Feingold Excellence in Diversity Faculty Award: Melissa Creary

Established in 2004, the Eugene Feingold Excellence in Diversity Award recognizes faculty, staff and students who excel at advocating for a more equitable, inclusive and just School of Public Health. Melissa Creary, assistant professor of health management and policy and global public health, is the 2023 faculty recipient of this award for her powerful work in anti-racism.

Creary is an emerging leader in research and education in the area of anti-racism. Her work is focused on actively and explicitly identifying racism in policy, practice and technology, and directly addressing and dismantling racism through anti-racist education, research and public health praxis.

She has created a framework—Bounded Justice—which is defined as addressing the entanglement of justice, inclusion and citizenship for vulnerable populations, and calls for a deep, ongoing and community-based engagement with socio-historical injustices at the same time that we attend to current and specific needs.

In a recent publication, Creary considered the ethical conceptualization of justice and built on her previous research of social movements around sickle cell disease in Brazil. This research identified how health and social policies, even when grounded in ideals of justice, are bounded by socio-historical constraints, and thus only accomplish “bounded justice” at best.

“She arrived at our school as an effective and committed anti-racist scholar before it became such a widely discussed topic in public health,” said Scott Greer, professor of health management and policy. “As a colleague and a voice within and beyond the University, she is exceptional.”

In addition to her active research, Creary is a leading educator on anti-racism. Along with her colleague Dr. Paul Fleming of the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, she is developing a multi-part faculty training initiative aimed at confronting racism in public health education. 

Through the development of an online MOOC course titled Health Equity via Anti-Racist Teaching, or HEART, they seek to train public health instructors on how to implement anti-racist teaching principles and reduce barriers to anti-racist teaching methods. In addition to the course and its related materials, Creary and Fleming have worked with Dr. Whitney Peoples, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Michigan Public Health, to publish a paper defining anti-racist pedagogy and the key principles to developing and delivering it for the field of public health (American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2023).

“Melissa works tirelessly in these endeavors,” said Holly Jarman, professor of health management and policy. “What is perhaps less obvious is the extent to which she furthers these ideals in every interaction. She does the work, every day, to not only further the core values of Michigan Public Health, but to hold us all accountable to those values.”

Creary’s colleagues have noted how she inspires students grappling with questions about creating a just society, and mentors those experiencing marginalization. She often leads faculty discussions that require an anti-racist lens in areas ranging from recruitment to curriculum to administration to research impact and practice, and engages with faculty who are more senior in rank.

She has workshopped with Michigan Public Health faculty and has infused DEI content into a mandatory undergraduate course, all while advising masters and doctoral students. These courses span an extraordinary range of students and pedagogical approaches, and her commitment to intentionality and DEI is evident in all she does.

“Throughout the years, she spoke with a clear and powerful voice to students and her colleagues alike, teaching us all a lesson about how to be a good colleague and an agent of change at the same time,” Greer said. “We are lucky to have Melissa Creary with us as we work on diversity, equity and inclusion at Michigan Public Health.”