Project Co-Director and Interviewer

Corinne is a mixed methods researcher focused on harm reduction and the lived experiences of people with addictive disorders and in recovery. She is passionate about researching and advocating for healthcare equity, with particular interest in issues of social justice in the addictions. She first became involved in harm reduction in 2014 in Pittsburgh, PA when she volunteered with Prevention Point Pittsburgh. During this time she learned from Ron Johnson when she accompanied him to the Hill District van site. Watching Ron support service users and listening to his story catapulted her investment in this work.

Interviewer

Deborah Chassler is a social work researcher and teacher at Boston University School of Social Work. When she first heard about harm reduction in the early 2000s she had to look it up. What she read about harm reduction seemed totally aligned with her life philosophy and now she had a name for it. She is very excited to listen to individual histories of harm reduction as part of the Harm Reduction in MA: Oral History project.

Gary’s work began in the late 1980’s volunteering as part of an independent group providing underground needle exchange on the North Shore. In 1990, he began working as an outreach educator for the Healthy Streets Outreach Program in Lynn, MA. In 1991 he accepted a position as Program Manager at Noddles Island Multi Service Agency working for the HIV Benefits Advocacy Program for persons who were HIV+. Gary left that position in 1997 to become the HIV Program Manager for CAB Health and Recovery Services HIV program in Lynn. Over his 13 years working at CAB, Gary helped to develop well-respected cutting edge HIV prevention programs that encompassed principles of harm reduction and served as a model for other programs. In 1997 Gary was a founding member and Board President of the New England Prevention Alliance (NEPA), a group of activists that provide independent syringe exchange and Naloxone distribution to underserved communities. NEPA has conducted civil disobedience to highlight the disparities of HIV prevention in communities including New Bedford, Brockton, Lawrence, Worcester, and Lynn. NEPA was responsible for implementation of the first Naloxone distribution program in Massachusetts (1999) that was used as a model in the development of the first Naloxone Pilot in MA at the Boston Health Commission and OEND program at the Massachusetts of Public Health (MDPH). In 2012 Gary began his work at EDC’s MassTAPP program providing Technical Assistance to communities funded by the MDPH to implement programs to reduce substance use and fatal and non-fatal opioid overdose. In 2016 Gary began providing Technical Assistance to State grantees, Tribal grantees, and Municipal grantees receiving federal funds from SAMSHA through First Responders-Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act Cooperative Agreement (FR-CARA)

Gary served on the Governors Harm Reduction Commission (Oct 2018-April 2019) and The MassHEAL advisory board (Oct-Nov 2019) for a grant submitted by the Boston Medical Center to NIDA. In November of 2019 he accepted the role of Harm Reduction Specialist at Boston Medical Center for the HEALing Communities Study (HCS). The HCS is a four state study that include New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and Massachusetts with a goal to reduce fatal opioid overdose by 40% in these four states over four years.

Anya Lance-Chacko is an undergraduate student studying Neuroscience and Health: Science, Society and Policy at Brandeis University. Anya has been assisting on the audio editing of the Oral History of Harm Reduction Project, and is passionate about navigating ways to increase our understanding and systematic support of people who use substances through research and harm reduction advocacy.

Jess Tilley was introduced to harm reduction in 1996 and has dedicated her life to the movement. Her expertise in the field of Harm Reduction has garnered her an international reputation. In her more than two decades of work, she has been on the frontlines of needle exchange/syringe access and overdose prevention. She is the Executive Director of the New England Users Union with 8 chapters in multiple states. She has occupied and explored many roles in typical non profit structures and her passion remains front line activism. Currently she is working to discover and educate drug using leaders in the disciplines of outreach, community building, advocacy for basic human rights and nuances of human connection. She is also the co-founder of HRH413, providing best practice trainings to service agencies in the true meaning of harm reduction. HRH413 provides services to individuals who cannot or will not access traditional fixed sites. Her latest project is Harm Reduction Works ( HRW), a fully scripted mutual aid harm reduction group that is easily replicated. Currently there are over 20 meetings here in the United States and Canada. The script is available in Spanish as well as French. More information on the project can be found at harmreduction.works.

Alexander Y. Walley, M.D., M.Sc., is Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a general internist and addiction medicine specialist at Boston Medical Center. He is the director of the Grayken Addiction Medicine Fellowship program since 2011. His research focuses on the medical complications of substance use, specifically HIV and overdose. For the NIH-funded HEALing Communities Study - Massachusetts, he is the Care Continuum Core Director. He is the medical director for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Substance Addiction Services and the Overdose Prevention Program. Since 2007, MDPH program has supported the training and equipping of over 100,000 people in Massachusetts’s communities with naloxone rescue kits, including people at-risk for overdose and their social networks.

Galya is currently a MPH student in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She previously was the project coordinator for the Implementation Science Core of the MA HEALing Communities study after graduating from Tufts University. Her interest in substance use disorders research stemmed from her senior honors thesis where she looked at how healthcare providers utilize and experience Section 35 in Massachusetts. She hopes to pursue a research career focusing on harm reduction and substance use policy.