Screening of Harm in the Water, A Cinematic Experience by Kendall Moore

Kendall Moore. Kendall Moore, PhD, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and a Full Professor in the departments of Journalism and Film Media at the University of Rhode Island. Before joining the faculty at URI in 2003, she worked as a television journalist focusing on medical, health, race, and environmental issues.  Moore has produced numerous independent documentaries that have aired on PBS and in various film festivals including Charm City (1996), Song in the Crisis (2004), Sovereign Nation/Sovereign Neighbor (2006), The Good Radical (2009), Sick Building (2014) and Jalen and Joanna: A Lead Paint Story (2017). She is also the director of the 2018 “Can We Talk? Difficult Conversations with Underrepresented People of Color” series. In 2025, she released Harm in the Water which won Best Documentary at the Essence Film Festival, and the Diamond State Black Film Festival.  She has received several fellowships, grants and awards for her work, including two Fulbright Scholar Awards: Tanzania (2001) and Jamaica (Specialist, 2004); The Rhode Island Film Fellowship for Outstanding Filmmaking (2007); and, is the recipient of two Metcalf Awards for excellence in journalism in 2015 and 2017. In 2018, she received a NAACP award for excellence in documentary filmmaking for Jalen and Joanna: A Lead Paint Story. In 2020, she received NSF funding for her film project focusing on various efforts to decolonize science. Also in 2020, she was a Fellow at MIT’s Open Documentary Lab (2020-2021). She has been well recognized for her work to support diversity and inclusion. In 2020, she was honored to receive the Faculty Excellence Award for Diversity at the University of Rhode Island. And in 2021-2022, she was selected to be one of 10 faculty members to serve as a mentor in the Mellon Faculty of Color Working group as a mentor. And in 2024, she received the American Geophysical Union Award for Advancing Inclusive Excellent in STEM.  She is a well regarded public speaker and instructor who has presented at national conferences, federal agencies, colleges and universities throughout the U.S. In 2016, she was commended by Crain’s magazine as one of 10 professors of merit in the field of journalism education.  She has been on several boards including Story in the Public Square, The Rhode Island Black Film Festival and The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting. She has long been active in mentoring women of color interested in documentary film production.  She earned her B.A. from Syracuse University in Latin American Studies and an M.A. in Media Studies and documentary film from The New School for Social Research. She completed her  PhD, in art and philosophy, at The European Graduate School. 

Dr. Joy Banner. Dr. Joy Banner is Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit foundation committed to the liberation of the Black descendant community through the dismantling of inequitable and discriminatory economic, environmental, and social systems inherent in the violent legacies of slavery. After earning a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, she taught business communications, marketing, and entrepreneurship at the university level where she advanced to Chair of the Management program. Joy is a proud member of the local descendant community with rooted ancestry that can be traced to the 18th century. The folklore, narratives, and resourcefulness of her community elders and ancestors are the inspiration for the collective and collaborative philosophy of The Descendants Project, in service of the community’s health, wellness, and most importantly, happiness. As part of this work, Dr. Banner is on the front lines of the struggle against environmental racism in the form of petrochemical plants along Louisiana’s River Road, otherwise known as “Cancer Alley.” Dr. Banner is the former Director of Communications and descendant of people enslaved at Whitney Plantation, the only plantation museum in Louisiana that centers the lives of the enslaved.

Craig S. Andrade, RN, MPH, DrPH. Craig Andrade is Associate Dean of Practice and Director of the Activist Lab at Boston University’s School of Public Health (SPH) where he is serves to catalyze and encourage SPH’s public health practice portfolio locally and globally among all members of the school community, including faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community partners. He is also a member of the Dean’s Cabinet and the Governing Council and chairs the school’s permanent practice committee. Previously Dr. Andrade was the Director of the Bureau of Family Health & Nutrition (BFHN) at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH). BFHN’s programs include Early Intervention (EI), Pregnancy, Infancy and Early Childhood, Children and Youth with Special Health Needs, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program, Home Visiting, Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, Breastfeeding Initiative, Birth Defects Surveillance, Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Program, the Office of Data Translation and Birth Defects Research and Prevention. He also served as Director of the Division of Health Access at DPH, helped found the Racial Equity Leadership Team and Cross-Department Racial Equity Collaborative at DPH and was Associate Dean of Health and Wellness and Director of Student Health Services at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. He served as critical care, public health and ward nurse at Boston Medical Center; nurse manager and head athletic trainer at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, MA; and was owner/operator of Active Health, a private health and fitness company. Craig is a registered nurse, athletic trainer, licensed massage therapist and strength and condition specialist with masters and doctoral degrees in public health from Boston University. His research interests include behavioral risk management and resilience-building among children, adolescents and young adults.