Public Health Consulting to Support You

We partner with public health, healthcare, nonprofit, philanthropic, and government organizations to design workshops and facilitated sessions that help women leaders recognize, strengthen, and intentionally use courage as an organizational skill — especially in times of uncertainty, burnout, and systems under strain.

If your organization would benefit from this kind of support, we'd love to connect. Reach out on LinkedIn or through our website.