JoAnn Stevelos~Public Health

Much of my writing is shaped by my parallel life in public health. For more than two decades I have worked at the intersection of global health and systems change. That work continues to inform how I write and what questions I follow.

I return again and again to the same questions:

Who is at the table, and who is not?
When should I speak, and when should I listen?
How do we enter a space with humility?
When is it time to lead, and when is it time to step aside?

Writing rarely offers answers.

It sharpens the questions.

Professional Experience

I am a public health strategist, philanthropic advisor, and executive leader with more than two decades of experience designing and advancing initiatives that improve the health and wellbeing of children, families, and communities. My work spans philanthropy, government, academia, and nonprofit leadership, and is grounded in a simple belief: the most durable solutions emerge when institutions listen closely to communities and invest in the leadership that already exists within them.

Across my career I have led and supported multi-year, multimillion-dollar initiatives addressing childhood health, serious illness, infectious disease, and child protection. I specialize in building cross-sector strategies that integrate research, ethics, and lived experience into public health practice, translating community priorities into programs and partnerships that can scale.

My work often sits at the intersection of philanthropy and systems change. I have developed strategies, built partnerships, and structured proposals for foundations, academic institutions, and global health organizations working to advance health equity. Through both institutional leadership roles and my consulting practice, I have helped organizations move from promising ideas to fundable, implementable initiatives.

I am currently the part-time Executive Director of the Andrew Levitt Center for Social Emergency Medicine. I have served in key leadership roles including Strategic Partnerships Consultant for World Mosquito Program, Executive Director of the Coalition for Supportive Care of Kidney Patients at George Washington University; Director of the NYS Center for the Prevention of Childhood Obesity; Director of Evaluation for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign; and Program Advisor for the RWJF-funded Comprehensive Child Sexual Abuse Prevention program in New Zealand. I am a founding board member of The Hope Institute, and I have served on the boards of Eat REAL and the New York State Public Health Association.

As a leader, I practice an equity-centered, trust-based approach shaped by the belief that institutions move at the speed of trust. Influenced by thinkers such as Paul Farmer and Gail Christopher, I prioritize community-led solutions, relational leadership, and the redistribution of voice and decision-making power within complex systems.

I also advise executive teams and boards on strategy, partnerships, and philanthropic engagement, helping organizations navigate the intersection of mission, funding, and public narrative. My work has included collaboration with global health initiatives, philanthropic networks, and mission-aligned partners working to accelerate social progress.

Alongside my leadership work, I maintain an active creative practice. My essays, memoir, fiction, and plays explore themes of survival, maternal complicity, memory, and repair—examining how silence is often mistaken for healing and what it takes for truth to emerge.

My creative work has been staged, broadcast, and widely published, with essays appearing in The Guardian, Chicago Story Press, and other publications. My essay How Do You Forgive the Unforgivable? was nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. I have developed work through residencies at Arts Letters & Numbers, The Church, PS21, and the Roxbury Writing Residency, and have collaborated with artists including photographer Sarah Blesener on projects exploring archives, memory, and survivor authorship.

My parallel creative and public health practices inform one another. In both spaces I return to the same questions: Who is heard? Who is left out? How do institutions repair harm and rebuild trust?

Through my consulting practice, JSC, LLC, I work with a small number of organizations each year on strategy, narrative development, proposal design, and trauma-informed program development. I choose these partnerships carefully, focusing on organizations whose work reflects values of compassion, fairness, dignity, and repair.

I hold degrees from Columbia University (BA), SUNY Albany (MPH), and Albany Medical College (MS in Bioethics).