Gun violence impacts and prevention are the focus of the UB/MSU Remembrance Conference June 6-8 in Buffalo

Conference to honor lives lost in mass shootings in Buffalo and East Lansing and to engage medical students, educators and providers to work to prevent gun violence

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Health care providers, medical students and educators interest ed in working to address gun violence are invited to attend Remembrance Conference 2025 on June 6-8 being held by the Jacobs School of Medi cine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo.

The annual gathering was established by Allison Brashear, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, and Aron Sousa, MD, executive dean for health colleges at Michigan State University and dean of its College of Human Medicine.

In 2022 and 2023, both medical schools experienced mass shootings on or close to their campuses. In the aftermath of the tragedies at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo and on the MSU campus in East Lansing, Brashear and Sousa decided their respective com munities would benefit from joining together each year for mutual support, to engage in remembrance and to actively address the epidemic of gun violence.

“The core mission of aca demic medicine is to improve the health and well-being of our communities,” says Brashear. “The Jacobs School and the MSU College of Human Medicine are resolute in their mission to educate and advocate against the scourge of gun violence.”

This year, the Remem brance Conference is being hosted by the Jacobs School. Sponsors include the Jacobs School, MSU College of Human Medicine and the Association of American Medical Colleges.

The conference is open to medical school faculty, residents and students nation wide.

Topics to be covered include mental health and suicide, advocacy training and activity, and the physician’s role in preventing fire arm violence.

In May 2023, the MSU group traveled to Buffalo to support the UB community as the city observed memorials marking a year since the May 14, 2022, racist massacre at the Tops supermarket that killed 10 people and injured three. Then last February, the UB group traveled to East Lansing to support the MSU community marking a year since a gunman killed three people on campus and injured five on Feb. 13, 2023.

The keynote speakers at Remembrance 2025 at UB are:

• Megan Ranney, MD, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, C.-E. A. Winslow Professor of Pub lic Health and professor of emergency medicine. She is co-founder and senior strategic adviser for the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine (AFFIRM) at the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit committed to ending the gun violence epidemic through a nonpartisan, public health approach.

• Robert Gore, MD, clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and a Jacobs School alumnus. Gore is founder and executive director of the Kings Against Violence Ini tiative (KAVI), a youth vio lence-prevention program, for which he was named a Top 10 CNN Hero in 2018. He is the author of “Treating Violence: An Emergency Room Doctor Takes on a Deadly American Epidemic.”

• Zeneta B. Everhart, Mas ten District council member. Following the May 14 massacre that seriously injured her son, Zaire, Everhart testified before Congress about the need for stricter gun laws, resulting in the passage of the Safer Communities Act, the first piece of gun legislation in more than 30 years. With her son, she created Zeneta & Zaire’s Book Club, which teaches children about racism, diversity and building a more inclusive society.

• Patricia Logan-Greene, PhD, associate professor and associate dean for academic affairs in the UB School of Social Work, who is co-leader of the national Grand Chal lenge in Social Work to Pre vent Gun Violence, which has led to funding by the Depart ment of Homeland Security on training behavioral health professionals in the preven tion of violent extremism. In her research, she takes a trauma-informed approach to violence, childhood adversity and system responses to mal treatment and delinquency.

While the conference evolved out of two mass casualty events, the organizers are quick to point out that only about 1% of shootings in the U.S. are mass shootings, while domestic violence, accidental shootings, suicides and fire arms not properly secured all far outstrip mass shootings