TEAM
Emily Silverman, MD | Host & Co-creator
Emily is an internal medicine physician at UCSF and Founder of The Nocturnists. Her writing has been supported by MacDowell and published in The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, JAMA, McSweeneys, and more. She was awarded Honoree of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ 100 List in 2020, which celebrates creative changemakers whose work is in service of building sustainable, equitable, and regenerative communities. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughter.
Luna Dolezal, PhD | Co-Creator & Research Lead
Luna is an academic philosopher based at the University of Exeter. Her research is primarily about understanding lived experience, emotion and embodiment and how these intersect with social, political and institutional frameworks. Luna is a passionate shame researcher and currently runs a research project called Shame and Medicine, which looks at the role of shame in health and medicine. Luna is also a yoga teacher and mum to Theo.
Will Bynum, MD | Co-Creator & Research Lead
Will is a Raleigh-based family medicine physician practicing and teaching at the Duke University School of Medicine where he is a residency program director and advisor to the Medical Student Wellness Committee. Will is completing his PhD in Health Professions Education at Maastricht University and researches the role of shame in medical education. He has an amazing wife Carson and boys Mason and Brady, and his interests include coffee, his daily cookie, writing, music, and not sleeping much. He created The Shame Conversation, a resource hub to advance discussion and awareness of shame in medicine.
Sam Osborn | Producer, Editor & Audio Engineer
Sam is a nonfiction filmmaker and editor of Mexican-American descent. He's directed short films and series for a handful of platforms, along with one feature-length film, Universe, which was awarded Best Music Documentary by the International Documentary Awards in 2021. He's currently working on his second film, Going Varsity in Mariachi, about competitive high school mariachi teams along the US-Mexico border. Producing and editing with The Nocturnists is his first exciting step into the podcasting medium.
Molly Rose-Williams | Producer & Assistant Editor
Molly is a dance-maker, educator, director, writer, and community arts organizer. She has presented her work throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, Vermont, and Maine, and internationally in Mexico and Belgium. She is the cofounder and producer of Show & Tell, a multi-disciplinary performance salon, and is passionate about organizing platforms for community research of the creative process. She teaches acrobatics, cooking, and science, and writes about dance.
Adelaide Papazoglou | Producer
Adelaide is an anthropologist, filmmaker, doula, and aspiring midwife whose work has hovered at the intersection of human affliction and narrative form. She has worked on a broad range of projects from short fiction and experimental films to feature-length documentaries. She is interested in the relationship between bodies and institutions, emerging forms of biocitizenship and biosociality, and how queer theory informs all scholarship. As a doula she also has the privilege of bearing witness to the birth of babies and parents.
Penelope Lusk | Production Coordinator
Penelope is a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She holds an MS in Narrative Medicine and thinks about health education, affect and embodied experience, and philosophies and critical theories of education. Before starting her PhD, she was a Fulbright student scholar at the University of Exeter and worked at NYU’s medical school. She loves to walk/run through city streets, forests and mountains alike.
Corinne April Iolanda Conn, MPH | Medical Student Producer
As a first-generation physician in training, Corinne has often questioned how to carry their own story, the story of their village, and the stories of their patients throughout the allopathic training process. Corinne’s journey to becoming a physician began with a kitten they met on a sidewalk in Haifa, Israel at 13. That kitten jumpstarted a curiosity for what makes people, communities, and ecosystems healthy and whole. Corinne found their way to The Nocturnists team by becoming a story-teller for Black Voices in Healthcare, recognizing that story sharing and receiving is a method of healing practiced all over the world.
Nikhil Rajapuram, MD | Medical Student Producer
Nikhil is a pediatric resident physician at Stanford, having graduated from UCSF School of Medicine in 2021. He is an advocate for improving healthcare trainee well-being, and has overseen the largest study of medical student well-being since 2012. Previously, he interviewed families of children with disabilities in urban slums of Bombay as a Fulbright scholar, built assistive devices for children with Cerebral Palsy, and served as a healthcare strategy consultant for Frog Design. You can find him biking along the California coast, perfecting his hummus recipe, and playing sand volleyball.
Carly Besser | Impact Campaign Manager & Assistant Producer
Carly is a graduate student at Columbia University pursuing a degree in Narrative Medicine. She is interested in how art and storytelling can be used in public health communication and to promote health justice. Previously, she worked on campaigns for documentary films and series, including America to Me, American Factory, and The First Wave. Outside of The Nocturnists, you can find Carly working as a full-spectrum doula, and going on walking and biking adventures around NYC.
Alison Bock, MD | Executive Producer
Ali practices family medicine in Pawtucket, RI. A longtime appreciator of the arts, she has a special passion for using storytelling to illuminate important topics in healthcare. In addition to her work with The Nocturnists, she executive produced Dr. Feelgood, a documentary film which explores the ethical dilemma of opiate prescriptions. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time in the outdoors with her husband and children.
Rebecca Groves | Chief Operating Officer
Rebecca comes to medical storytelling from the world of the performing and visual arts. Her career has led her from California to New York to Germany and back, as Head Dramaturg at Ballett Frankfurt, Executive Director of the Forsythe Foundation, and Assistant Curator at the Kramlich Collection. Rebecca’s writing on performance has been published by Palgrave McMillan, the Institute of Contemporary Arts Boston, Dance Research Journal, and Modern Drama. She is happiest on two wheels or in the water, especially on family adventures with her wife and 4 year old daughter.
Alice Waterson | Exeter Team Coordinator
Alice is the Project Coordinator for the Shame and Medicine project at University of Exeter and the Scenes of Shame and Stigma in COVID-19 project. She is responsible for the day to day operations of the projects and coordinates all activities across Exeter and Birmingham.
Beppe Conti | Illustrator
Beppe is an Art Director and collage artist with a degree in Graphic and Virtual Design from the Polytechnic University of Turin. He is a multidisciplinary designer with skills ranging from art direction, editorial design, and illustration, to corporate design. Since 2012, he has created fantastical imagery for musical, editorial, and brand projects. His work takes inspiration from old anatomical books, tattoos, vintage sci-fi covers, and music. Beppe uses collage and various digital techniques to combine analog elements, mixing vintage images, textures, and colors.