Phinn Markson

Background

About Phinn Markson

I speak candidly about all the “isms” - the sticky stuff. Maybe it's because I am from NY, or it's my age, or it's because of how I grew up and with whom. My friends and I were talking about all of this long before any of us had academic language for it, or knew there was. I believe if we are to heal, we have to be able to talk about this stuff. Therefore, I am not fragile, I do the inner work, and I am accountable. I take critique and feedback to heart. I do my utmost to recognize my positionality in things. I work at the intersection of public health, research equity, and systems repair. Whether in primary research, data analysis, survey design, or meeting facilitation, my approach is grounded in anti-oppressive practice. I center the people behind the data — disaggregating when it reveals inequities, aggregating when it protects identity. My work aims to restore integrity where extractive, colonial frameworks still dominate how we collect, interpret, and act on evidence. I had no intention of doing what it is I am doing now, and yet every path I have tried has led me here. I work at the intersection of public health, research equity, and systems repair. Whether in primary research, data analysis, survey design, or meeting facilitation, my approach is grounded in anti-oppressive practice. I center the people behind the data — disaggregating when it reveals inequities, aggregating when it protects identity. My work aims to restore integrity where extractive, colonial frameworks still dominate how we collect, interpret, and act on evidence. When I interned at the Department of Energy, I was shown that access to STEM, access to the national laboratories was deterministic for what science was done in this country, therefore, who had access to the labs, and who had access to the schools, who had access to the specific programs and the specific PIs within the schools all of this access begins in the decision tree of access long before a proposal even arrives at the lab. A light bulb moment occurred here for me as I cleaned and parsed through demographic data and learned about these arbitrary identifiers- Who created the sorting hats, how they are used, and why. I had given some thoughts on occasion to demographics, but that was years before, and I had no idea what to do about it. Being powerless and lacking education, I couldn't even figure out what or how to ask about this demographic instrument. Is it any wonder I ended up in social and environmental determinants of health? I had been trying to ask these questions, but I did not know how.