Board of Directors
Beth Pathak, Ph.D.
Chair of the Board
Beth Pathak is the founder, president, and chair of the board of WIISE. Dr. Pathak is a population health scientist who has spent 30 years conducting research on geographic, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and gender disparities in public health. She is a passionate advocate for methodologically rigorous scholarship which seeks to uncover the power relations that perpetuate socioeconomic and health inequalities. She has published numerous scientific papers and seven monographs, including Parent and Child Post-Traumatic Stress After Hurricane Charley: The CHEER Study, and Heart Healthy and Stroke Free: A Social Environment Handbook. Dr. Pathak worked for several years in state government in North Carolina, and served on the faculties of West Virginia University and the University of South Florida. She is a past member of the United Faculty of Florida (affiliated with the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers.) Immediately prior to founding WIISE, Dr. Pathak completed a two-year visiting fellowship with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (National Center for Health Statistics). Dr. Pathak earned her B.A. with honors from Wesleyan University with a double major in biology and environmental science and her M.S.P.H. and Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Beth has lived and worked in Florida, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Maryland.
Beverly Ward, Ph.D.
Director
Beverly Ward joined the WIISE Board as a founding Director in 2018. Throughout her career, Dr. Ward has conducted research and provided technical assistance to communities and local, state, and federal agencies on social justice, environmental, housing, and transportation issues. Among her papers is Saving Ourselves: The Need For Knowledge Sharing and Other Technology Transfer Among the Islands and Nation-States of the American Mediterranean in Response to Climate Change and Other Extreme Events. She has served on several National Academies of Science Transportation Research Board committees, and taught several courses at the University of South Florida where she also worked as a faculty member in a research center. Dr. Ward is also an experiential workshop facilitator trained in conflict management, mediation, responses to violence, strategies on healing for trauma, and personal growth. She is deeply involved with the Alternatives to Violence Project as a facilitator and helps to provide community and prison workshops. Dr. Ward is a member and past clerk of a Monthly Meeting and is currently the Field Secretary for Earthcare for the Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). She holds degrees from Vassar College, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of South Florida. Beverly has lived and worked in New York and throughout the Southern U.S.
Bob Barnett, MBA, CPA
Treasurer-Secretary
Bob Barnett joined the WIISE Board as a founding Director and Treasurer-Secretary in 2018. Mr. Barnett believes the earth's environment needs to be actively protected, and is especially alarmed about global warming and its social impacts. He also feels that the growing income inequality in the USA is a problem that needs to be addressed. Mr. Barnett volunteers at Habitat for Humanity and is a member of the Sierra Club. As a young man, he was a member of the Retail Clerks Union as he worked his way through school. Mr. Barnett started his professional career working for IBM Corporation, first in a branch office selling mainframe computers and then as a manager in software development. At the time of his early retirement from IBM, he was business planning manager for mainframe operating system products. Mr. Barnett then became a certified public accountant and worked in public accounting for over 20 years, assisting small businesses and non-profit organizations. He earned a B.S. (magna cum laude) in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University, and an MBA from the University of South Florida. Bob has lived and worked in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Carles Muntaner, M.D., Ph.D.
Director
Carles Muntaner joined the WIISE Board as a founding Director in 2018. Dr. Muntaner’s most recent book, Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism in Health Care was published by Monthly Review Press in 2018 to wide praise, including Noam Chomsky’s review (“an indispensable volume”). For over 30 years, Dr. Muntaner has conducted extensive research on health inequalities, including work on the psychosocial work environment and employment conditions in mental health, the measurement of social class in social epidemiology, the effects of neighborhood and workplace contexts on health, social cohesion and social capital, race theory in epidemiology and realist epistemology in social epidemiology. He is an author of over 300 scientific papers and several edited books. He has served as a consultant for the World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization and worked with governments in Latin America, including Chile and Venezuela. He co-chaired the Employment Conditions Network (EMCONET) of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. He received the Wade Hampton Frost Award from the Epidemiology section of the American Public Health Association for his contributions to social epidemiology. Dr. Muntaner earned his M.D. from the University of Barcelona, his Ph.D. in social psychology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and his M.H.S. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University. Carles has lived and worked in West Virginia, Baltimore, and Toronto.
Ellie Margolis, J.D.
Vice Chair of the Board
Ellie Margolis joined the WIISE Board as a founding Director and Vice-Chair of the Board in 2018. Throughout her career, Professor Margolis has worked to advance the rights of women and those underrepresented in the legal system. She began her legal career with a Skadden Fellowship to practice public interest law at Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services, where she represented clients on matters involving receipt of public benefits and unemployment. Recently, she has become involved in the @ladylawyerdiaries community on Twitter, where she helps young women lawyers navigate the obstacles faced by women in the legal profession. She serves on the Boards of the Association of Legal Writing Directors and Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel. Ms. Margolis is Professor of Law at Temple University, Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia. In her teaching, Professor Margolis emphasizes using the law to promote social justice. Her scholarly work considers the impact of technological advances on legal persuasion in a variety of written forms, and is widely cited in legal writing textbooks, law review articles, and appellate briefs. She teaches Legal Research & Writing, Appellate Advocacy, Motions and has taught Sexual Orientation, Gender and the Law. Professor Margolis earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her J.D. from Northeastern University Law School. She has lived and worked in New England, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Julie Rioux
Director
Julie Rioux joined the WIISE Board as a founding Director in 2018. Ms. Rioux has been an ardent anti-racist and union activist for over 30 years. She was a founder of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers and active member from 1989-1994 and again from 2002-2006. Ms. Rioux’s previous board service includes the Coyote Theater and Board Clerk of the Bromfield Street Educational Foundation (d.b.a. Gay Community News). Her current activism and philanthropy focus on a broad range of progressive and social justice issues. Across the course of her varied career, Ms. Rioux has worked in HIV/AIDS research and performing arts management and administration. For the past 16 years, Ms. Rioux has served as a finance and research administrator at Harvard University. Ms. Rioux attended Wesleyan University, where she majored in history. Julie has lived and worked in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Kim Wilson, M.D.
Director
Kim Wilson joined the WIISE Board as a founding Director in 2018. Dr. Wilson has a passion for wildlife and environmental conservation, having participated in several volunteer research expeditions for Earthwatch. She has traveled extensively, experiencing the real effects of various types of governance. From India to Japan, Russia to Costa Rica, Africa to Scandinavia, the contrast among lifestyles and life quality is tremendous. This exposure has brought her a great appreciation for the distinctive effects of strong versus weak national governments. Dr. Wilson is a radiologist specializing in body imaging. She trained in Philadelphia and at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston after graduating from the University of Miami School of Medicine. Kim has lived and worked on the East Coast, in New England, and in the Southwestern United States.
Sarah Projansky, Ph.D.
Director
Sarah Projansky joined the WIISE Board as a founding Director in 2018. She is the author of two award-winning books: Spectacular Girls: Media Fascination and Celebrity Culture and Watching Rape: Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture. She is a strong advocate for LGBTQIA rights and disability rights, and she has volunteered for anti-sexual and domestic violence organizations, as well as in public K-12 schools. Her current research interests include the relationship between Title IX and sexual violence, including both media coverage and Title IX coordinator best practices; and the role of gender and race in the film franchise industry. Dr. Projansky is professor of gender studies and of film & media arts at the University of Utah, where she served a five-year term as senior associate dean for faculty & academic affairs in the College of Fine Arts. She earned a B.A. with honors from Wesleyan University with a double major in psychology-sociology and art (film studies) and a Ph.D. in communications and film studies from the University of Iowa. Sarah grew up in upstate New York, and lived in Iowa, California, and Illinois before settling in Utah.