Marion Leary is the Director of Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing. As the Director of Innovation at Penn Nursing she works to amplify and educate nurses as leaders in health and healthcare innovation. Ms. Leary is a member of the American Nurses Association’s Innovation Advisory Committee and a Founding member of the Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs and Leaders (SONSIEL). She is a host of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing podcast, Amplify Nursing, and a contributor to the American Nurses Association’s official journal, the American Nurse as part of the My Nurse Influencer’s column. In August 2019 she was named as an Influencer of Healthcare winner in the category of Excellence in Innovation by the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2017, she was named Geek of the Year for her outstanding achievements in Philadelphia’s vibrant geek community in the areas of innovation, technology, and activism.

Staff RN at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health for 20 years this October. I currently work on an outpatient observation unit and represent our floor as both the Professional Developement Council and the Nursing Inclusion and Diversity Council.

My name is Horace Hubbard, I’m part of the Dispatch Management team servicing Patient Transport, Clinical Emergencies & ER Radiology. I’ve been employed at Penn for 16 years. Aside from my Penn Commitment and duties, I hold a passion and love for Creative Performing arts, Theater and Film.

Zachary F. Meisel, MD, MPH, MSHP is Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and director of the Center for Emergency Care Policy and Research and at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves as Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs in the Penn Department of Emergency Medicine. His research interests include pain treatment and opioid prescriptions, narrative communication, guideline adherence, opioid use disorder, patient safety, emergency medical services, and patient centered comparative effectiveness research. He has a specific focus on using and testing persuasive narratives to promote evidence translation to patients, providers and policy makers. Dr. Meisel studies ways to improve the translation of research evidence, particularly around prescription opioids. He was the principal investigator of the Life STORRIED study (Life Stories for Opioid Risk Reduction in the Emergency Department) a multiyear, multicenter Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funded clinical trial focusing on the comparative effectiveness of probabilistic versus patient narrative enhanced risk communication for pain management following emergency care. He also directs the Policy and Dissemination core for the NIDA-funded Center for Health Economics of Treatment Interventions for Substance Use Disorder, HCV, and HIV (CHERISHresearch.org). He has served as principal investigator or co-PI of major grants from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the WT Grant Foundation, focused on the translation of evidence to providers and patients. He is also member of the executive committee for the Penn Injury Science Center (PISC). Dr. Meisel has also served as a medical columnist for Slate and Time with expertise in dissemination translation of health services research results for audiences such as patients and policy makers. He is Senior Associate Editor for Health Communication for the journal Academic Emergency Medicine. He served on the Philadelphia Mayor’s Task Force to Combat the Opioid Epidemic in 2017.

Playwright Silos

Nikki Brake-Sillá is a playwright and filmmaker. She is the Founder of DrAW (Dramatists At War) and an inaugural member of Jouska PlayWorks. Nikki’s full-length plays include TROUBLE OF THE WORLD, Finalist (Terrance McNally Award, Lark Apothetae, Space on Ryder - Family Residency), Semi-Finalist (Princess Grace, O’Neill, Bay Area Playwrights Festival), DEAR ANN, Residency (The Mitten Lab), Semi-Finalist (Premiere Stages), IN DEFENSE OF OURSELVES, (MadCow Women’s Voices Play Festival), GTFOH (Orlando Shakes Play Fest), SAY IT AIN’T SO (Philadelphia Fringe Festival). Her full-length narrative, A WEATHERING was a Semi-Finalist (Middlebury Scriptlab) and Second Round Selection (Sundance Narrative Lab). L&D, a one-hour pilot was a 2021 Semi-Finalist (The Orchard Project and Middlebury TV Scriptlab). She has been commissioned by EST/Sloan, RECPhilly, Revolution Shakespeare, and Philadelphia Women’s Theater. Nikki has received funding from Black Spatial Relics, The Sachs Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, Jody Falco and Jeffrey Steinman, The Lark, the Princess Grace Foundation, the Leeway Foundation, and the Regional Center for Women Artists. Nikki received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.F.A. from the City College of New York. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and Directors Gathering. Ginifilms.com

Playwright A Soft Landing

Ang Bey (they/them) is a Black, Non-Binary multidisciplinary artist from Southwest Philadelphia. They create to inspire decolonization, honesty, radical empathy, and intracommunity healing. In all ways, it is their mission to build Utopia through the embrace of imperfection and play. Ang’s work has premiered in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, San Francisco, and more. Ang is founder of Upstream Performance Collaborative and the Co-Artistic Director of Shoe Box Theatre Collective. angelabey.com @tallblackcreative @theangbee