Profile: Christina Paris
Christina Paris is the associate director of community health and engagement at the Wellness Center. Her main responsibility is to lead the navigation of community health safety guidelines as new community health issues occur. She is also responsible for writing new health protocols and providing education, programming, and outreach to the Emerson community around public health issues.
Paris oversees the College’s in-house management of COVID-19. This includes staying current with federal, state, and local guidelines surrounding COVID-19 as well as collaborating with medical experts in the field. She leads the College’s in-house pandemic response team by monitoring the number of positive cases on campus; providing guidance to students, staff, and faculty; sending periodic community emails with updates on the virus; and managing the College’s One Emerson web page. While the One Emerson web page has mostly been devoted to COVID-19 information, Paris plans to transform it into a Community Health information hub. The website has already been updated to add information regarding the mpox virus as well as the flu.
Since her position is new, Paris is busy working on the development of programming that will create a culture that supports wellness at Emerson. Future initiatives include: discussions with staff and faculty, information sessions on community health issues including mental health awareness, and workshops on work/life balance.
Paris has also started building relationships with internal and external stakeholders including colleagues in Housing and Residential Education, Student Accessibility Services, Student Care and Support, and Campus Life, as well as her other Wellness Center colleagues. She meets with Tufts Medical Center biweekly to discuss the current state of the pandemic. Her goal is to collaborate broadly to address health-related issues that impact the Emerson community.
Having worked at Emerson for one year, Paris noted that she loves the culture here. She said, “It feels welcoming, supportive, and there is a continuous outlook on improving the College for students and staff.” Before arriving at Emerson, she worked with the COVID response team at the local nonprofit Partners in Health and also managed programs at other nonprofits and small businesses.
Paris is a native of France and moved to the United States as a teenager. She attended university in Boston, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UMass Boston and a master of business administration from Simmons University. She currently lives in Boston with her daughter and enjoys spending her free time with her daughter and family. She makes it a point to try new restaurants around Boston and attend community events. She also loves to travel and has been to a number of other states, including Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Maine, and California. She has traveled to more far-flung places as well, such as Puerto Rico, Canada, Guadeloupe, and Thailand.
Nancy Howell (Communications and Marketing)