Panel: Black Joy and Friendship

A conversation with Dr. Salena Richards, Chloe O. Davis, Jameelah Muhammad Ingram, P.E. and Nicole Daley, Black women role models discuss how joy shows up in their lives and how they nurture and preserve it. Panel moderated by Linda Calhoun, founder of Career Girls. For ages 8–18. 

Watch on YouTube.

Dr. Salena Richards is a Director within Abbott Laboratories’ Global Finance function, focusing on commercial strategic initiatives across multiple business units. Independently, Dr. Richards serves as a mentor to young ladies and youth, encouraging them with her own personal and professional journey along with mentoring colleagues to assist them with their respective career paths. Dr. Richards was honored to be a featured scientist in a permanent exhibit, Inspiring Minds: African Americans in Science and Technology, at the Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan.

Chloe O. Davis is a Broadway performer, choreographer and debut author who works in the entertainment industry in New York. She has centered her creative platform on amplifying the narratives of Black culture and heightening the awareness of the LGBTQIA+ community. Some of Davis’s credits include Broadway’s Paradise Square, Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix, Harlem on Amazon, PHILADANCO! and Camille A. Brown and Dancers. Davis is the author of The Queens’ English: The LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases.

Jameelah Muhammad Ingram, P.E. is a Lead Structural Engineer and Deputy Project Manager in the Washington, D.C. office of WSP USA and serves as President of the American Society of Civil Engineers - National Capital Section. In high school she studied Japanese, and while earning her degree in Civil Engineering from Princeton University, she won an internship in Tokyo, Japan studying the effects of earthquakes and wind. She is fascinated by design and loves working with teams to help communities connect to the places they need to go. 

Nicole Daley is the Director of the Division of Violence and Injury Prevention at the MA Department of Public Health. Her expertise is in the field of teen dating violence prevention, healthy relationship promotion, program and partnership development. She has led teams to develop innovative curriculum for teens and adults on healthy relationships, teen dating violence, media literacy and healthy break-ups. She has a passion for supporting young people in being change agents in addressing violence. Her work has been featured in the Boston Globe and the New York Times.