Previous Mellon Collaborative Fellowship

Common Place

Fellows: Julia Kuo, Dr. Monica E. Peek, Dr. Elizabeth L. Tung
Course: Common Place- Art, Advocacy, and Health Equity

Fellowship Description

Illustrator Julia Kuo joins two University of Chicago physicians and researchers, Monica E. Peek and Elizabeth L. Tung of the Department of Medicine, for Common Place, a Gray Center Mellon Collaborative Fellowship that considers how illustration might play a role in examining the barriers that difference and distrust can form between patients and their doctors.

Although this project began as a broad examination of barriers to medical treatment due to racial differences and distrust, the collaborators on this fellowship were forced to reconsider their approach in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Independent of this project, Dr. Peek became a leading voice in drawing attention to how racial health disparities only deepened at the onset of the pandemic in the United States as the virus disproportionately impacted Black populations in this country. The Common Place trio focused their efforts on these concerns, conducting interviews with and drawing portraits of individuals who identify as Black, over the age of 35, whose life and/or health has been adversely affected by COVID-19. Their work is ongoing.

Illustrator Julia Kuo shared one of her portraits of a local resident and interview subject as part of the Gray Center’s ON DRAWING DRAWING ON Exhibition at the Logan Center for the Arts (January 28 – March 13, 2022). For the show, Dr. Peek and Dr. Tung contributed a short text, Common Place, Uncommon Space: Is Healthcare a White Space? Kuo, Peek, and Tung will have a larger exhibition of their work together in Café Logan in Spring 2022.

Course

Common Place: Art, Advocacy and Health Equity
Dates: April 4-29
Max students: 4

Description: This is a unique study option in collaboration with the University of Chicago Gray Center for the Arts (https://graycenter.uchicago.edu). Students will be given the opportunity to have 2-4 community-based experiences (e.g., mobile health clinic for persons experiencing homelessness, urban farm nutrition program, transitional program for recently incarcerated residents, etc.) over the course of the study block. Students will then work with editorial illustrator Julia Kuo (https://juliakuo.com), widely published in the New York Times, Vice, ProPublica, and others, to chart the course from experience to reflection to advocacy through an artistic lens. In line with the Gray Center’s mission, this study option is intended to facilitate introspection of existing paradigms and construction of a personal pedagogy for advocacy in health equity. Absolutely no artistic experience required.

Fellows

Dr. Monica Peek

Monica Peek is the Ellen H. Block Professor Health Justice at the University of Chicago, where she provides clinical care, teaches, and conducts health services research, with a focus on health disparities. Dr. Peek is the associate director of the Chicago Center for Diabetes Translation Research, the executive medical director of Community Health Innovation and the director of research (and associate director) at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics for the University of Chicago Medicine. Her research pursues health equity and social justice, with a focus on promoting equitable doctor/patient relationships among racial minorities, integrating the medical and social needs of patients, and addressing health care discrimination and structural racism that impact health outcomes (e.g., diabetes, COVID-19).

Dr. Peek has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed research papers and publications and has served as the principal investigator of multiple grants from institutions such as NIH/NIDDK, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Merck Foundation. She is a senior associate editor for the journal Health Services Research and a recent member of the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality and the National Council for the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Peek was named one of the “Top 40 under 40” in Chicago and has been ranked among Chicago’s Top Female Physicians. She has been featured in national media outlets such as NPR, PRI/The World, CNN, Democracy Now, CBS, ABC, TIME Magazine, ESSENCE Magazine, the Melissa Harris Perry show, and the Huffington Post.

Dr. Peek received her medical degree and master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins University, and completed her residency training at Stanford University Hospital.

JULIA KUO

Julia Kuo is a Taiwanese-American illustrator who has worked with the New York Times, Google, National Public Radio (Science Friday), the Chicago Public Library, Scholastic, and Hachette Book Group. Julia has taught illustration courses at Columbia College Chicago and at her alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. She was the visual arm of Chicago’s 2017 March for Science and has had the honor of being an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2014 and in 2017. She is a widely published editorial illustrator, with a special interest in visual storytelling and activism on both a local and national scale.

ELIZABETH TUNG

Dr. Tung’s research focuses on disparities in chronic disease management, with a special interest in race, place, and poverty. She has participated in community-based strategies to improve chronic disease management in East St. Louis, Chinatown New York, and West Providence, in addition to her work on the South Side of Chicago. These experiences have led to a vested interest in addressing the social determinants of health and a commitment to eradicating health disparities. Her current research focuses on two main areas of inquiry. First, Dr. Tung is examining the relationships between race, poverty, and access to healthcare in adults with chronic disease, and has published on topics such as bypassing healthy resources, implicit bias, and retail redlining. Second, Dr. Tung is examining the intersection between community violence and chronic disease, and is applying geospatial analytical tools to bridge the worlds of violence epidemiology and health.