Break the Cycle: Johns Hopkins Hospital's Innovative Approach to Reducing Gun Violence in Communities

Senator William C. Smith, Jr., District 20 – Montgomery County, is Chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee and has served as chair since 2019. He has been a member of the Maryland General Assembly since being elected to the House of Delegates in 2014 where he served on the Judiciary Committee. In 2016 he was appointed to the Senate, making him the first African-American Senator from Montgomery County.

Senator Smith was born and raised in Silver Spring. Senator Smith became a first-generation college student when he attended and graduated from the College of William and Mary. He would go on to earn a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a law degree from William and Mary. After college, Senator Smith joined AmeriCorps’s Project Change in Maryland where he worked as a community engagement leader for IMPACT Silver Spring. Smith also worked at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office as a Legislative Assistant. After law school Senator Smith served as a White House Appointee in the Obama Administration at the Department of Homeland Security as a Director of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Following his service in the federal government Senator Smith joined a private law firm where he continues to practice law in the areas of national security and employment discrimination. Senator Smith also a veteran of the War in Afghanistan and continues to serve as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy Reserve.  

Dr. Irvin is an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Assistant Dean for Medical Student DEI at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He earned a medical degree at Harvard in 2003. Following medical school, he completed a residency in emergency medicine at Alameda County Medical Center’s Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, where he was a chief resident, prior to graduating in 2011.

Upon completion of residency, Dr. Irvin entered into the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2013 with a master's degree in health policy research where he focused on firearm policy and hospital based violence prevention programming.

Dr. Irvin holds interests in social emergency medicine and addressing many of the health and behavioral problems that affect people living in urban communities. Two such threats are HIV/AIDs and violence. He is currently the clinical director of the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Emergency Department HIV/HCV screening program, working to identify and get people with new diagnoses of HIV linked into care. Additionally, he is engaged in work related to youth violence prevention and endeavors to develop a trauma-informed, hospital-based violence intervention program.