November 14, 2025 | Dr. Julian Watkins and Lilliana DeSantiago Cardenas
Description:
We are honored to welcome Dr. Julian Watkins, Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Health Equity Capacity Building at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and a 2023 CHEF Fellow, and Lilliana DeSantiago Cardenas, Administrator and Community Resilience Manager for the Resilience, Impact, Sustainability, and Empowerment (RISE) Sub-Division for the Maricopa County Dept. of Public Health. In this session, Dr. Watkins and Lilliana will engage in a thoughtful discussion about equitable climate solutions within healthcare and public health. Their focus will be on approaches that are informed by, and specifically tailored to, the needs of the communities most affected.
Speaker Bios:
Dr. Julian L. Watkins is a physician and culture worker who serves as assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Bureau of Health Equity Capacity Building. He supports citywide efforts to promote community wellness, reduce health inequities, and empower communities through tailored engagement, narrative power-building, and community-centered program design.
Dr. Julian is on the board of the Catskills Agrarian Alliance, a collective of farms focused on land stewardship, community organizing, and mutual aid. He is a Climate Health Equity Fellow with The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and was recognized by the de Beaumont Foundation as an honoree in the 2023 class of 40 under 40 in Public Health.
He is a visionary, lecturer, and social critic. His public health practice draws from social medicine, philosophy, art, literature, and progressive social movements to invite people to imagine a new way forward as we work to save our beautiful planet and ourselves.
Lilliana DeSantiago Cardenas leads the Resilience, Impact, Sustainability, and Empowerment (RISE) Sub-Division for the Maricopa County Dept. of Public Health. She is tasked with bringing together healthcare, academic, and community partners to address community needs and social determinants of health. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She is the daughter of migrant farm workers and grew up in rural Yuma County, Arizona. Throughout her 20+ years in social services and public health, she has worked on a variety of issues related to social justice, health equity, and access to care from rural Arizona to inner-city Chicago. Career highlights include the creation of the Emergency Stock Epinephrine program for Chicago Public Schools in 2011; Maricopa County regionalization efforts and the development of the Public Health Liaison program; management of MCDPH’s efforts in large scale impact and funding through CDC’s Health Disparities funding; and the 2023 Model Practice Award for healthcare & community partnerships to support the community health needs assessment and improvement planning. Her goals are to ensure that the work RISE contributes to MCDPH will provide representative community-informed assessments and data collection efforts; mobilize for equitable & accessible decision-making; and collaborate in the creation of community lead solutions.