Taneshia Nash Laird to Speak at Harvard's Women in Power Conference
Taneshia Nash Laird to Speak at Harvard's Women in Power Conference
CAMBRIDGE, MA — April 2, 2025 — Taneshia Nash Laird, Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and Executive Director of Project REAP, will be a featured panelist at the 2025 Women in Power Conference hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School. The conference, now in its eighth year, will take place on Saturday, April 12, 2025.
Laird will speak on the panel titled “Wellness Reimagined: The Transformative Power of Art in Health,” a conversation that explores how creativity can be harnessed to improve well-being and shift power away from institutionalized healthcare. She joins moderator Jeneé Osterheldt (The Boston Globe), Dr. Lisa Wong (Harvard Medical School), and Dr. Nisha Sajnani (NYU/Jameel Arts and Health Lab) for this timely discussion on art, legacy, and healing.
The panel will examine how art can disrupt conventional systems, expand definitions of wellness, and center emotional, cultural, and community-driven health practices.
The Women in Power Conference is a student-led event supported by the Harvard Center for African Studies and sponsored by the Ansara Family Fund. This year’s gathering features a distinguished lineup of speakers, including Olympic champion Caster Semenya, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and political strategist Julie Chávez Rodríguez, among others. The 2025 theme, “Reimagining Power: Building a New Legacy,” brings together leaders and changemakers across industries—including healthcare, politics, entrepreneurship, and global governance—for a full day of panels, workshops, and keynotes designed to inspire intersectional leadership.
Laird’s participation reflects her decades-long work at the intersection of culture, equity, and institutional transformation, including her roles as a nonprofit executive, educator, and national advocate for creative economies.
