About the Speakers

Jessica Nutik Zitter, MD, MPH, practices ICU and palliative care medicine at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California. After two decades of caring for critically ill patients, she is a strong advocate for a new approach to caring for the dying. Having herself participated in the default use of technology on dying patients, Dr. Zitter has come to view this situation as a public health crisis. Author of Extreme Measures: Finding A Better Path to the End of Life, her work is featured in the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated short-documentary Extremis, now streaming on Netflix. 

Rev. Lisa D. Jenkins is senior pastor of St. Matthew’s Baptist Church of Harlem. She is also an adjunct lecturer of multicultural studies at the City University of New York. A cultural theologian, her first book 40 Days of Biblical & Cultural Insight into the Black Panther Movie has broken new ground. Rev. Jenkins believes that ministry must be intricately interwoven with community involvement and that it is impossible to serve God without serving humanity. 

Khalid L. Rehman, MD, is an attending physician in the Department of Medicine of Metropolitan Hospital, New York. He previously served as chief of the Section of Hematology-Oncology at St. Vincent's Medical Center (now the Richmond University Medical Center) in Staten Island, and as Medical Director of the Richmond Hospice. He is a board member of Project Hospitality, a community organization which serves the needs of the poor, hungry and homeless residents of Staten Island. 

Rabbi Mychal B. Springer is founder and director of the Center for Pastoral Education at JTS, which uniquely equips graduates to meet the spiritual needs of all the people they serve. She holds the Helen Fried Kirshblum Goldstein Chair in Professional and Pastoral Skills at JTS and oversees the Certificate in Pastoral Care and Counseling. Ordained at JTS, she previously served as director of the Department of Pastoral Care and Education at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. 

The Rev. Pamela Cooper-White, PhD, is the Christiane Brooks Johnson Professor of Psychology and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She has taught graduate courses on Death, Dying & Bereavement for over two decades. She is the author of seven books including Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care & Counseling. An ordained Episcopal priest, she is also president and founding board member of the International Association for Spiritual Care (Switzerland).