2016 Population Health Scholars
Shena Elrington, J.D.
Shena M. Elrington is the Director of Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice Policy at the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), a national organization that provides policy, organizing and capacity support to high-impact community-based organizations across the country. At CPD, Shena works on a range of campaigns to promote racial justice, immigrants’ rights, and health equity. Prior to joining CPD, Shena worked at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), a civil rights law firm committed to advancing health justice, environmental justice and disability rights through community lawyering and partnerships with the private bar, where she served as the Director of the Health Justice (HJ) Program. At NYLPI, Shena worked in collaboration with community groups on a number of campaigns to ensure that people from medically underserved neighborhoods had access to quality health care. Over the last few years, Shena has helped to successfully advocate for the passage of language access laws and streamlined Emergency Medicaid policies, fight against discriminatory health care practices, and elevate the importance of stakeholder and community input into decisions regarding the allocation of health care resources and funding. Prior to joining NYLPI, Shena was a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, LLP, where she worked on white-collar and anti-trust matters and provided pro bono representation to clients on a variety of family, criminal, and immigration law matters. Shena earned a J.D. from Yale Law School and graduated cum laude from Princeton University with an A.B. in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Shena is the Leader-in-Residence for Health Equity at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at City College, where she works closely with talented undergraduates on applied research projects related to advancing health justice and is a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School, where she co-teaches a course on state and local policy advocacy. Shena also serves as a board member on Princeton AlumniCorps.
Colette Lamothe-Galette, M.P.H.
Ms. Lamothe-Galette is the Director of the Office of Population Health at the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH). She provides leadership by planning, implementing and directing data analytics and outcomes research on the topic of population health. She will provide oversight of the NJDOH’s health informatics, minority and multicultural health and health care quality assessment activities.
Ms. Lamothe-Galette began her career at NJDOH in 2004 within the Center for Health Statistics. She has held numerous leadership roles during her career at NJDOH including Acting Executive Director of the Office of Minority & Multicultural Health, and Chief Operations Officer for the policy and strategic planning unit. She holds over 10 years of experience within the Department in areas of health informatics, quality and performance improvement, and minority and multicultural health.
Prior to joining NJDOH, Ms. Lamothe-Galette managed social and policy research projects as a Survey Specialist within the Survey Design and Data Collection Division of Mathematica Policy Research. Mathematica conducts policy research and surveys in health care, education, welfare, employment, nutrition, and early childhood.
Ms. Lamothe-Galette received a Master in Public Health from Yale University and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Stacie Laurence, M.S., RN
Stacie Laurence is an Administrator at Home Care Options, Inc. She is a member of the Navajo Nation, was born and raised on the Navajo reservation in the small community of Smith Lake, New Mexico. She received her Master of Nursing degree, with a concentration in Administration, from the University of New Mexico in 2007. Stacie’s experience of administering a home and community based program for the past 14 years has given her a deep appreciation for the work that families put into keeping their loved ones home, in familiar surroundings, and connected to their culture and language, despite the disabilities that would have otherwise institutionalized those clients without the funding appropriated for home and community based care.
Stacie has been involved in advocacy and dialogue with the administering state departments, managed care organizations, and state legislature on policy changes and cost-containment initiatives. Through her advocacy for continued funding of the Medicaid program, her hope is that the state and federal governments will continue to provide access to services such as long term care, intervention and primary care through health promotion, disease prevention, chronic care management, and behavioral health. Stacie has served or currently serves on several state committees, the New Mexico Association for Home and Hospice Care Board of Directors, and several managed care organizations’ provider advisory boards.
Stacie is currently working on her Ph.D. as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nursing and Health Policy Collaborative Fellow at the University of New Mexico’s College of Nursing with an emphasis in Health Policy. Stacie’s educational and professional goals are to expand her knowledge through research that will enable her to provide nursing leadership and advocacy for the underserved populations whose health care needs are currently not being met. She plans to use this knowledge to influence health policy at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels to positively affect health outcomes.
Sandra Martinez, M.A.
Sandra is a Community Impact & Advocacy Strategist Manager and has served at Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. (MHM) since 2010. MHM is dedicated to providing medical, dental and health-related human services to low-income families and the uninsured throughout South Texas. It is now the largest private funding source for community health care services in South Texas. Her role is to develop and leverage strategic and regional collaborative partnerships with stakeholders, community partners, churches, civic leaders, elected officials, policy and community coalitions, and advocates to advance MHM’s mission and health care agenda. She works on issues affecting the least served and assists in developing strategies to create health care delivery system changes along with community and advocacy initiatives for MHM in 70+ counties.
Sandra previously served as MHM’s policy advisor and primary liaison in developing key public policy and advocacy strategies in the areas of behavioral health, women’s health, and civic engagement. In addition to advocating locally and statewide for health care policies, she oversaw MHM’s policy contracts and statewide coalition building efforts. She has since expanded her role to include managing community engagement, advocacy, and regional strategic initiatives contracts along with an MHM Fellows Program at community grants funded partner sites in Bay City and the Rio Grande Valley.
Sandra received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a graduate degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She has worked over fourteen years in the nonprofit and health and human services sector. She previously worked with the City of San Antonio’s Department of Community Initiatives (now Human Services) on program design and management of a federally funded program, as the Director of Policy (City Council), as a Program Manager (Workforce Development & Education and Contract Compliance), and for several years doing community work with grass roots and faith based agencies.
Sandra is one of the founding members of two statewide coalitions, Texas Coalition for Healthy Minds and the Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition.
Megan McClaire, M.P.H.
Megan McClaire currently serves as the Director of Healthy City at Advancement Project (AP), a next generation, multiracial civil rights organization. In this capacity, she leads efforts that use community-driven and data-informed approaches to address health inequities impacting California residents. Megan is a Chicago native and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received both her B.S. in Health Planning and Administration and M.S. in Public Health. Prior to joining Advancement Project, Megan was at the Boston Public Health Commission, where she held multiple positions, including Associate Director of the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Division and, most recently, Chief of Staff. In both roles, she led strategic planning processes to embed racial justice and health equity principles into public health work plans and implementation strategies. Megan was also a Public Health Prevention Fellow at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where she worked on injury and violence prevention policy and environmental health education. Prior to CDC, Megan was Health Promotions Coordinator at Prairie State and Hotline Coordinator at Champaign County Health Care Consumers.
Naveen Mehrotra, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Naveen Mehrotra is a pediatrician in private practice. Dr. Mehrotra completed his medical training from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his Pediatric training at the University of Chicago. Practicing in Central New Jersey with one of the highest concentrations of South Asians, Dr. Mehrotra is dedicated to improving the health of South Asians. South Asian immigrants are recognized to be well educated and in the highest income brackets, however they suffer from a disproportionately high disease burden with respect to Diabetes, Heart Disease and Cancer. With a lack of awareness in areas such as disease prevention within the community, Dr. Mehrotra helped found the Shri Krishna Nidhi (SKN) Foundation, a community based non-profit organization to address these needs at a grassroots level which has a mission to promote well-being through community based education. SKN believes that proper physical health, spiritual, and cultural health all lead to a person’s well-being. Projects of the SKN Foundation help to further this mission. To help achieve these educational goals, the Foundation also propagates scholarship programs based on merit and need. Dr. Mehrotra had also been a key person in the founding of the South Asian Total Health Initiative (SATHI), a research and education based initiative at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School where he is also a volunteer faculty.
Chioma Nnaji, M.P.H.
As a community health advocate, Chioma Nnaji, has focused on health equity, specifically geared towards mobilizing communities of color in Massachusetts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic and broader conditions that fuel the epidemic. At the Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC), she has developed programs and interventions for people living with and impacted by HIV/AIDS; advocated for policy changes addressing the ‘hidden epidemic’ of African immigrants and HIV; applied cultural competency frameworks to training public health and clinical professionals; and established and implemented community engaged research partnerships and projects. Currently, Ms. Nnaji is the Program Director at MAC where she developed and currently directs the Africans For Improved Access (AFIA) Program - an HIV prevention and screening program engaging African immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts.
Ms. Nnaji currently sits as the Board Chair for Community Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH), a nonprofit organization that promotes health equity and social justice through partnerships between communities and academic institutions.
Ms. Nnaji is trained in ethnographic research and community-based participatory research. She holds a Master's degree in Public Health, with a concentration in International Health from Boston University and Master's degree in Education from Boston College, with a
concentration in Curriculum & Instruction. Currently, she is working towards a Ph.D. in Global Inclusion and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
She is passionate about her work
and is committed to bringing the voice and needs of ethnic marginalized communities to the table of health policy, research, and service
delivery in a way that recognizes community assets and respects cultural
values.
Katie Spears, M.A.
Katie is a Co-Founder of Youth Empowered Solutions (YES!), a national nonprofit that empowers youth, in partnership with adults to create community change. She is also the Team Lead for the Real Food and Active Living initiative at YES!, that works to change policies, systems and environments that impact adolescent health, increase access to healthy food and active living, and decrease the childhood obesity epidemic. Katie has 9+ years of nonprofit experience with expertise in training development and implementation, consulting and grassroots advocacy, childhood obesity prevention and youth empowerment. Katie serves on the Executive Committee for the North Carolina Alliance for Health, an independent, statewide coalition advocating for policies that promote wellness and reduce the impact of obesity and tobacco. She received her B.A. in Community Health from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and her Masters of Health Education and Promotion from East Carolina University. Katie recently relocated to the Northern Virginia region where she is working to expand the reach and impact of Youth Empowered Solutions.
Megan Tulikangas, M.P.P.
Megan Tulikangas is a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Health Policy Institute. For the past eight years, she has worked to combat and prevent chronic disease in a variety of settings, from a state Medicaid office to a national youth anti-tobacco media campaign. She has developed and managed innovative research on the sale and marketing of tobacco, alcohol, and food in New Orleans stores and worked with local schools to develop a school-based curriculum to engage youth in policy solutions. Currently, she is working with the Allegheny County Health Department to identify opportunities to improve residents' health and engage the community in healthy living initiatives, particularly in the area of tobacco use prevention and cessation. Megan holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Chicago.
Kellee White, M.P.H.
Dr. White is an Assistant Professor of epidemiology at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health. Her scholarly work focuses on the structural determinants of racial/ethnic and place-based inequities in cardiovascular health. She is developing a population-based multi-level intervention to address behavioral lifestyle modifications to lower cardiovascular disease risk. Her work also explores the intersection of epidemiology and housing policies to improve population health. Kellee has collaborated with advocacy groups such as the Fair Housing Councils of San Diego, California to train attorneys of the health implications of housing discrimination. She received her M.P.H. (Sociomedical Sciences) and Ph.D. (Epidemiology) from Columbia University and her B.A. from Vassar College.
2015 Population Health Scholars
Letitia Clark, M.P.P.
Letitia serves as the Executive Director of the Orange County Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization made up of 500 Pediatricians county wide. Her main role as Executive Director is to serve as the voice of children in the community and to promote the professional expertise of Pediatricians, all while advocating for the most vital child health needs in the county. Letitia serves on a number of boards and committees all centered around care coordination, healthcare access, healthcare expansion and legislative oversight. Most recently, Letitia has taken on an additional role with the American Academy of Pediatrics - California, to educate Pediatricians and allied health professionals on the benefits of Covered CA as well as the Affordable Care Act. She received her BA in political science from Xavier University of Louisiana, her Masters of Public Policy from New England College and her certification in Non-Profit Management from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. Letitia is a proud mom of 7 year old twins and resides in Tustin, CA.
Sarah de Guia, J.D.
Sarah de Guia is the Executive Director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN), a multicultural health advocacy organization dedicated to improving the health of communities of color in California. Sarah has over a decade of experience advocating for access to high quality, culturally and linguistically appropriate health care, advancing women’s reproductive justice, and promoting immigrants’ rights. Previously, Sarah held the position of CPEHN’s Director of Government Affairs, where she spearheaded the organization’s legislative work and successfully achieved passage of eight legislative proposals on issues ranging from improving language access to promoting a “health in all policies” approach in state planning. In 2008, Sarah directed the Having Our Say coalition, comprised of over 40 diverse organizations throughout California working to ensure communities of color were an integral part of California’s health reform debates. Sarah also worked as the Health Program Manager with the Latino Issues Forum and as Legislative Analyst with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Sarah served as a mentor with the Women’s Policy Institute from 2012-2014, a legislative training program for women leaders, and is herself a recent graduate of CompassPoint’s Next Generation Leaders of Color program. Sarah graduated from Santa Clara University School of Law and earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley in Ethnic Studies and Public Policy.
Desiree de la Torre, M.P.H., M.B.A.
Desiree de la Torre is the Director of Community Health Improvement for the Johns Hopkins Health System. She leads the organization’s community health improvement planning process, including support for community-based organizations, health equity, and compliance with state and national community benefit regulations for the health system’s 6 academic and community hospitals in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Florida. She works with local and state health care leaders to prepare for the changing health care environment by developing interventions to improve population health, improve community engagement and experience, and reduce health care costs. Desiree also oversees a charity care program at Johns Hopkins called The Access Partnership that helps improve access to effective, compassionate, evidence-based health care for uninsured and underinsured patients residing in Baltimore City with demonstrated financial need.
Since joining Johns Hopkins Medicine in 2007 as an Administrative Fellow, Desiree has held several positions within the organization where she made significant contributions in areas of patient safety, quality improvement, and access to care. Prior to her positions at Hopkins, she worked at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s institutional regulatory board and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Community Development and Substance Abuse Center.
Desiree is a member of several local, state, and national boards, councils and associations dedicated to improving population health. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from Boston University and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from The Johns Hopkins University.
Genevive C. Falconi, M.D.
Genevive C. Falconi is a board certified and practicing general pediatrician in Brunswick, Ohio. She was born and raised in the Philippines, earned her medical degree from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines and trained in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Michigan and Duke University Medical Center. She is currently the Section Head of Pediatrics in the Cleveland Clinic Brunswick Family Health Center, Medical Director of the Cleveland Clinic Children's School-Based Health Center and Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western University.
Rich Feffer, M.S., C.C.H.P.
Rich Feffer is the Correctional Health Programs Manager at the Hepatitis Education Project (HEP), a Seattle-based non-profit organization. HEP provides hepatitis C outreach and medical case management and educates community members and medical providers about viral hepatitis.
In his role at HEP, Rich teaches viral hepatitis classes directly to offenders at 13 Washington State Prison facilities, trains inmates at 2 of those facilities to talk to their peers about HIV and hepatitis C risk reduction, and advocates for better access to hepatitis C testing and treatment in corrections.
He is also the Director of the National Hepatitis Corrections Network, a collaborative network of medical providers, administrators, researchers, community-based organizations and other public health advocates working together to increase access to hepatitis prevention, testing and treatment in correctional facilities.
Yolanda Fong, R.N., M.N., APHN-BC
Yolanda is the Public Health Nurse Supervisor for the Chronic Disease Prevention Program at Kitsap Public Health District in Washington State. The Chronic Disease Prevention Program includes a multidisciplinary team focused on population health and policy development. Prior to her current position, she served as a perinatal home visitor and NICU nurse. During Yolanda’s career in chronic disease prevention, she has organized and led a community wide obesity prevention initiative, which has involved the convening of multiple community partners from key sectors, including American Indian Tribes, mental health services, public housing, community clinics, local service organizations and the Naval health services. Yolanda has engaged with local employers, schools, early childhood and healthcare providers to promote healthy lifestyle messages for their employees, students, families, and patients. As a registered nurse, she is committed to educating and training emerging nurse leaders, and has served as a preceptor to several nursing students engaged in a variety of community-based projects for the past several years. In 2015, Yolanda will be co-teaching a public health nursing course for the bachelor in nursing program at the local community college. Yolanda received her Master in Nursing from the University of Washington, Tacoma with a focus on communities and population health in 2011. Yolanda is a past recipient of the Emerging Public Health Leader Award from the Washington State Public Health Association.
Lucia Hernandez, M.Sc.
Ms. Lucia “Lucy” Hernandez is the Director for the Two Should Know (TSK) Initiative at the YWCA El Paso del Norte Region. She provides technical assistance to support the planning and development to support operations of the Paso del Norte Health Foundation (PdNHF) TSK Initiative in West Texas, Southern New Mexico and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The overarching goal of the TSK initiative is to affect long‐term improvements in sexual health across the life-span and reduce negative health outcomes in the Paso del Norte region. Ms. Hernandez contributes in the framing strategies related to the initiative, serves as a liaison for the PdNHF to grantees in target areas and provides assistance to grantees such as providing trainings and capacity development.
Ms. Hernandez assists in researching public policy issues related to the initiative. In this role she actively supports the advancement of the initiative’s objective that all regional school districts pass a sexual health policy that identifies sexual health as a priority and addresses the allocation of resources necessary to implement evidence based, age, and culturally appropriate comprehensive sexual health education.
Ms. Hernandez is a native El Pasoan who holds a Master’s of Science degree in Health Promotion from the University of Texas at El Paso and has over eight years’ experience working on the US/Mexico border in community health.
Imran Khan, M.P.P.
Imran Khan is currently serving as an Empire State Fellow for Food and Agriculture for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. He received his BS in biochemistry from Texas A&M University, MEd from Southern Methodist University, and MPP from the University of Virginia’s Batten School. Previously, he served as a policy fellow with the U.S. Department of Energy and as an Education Pioneers fellow in Houston, his hometown. In 2009, he founded Develop U, a non-profit organization aimed at community development, urban renewal, and neighborhood revitalization in South Dallas. During the summer of 2010, Imran worked as an AmeriCorps VISTA, teaming up with PepsiCo and CitySquare to deliver food as part of a student nutrition and summer enrichment program for underserved communities in Dallas. Prior to this, Imran taught high school science in Dallas area public schools and worked at 3M as a materials scientist. His professional interests include anti-poverty programs, community development, and resource access through the use of effective social policy and government operations.
Mia Ramirez, M.P.H.
Mia Ramirez, MPH is the Senior Community Health Specialist at Kaiser Permanente where she manages Community Benefit programs and activities to improve health access, foster healthy environments, improve health knowledge and nurture partnerships in Southern Colorado. She has over 15 years of community health experience working both nationally and internationally, from the grassroots level to the federal and international health agency level. Mia has previously worked as a Public Health Advisor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working in chronic disease, infectious disease, violence prevention and health equity. She was the Community Research and Policy Analyst for Multnomah County Health Department’s Health Equity Initiative. Internationally, she has worked at the Pan American Health Organization in Chile to address gender-equity and at the Chol Chol Foundation providing micro credit loans to the indigenous Mapuche women. She has a passion for improving community health, ameliorating health disparities and addressing the social determinants of health to improve health for all populations.
Sonia Sarkar, M.P.H.
Sonia Sarkar serves as Special Advisor to Health Leads, a national organization that envisions a healthcare system that addresses all patients’ basic resource needs as a standard part of quality care. She previously served as Chief of Staff to the CEO of Health Leads, overseeing the CEO’s internal and external initiatives as well as advising on sector leadership and strategy development.
As an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University, Sonia co-founded and served as campus coordinator for Health Leads’ Baltimore site, and also completed a term as a student member of the organization’s national Board of Directors. Subsequently, Sonia joined the Health Leads staff team as a Baltimore Program Manager, where she built clinical relationships and oversaw the development and management of Health Leads’ undergraduate workforce.
A 2008 Truman Scholar and Member of the USA Today All-Academic Team, Sonia has worked as a Mayoral Fellow with the Baltimore City Health Department, where she studied the effects of inadequate housing on health outcomes in urban neighborhoods. In 2009, Sonia was named SAALT's South Asian Changemaker of the Year, and also received a Rotary Cultural Ambassadorial Scholarship to conduct work with local paramedic teams in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Sonia is a World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper, a Boardsource Judith O’Connor Emerging Nonprofit Leader, and has served as a founding board member for the Boston Young Healthcare Professionals as well as the Healthworks Foundation Young Professionals Board. She holds B.A. degrees in public health and international studies from Johns Hopkins University and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is also a published poet, with work appearing in the American Journal of Nursing and the Bellevue Literary Review, among others.
2014 Population Health Scholars
Monique Baptiste-Good
Monique serves as the project director of Newark's Strong, Healthy Communities Initiative (SHCI)—a part of the Living Cities national Integration Initiative—which is focused on improving the health and wellness of low-income children in Newark in order to improve student educational outcomes and readiness to learn.
With a background in urban policy and economics, Monique has worked in community development for the last decade. In 2008, Monique was named Executive Director of St. Paul's Community Development Corporation in Paterson, NJ, where she oversaw the organization's daily operations, the construction of affordable housing, and managed Passaic County's largest workforce development program. Prior to this, Monique served as the Deputy Director of Community Economic Development of La Casa De Don Pedro—a comprehensive non-profit in Newark, NJ. At La Casa, she managed a variety of efforts in urban planning, affordable housing and economic development, and managed a portfolio of commercial and open space development properties within Newark's Lower Broadway neighborhood. Monique has also served as a consultant to a number of local city governments and public officials to assist them with securing resources to complete school reform initiatives, improve human services, and execute infrastructure projects throughout their cities.
Monique has an undergraduate degree in economics and political science and a graduate degree in public policy from Rutgers University.
Jaye Clement, M.P.H., M.P.P.
Jaye is the Director of Community Health Programs and Strategies with the Office of Community Health, Equity and Wellness at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan. She is responsible for aligning the System's commitment to its communities by engaging new partners around issues of community health, maintaining existing partnerships, and managing metrics and data sets to monitor and continuously improve engagement and outreach strategies that contribute to community benefit. She serves as a health care advocate and liaison to external audiences, including community, civic and faith-based organizations, volunteers and other key publics. In this role, Jaye also staffs the Detroit Regional Infant Mortality Reduction Task Force and holds administrative oversight for their Women-Inspired Neighborhood Network: Detroit program.
Jaye earned her MPH in health behavior and health education from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and her MPP from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, both in 2005. Her experiences range from working in major health systems, nonprofits and local government as her career is dedicated to community health and advocacy. She also works closely with the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (URC) as a Community Policy Advocacy Trainer for the Neighborhoods Working in Partnership: Building Capacity for Policy Change Project and serves on the board of directors for local non-profit, Teen HYPE (Helping Youth by Providing Education). Jaye is a life-long Detroiter.
Chelsea Kuiper, M.A.
For three years, Chelsea has served as the Program Coordinator for Hermosa Vida, a Community Health program out of North Country HealthCare in Flagstaff, Arizona. She works with multiple stakeholders from governmental agencies, community organizations, educational institutions and health entities in an effort to address the social determinants of health in Flagstaff, Arizona. Ms. Kuiper's work focuses on developing and maintaining models of collaborative leadership, multi-sector partnerships, and community engagement that support the reduction of social and environmental inequities and improve population health. Ms. Kuiper has also worked as a Community-based Research Associate for Northern Arizona University, focusing her efforts around understanding the impacts of Arizona's immigration policies on Flagstaff residents. Ms. Kuiper volunteers her time with community organizations that support the health and well-being of children and families in Arizona. She is a Board Member of the Coconino Coalition for Children and Youth and a Steering Committee member of Northern Arizona Institutions for Community Leadership. Ms. Kuiper received her B.A. in Anthropology from Colorado College in 2007 and her M.A. in Applied Anthropology from Northern Arizona University in 2010.
Matt VanWormer, J.D.
Matt is a Staff Attorney with DNA-People's Legal Services, Inc. and Director of the Diné Bí ts'íís báá Ah'jiteí (DBA) Program, a medical-legal partnership that brings free legal assistance to low-income patients in two hospitals and three health centers on the Navajo Nation. With its creation in 2009, the DBA Program became the first medical-legal partnership to focus on serving rural Native American communities. By documenting positive outcomes from successful legal interventions, the DBA Program strives to become a model for new partnerships in Indian Health Service hospitals and tribally-operated health care facilities.
Matt received his J.D. from the University of Virginia. He started the DBA Program with a public interest fellowship from the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Sacoby Wilson, Ph.D., M.S.
Dr. Wilson is an assistant professor with the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health (MIAEH) and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Maryland-College Park. Dr. Wilson is an environmental health scientist with over ten years of experience working in community-university partnerships on environmental health and justice issues. He has expertise in exposure science and applied environmental health including community-based exposure assessment, environmental justice science, social epidemiology, environmental health disparities, built environment, air pollution monitoring, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). For the past two years, he has been building a program on community engagement, environmental justice, and health (CEEJH) to engage impacted communities, advocacy groups, and policymakers in Maryland and the Washington, DC region on environmental justice issues and environmental health disparities. As part of his CEEJH efforts, he is leading projects to assess exposure and health risks for residential populations, urban fisherfolk, and recreational users of the Anacostia Watershed (Project CAESARR and Project RECREATE). He is also a Co-Investigator on project that uses community engagement approaches and Geographic Information Systems to assess different sustainable practices that can be used to reduce stormwater inputs into the Chesapeake Bay. In addition, he is working with a research team in Baltimore to understand the role that the built environment plays in producing conditions conducive to for pests particularly mosquitoes and how impacted residents can engage in citizen science to improve environmental conditions, reduce pests, and enhance quality of life.
He received both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Health from UNC-Chapel Hill and his B.S. degree from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University.