Ananda Toulon (she/they)
Artistic Co-Director

Ananda is an interdisciplinary artist and curator in the Greater Boston Area. Ananda previously attended the Boston Arts Academy, Boston’s only public high school for the visual and performing arts. Ananda has been involved with Artists for Humanity, a nonprofit program focused on providing under-resourced urban youth with education and employment in the arts, first as a student and then as a mentor. As a working artist she has worked on countless public art projects and private commissions, most notable as a designer for Janelle Monae’s Age of Pleasure album. Ananda also represented Boston in the 2023 Art Battle US National Championships after winning the Boston Regional competition. Ananda is interested in bringing more opportunities for working Boston artists and sharing healing and warmth with her community.

Phoebe Warner (they/them)
Artistic Co-Director

Pheebz is a Boston-based interdisciplinary artist. They graduated from Montserrat College of Art in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary arts. As an artist, Pheebz has worked with artists across the country, and independently, and their public art projects can be seen throughout Massachusetts. As an activist, Pheebz was instrumental in saving the Humphrey Street Studios, an affordable artist workspace in Uphams Corner, Dorchester, MA which provides space for many working Boston-based artists. Along with their business partner, Kristina Sarin, Pheebz operates Crazypants Art LLC, providing painting, public art, design, and illustration services with the goal of amplifying the voices of historically marginalized populations. As an educator, Pheebz has served as a gallery assistant, teaching fellow, and painting mentor at colleges and for non-profits, including Artists for Humanity.

Mea Johnson (they/them)
Collaboration and Advocacy Director

Mea Johnson, Apache, has been a community and cultural organizer in Boston, MA and nationally, for 18+years. Mea is an established facilitator whose lens of racial justice centers communities most impacted by harm and meets their need for equitable outcomes. Mea is one of the founders of a worker-owner catering company that opened a James Beard nominated restaurant in January 2019. Mea is an Indigenous chef and baker with her project, Harm Free Eats, which is at the nexus of farm-to-table, workers across the chain and the urban Indigenous community. In their role as the Environmental Justice Community Organizer for the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB), they led a story-telling research project “Mending in the Multiverse” which centered Indigenous sovereignty, transformative organizing and grassroots struggle. Mea bridged their food sovereignty work with wellness as Harm Free Living, a liberation centered wellness brand that centers Black and Indigenous bodies. Mea has undertaken art as protest with their works, “The Refection Wall Project”, 2011 (commissioned by Design Studio for Social Intervention) and large scale protest art & activations 2012-2023. Mea was selected for the Boston Foundation Neighborhood Fellowship Cohort 2021-2023. They were honored for their work in their field with the Drylongso Anti-Racism Leadership Award in 2019.

Daniel Chonde, MD, PhD (he/him)
Executive Director

Dan is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at the University of Kentucky, working remotely from his home in Massachusetts, where he is proud to serve rural community healthcare centers as well as large academic medical centers. Dan is a practicing neuroradiologist and health equity researcher focused on finding innovative ways to create inclusive and welcoming healthcare environments. He holds PhDs in Biophysics from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Science as well as in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from the Harvard-MIT Program of Health Science and Technology. He completed his radiology residency, nuclear radiology fellowship, and neuroradiology fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to his radiology residency he completed a transitional year internship at Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital where he worked with historically underserved populations. His research interests include using technology to addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion topics.

He previously served as the diversity, equity, and inclusion subcommittee chair of the American Roentgen Ray Society, the first and oldest radiology society in the United States. Prior to launching the Peoples’ heART, he organized and launched a number of innovative diversity initiatives including developing the novel diversityxMESH collaboration with the Medically Engineered Solutions in Health (MESH) Innovation Center, the Mass General innovation group, and subsequently organizing the Mass General Radiology Health Disparities Hackathon as well as RadTranslate, an app to help healthcare workers interact with patients with limited English proficiency.

Bridget Daggett (she/her)
Social Media Director

Bridget is currently finishing her last semester at Suffolk University in the Art and Design program. Her passion for the arts has led her to explore the relationship between the arts and psychology, especially pertaining to health equity and art therapy encouraging healing through art. She is especially interested and skilled in acrylic and oil painting as well as soft sculpture. For her final semester she is focusing on her senior thesis that will conclude her undergraduate career. She plans to continue to work in the arts and dedicate her time to spaces of art that allow people to heal through art therapy sessions, learning empathy through art, and even healing through conversations about different art pieces.

Cindy Diggs (she/her)
Director of Cultural Engagement

Cindy Diggs aka Mother Hip Hop aka The Patron Saint of Roxbury is a life long community advocate and peace-driven visionary. Born and raised in Roxbury, MA, Cindy started out as a club promoter in the Golden age of hip hop. Music and community activism collided when Cindy founded the antiviolence organization Us Making Moves Forever in 1995 and later Peace Boston in 2005. She pioneered innovative music conferences dubbed “Can We Talk 2U?” which afforded first-hand advice via panels that featured iconic hip hop veterans such as the late Jam Master Jay of the legendary group Run DMC and Wendy Day, Founder of the Rap Coalition. By 2000, Cindy’s focus was directed to creating the Hip Hop 4 Health campaign which encouraged inner-city youth to utilize Boston’s school health centers. That groundbreaking project won the American Public Health Association Award, a high honor in the Health Industry.

First and foremost, the People’s heART is about creating a new healthcare culture paradigm, one centered in community wellness and empowers patients and staff regardless of race, religion, country of origin, level of education, or title. As Director of Community, Cindy helps forge lasting relationships and ensure that we stay true to our vision and mission.

Kevin Harrington (he/him)
Director of Client Relations

Kevin Harrington is a Salem-based actor, writer, comedian, and recovering Ben Franklin reenactor turned and immersive guide for the witch trials history and local lore.

Kevin is the creator and founder of GEEKWEEK Comedy Festival and Somerville’s Geek Comedy Night. He is a graduate of ImprovAsylum’s Training Center and founding member of Boston Unscripted Musical Project (BUMP)—a fully improvised musical comedy show. Kevin has been a writer/contributor for “Boston News Net”—a weekly comedy news program broadcasting live before studio audience and airing on the web and locally on CCTV. Kevin was also a writer and performer on the popular YouTube series “Quiet Desperation”—a mockumentary series satirizing the Boston comedy and music scenes. He is the voice of “Higgs_B” the talking Boson particle on the Parsec award-winning sci-fi comedy series podcast “Hadron Gospel Hour”.

Currently, he is developing a narrative horror comedy podcast rooted in the mysteries around the Salem Witch Trials titled “I Kill Draculas”.

Esteban Gershanik, MD, MPH, MMSc (he/him)
Director of Strategy & External Affairs

Esteban is an Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Hospitalist currently serving as Medical Director of Quality, Safety, and Equity for Brigham Health where he leads several initiatives evaluating disparities in healthcare access, delivery, and the digital divide. Outside of Brigham, he consults and advises on value-based care (medical director at Prometheus Analytica/Change Healthcare), start-ups, clinical informatics, public health and health disparities which includes his role as a HIMSS Global Health Equity Network Advisory Task Force Ambassador. Prior positions include as Chief Information Officer, Health Informatics Director, and Quality Lead for the Louisiana Department of Health where he led efforts around Medicaid expansion, the opioid epidemic, and regional disaster management and as the eCare Process Care and Redesign Clinician for Partners Healthcare. His passion for health equity and art stems from his deep connection to his mother and hometown of New Orleans who both nurtured his appreciation in the arts and social justice.

Hyewon Hyun, MD (she/her)
Education Director

Hyewon Hyun is the founding Chair of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Trained as both a radiologist and a nuclear medicine physician, she is the Program Director for Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She has developed and launched novel educational curricula in collaboration with art educators at the Harvard Art Museums for radiology and nuclear medicine residents as well as for under-represented high school, college and first-year medical school students who seek to pursue STEM careers.

Kristina Sarin (she/her)
Operations Coordinator

Kristina is a Jill-of-all-trades with skills ranging from sales and customer service to book keeping, food preparation, and warehouse management. If there is a task that needs doing it, odds are Kristina has done it before. Kristina previously attended Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, MA. Her previous volunteer experience has included work with the Worcester county food bank and Worcester art museum. Having been a former caregiver, Kristina is very familiar with hospitals and the lack of pleasantries associated with being in one. Through her work with The People’s heART she hopes to help transform corporate exclusionary spaces to ones that invoke inclusivity and where patients feel seen and heard.

Lamont Price (he/him)
Doscent

Lamont is a Boston-based comedian who has appeared in every major festival, including: Montreal Just for Laughs, Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival, Boston Comedy Festival, New York Comedy Festival, and Rogue Island Comedy Festival. He has been featured in Hulu’s “Triumph The Insult Comic Dog’s Election Special”, NPR: “Bullseye with Jesse Thorn”, Funny Or Die’s “Oddball Comedy Tour”, was named to Comedy Central’s “Comics to Watch”, and hosted the NBC web series titled “Lamont’s Boston”. He was named Boston’s Best Comedian in 2018 by Boston Magazine and in 2017 by The Improper Bostonian. Lamont has shared the stage with hundreds of comedians including: Hannibal Buress, Eric Andre, Dave Attel, Judah Friedlander, Patrice O’Neal, Jessica Williams, Brian Kiley, Steven Wright, Dane Cook, Marc Maron, Greg Fitzsimmons, Wyatt Cenac, Dom Irrera, Bob Marley, Phoebe Robinson and Louis C.K.

Co-Creator of Boston Calling’s Comedy Stage, Lamont has been a regular host of Boston Calling. He joined the Peoples’ heART in 2020 after organizing an outdoor comedy event which brought together comedians, physicians, and the public to comisterate over the challenges of quarantine during COVID-19 and create a forum where people felt comfortable asking questions.

Alexander Burns (he/him)
Operations Manager

Alexander is a recent graduate of Bentley University. After studying for over 6 months in Spain and working in technology during his college education, he developed a huge passion for the arts and their intersection with everyday life coupled with virtual application. Specifically, he is interested in creating equity for diverse groups in the medical space in order to connect with his heritage and understand more about the medical field. Currently, Alexander is working with Brigham and Women’s Hospital on designing a study around using Virtual Reality to treat patients with delirium.

Meg Carleton, LMHC, ATR-BC (she/her)
Consulting Art Therapist

Megan Carleton is a board certified art therapist and licensed mental health counselor who believes in the power of art to tell stories, create connections, and influence change. From her own arts experience painting murals on the walls of medical and residential treatment facilities, to facilitating community-wide mural painting in response to hateful graffiti, Megan has made creativity the guiding force in her personal and professional life.

Megan incorporates a trauma-informed expressive arts approach in her work to promote connection and activate change within communities and individuals. For ten years she managed the rotating art exhibit at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, a program designed to improve patient experience and provide inspiration to the Cancer Center community through innovative and original environmental art and art experiences. She also has a private practice of art therapy, mental health counseling and consultation, where she uses evidenced-based approaches to treatment, including EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), to help people identify and process internal feelings about adverse life experiences and move towards a sense of growth and integration. By using these mind-body approaches, a path to healing emerges in a way that is not available through words or thoughts alone.

Past co-president of the New England Art Therapy Association, she is currently the Program Manager for Expressive Arts at the Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living, part of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She has professional experience working with individuals and groups ranging from infants through elders in her previously held positions of community based and residential treatment clinician, as well as art therapist in MGH’s Cancer Center and at the Intensive Clinical Program at Home Base: Veteran and Family Care, a program of MGH and the Red Sox Foundation.

In her consulting role with The Peoples’ heART, Megan contributes to our team in our mission of harnessing the power of art, technology and community to challenge established systems, promote representation, address inequity, and spark systemic change in our medical institutions and beyond.

Brooke DiGiovanni Evans (she/her)
Visual Arts & Curation Advisor

Brooke DiGiovanni Evans is the Director of Visual Arts Education at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and affiliated with Harvard Medical School. In this role she implements and oversees arts based programming for clinicians and staff at BWH and affiliated institutions and will embark on research to document and understand the value of such work for the wider medical community. Ms. DiGiovanni Evans has worked with clinicians locally and nationally for over ten years developing and leading arts-based programs in museums and online that focus on building skills to improve patient care. She holds an Ed.M. degree from Harvard University and has a background in art history and non-profit management with over 20 years’ experience working in museum collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard Art Museums, and the Peabody Essex Museum. Ms. DiGiovanni Evans guest edited and authored an issue of the Journal of Museum Education titled “Health and Wellness in Our Community: The Impact of Museums” and is a published children’s book author. In addition to her work in museums she is an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University and Boston University.