Dr. Julian L. Watkins is an Internal Medicine trained public servant who serves as Acting Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Bureau of Health Equity Capacity Building. Dr. Watkins leads city-wide efforts to reduce health inequities and empower communities through tailored community engagement, narrative power building, and equitable program design.

Dr. Watkins is also a Culture of Health Leader, part of a national leadership program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is on the board of the Catskills Agrarian Alliance, a collective of farms focused on land stewardship, community organizing, and mutual aid. He is also a partner at Beverly’s, a Lower Manhattan arts institution. His deep medicine practice and cultural work draw from social medicine, philosophy, literature, art, and social movements to invite people into a larger conversation about community sovereignty, safety, sustainability, resilience, belonging, and care.