Users living in country: USA

Emma Zavala-Suarez, JD is an attorney currently working as a consultant for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where she supports the contracts team in their global health and financial services for the poor work. She is also the chair of the Board of a nonprofit called Community to Community (C2C), a women-led influential grass-roots organization that raises funds and awareness for farm worker women and their families and the immigrant community in Whatcom County. C2C seeks to empower under-represented peoples to have an equal voice in decision-making processes. Emma is also a long-time member and current chair of the Laurel Rubin Farm Worker Justice Project (LRFWJP), a subcommittee of LAW Fund, the preeminent Washington legal aid foundation. LRFWJP raises funds to financially support law students to engage in legal advocacy work on behalf of farm workers throughout the state of Washington. Emma was recently appointed by Governor Gregoire to the Washington State Board of Pharmacy where she serves as a public member, giving a voice to the public health interests of the under-served residents of Washington. Emma has completed her premed requirements for medical school and plans to apply for fall 2013 entrance. Emma was born in Mexico City and immigrated to the U.S. as a young child. She has seven brothers and sisters, and her parents still work in the fields and are seen at Sea Mar Community Health Centers in the Bellingham area.

Dr. Lorena M. Estrada-Martínez earned her doctorate in health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan, where she also holds a Master of Public Health. She joined the George Warren Brown School of Social Work in August 2011 as an assistant professor of public health.

Before coming to Brown, Dr. Estrada-Martínez was the Paul B. Cornely Post-doctoral Research Scholar at University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Ethnicity Culture and Health. During her fellowship, she conducted research on the social determinants of health and Latino health disparities. During this time she was also a research assistant with the University of Michigan’s Prevention Research Center. In this role she analyzed data from the Flint Adolescent Study, looking at violent and non-violent delinquency among African American youths transitioning into adulthood. In addition, she was a Fellow in the Emerging Scholars Interdisciplinary Network Summer Fellowship Program in Applied Multi-Ethnic Research at ICPSR, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Other research interests included the health and well-being of Latinos and Afro-Caribbean populations and how the variations in immigration processes across them impact mental health and behavioral outcomes.

Over the course of her professional career, she has taught courses on research methodology, theories of health promotion, youth violence and injury prevention, Latino and immigrant health, racial and ethnic health disparities, women’s health, and adolescent health behaviors. Most recently, Dr. Estrada-Martínez was elected as a permanent member of the Brown School of Social Work’s newly formed Diversity Committee. She also serves as a co-chair on the executive board of Washington University’s Latino Link, founder and coordinator of St. Louis Latino Studies Workgroup, and a member of Violence Prevention Specialization Subcommittee, Children, Youth, and Families Committee and the Law, Culture, and Identity Initiative Advisory Board.

Dr. Estrada-Martínez is interested in understanding and reducing health disparities, particularly related to the mental health and risk behavioral outcomes of Latino and immigrant youth in the US. She takes a transdisciplinary approach that encompasses public health, sociology, psychology, anthropology, education, public policy, demography, law, and medicine. Her current projects examine neighborhood and family environments’ as contexts for risk and protection, and intra- and inter-ethnic disparities in youth violence, risky sexual behaviors, academic achievement, and substance abuse.

Member of MCN IRB. Family Medicine faculty member.

Elyce Harris is the Executive Administrative Associate at MCN. She is a native Texan, hailing from San Antonio, but her family is military so she traveled a lot as a child. After high school Elyce lived in Mexico City for two years working with a church on a variety of issues including advocating for indigenous population rights, leading eco-tours, and teaching English. When she returned from Mexico she went to community college and received her Associate of Arts in Business Administration. In 2005, Elyce started at Texas Tech University and graduated in 2009 with Bachelors of Arts in both Global Affairs and Spanish. During her time in college she studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain and Lyon, France. In both of these countries she did more advocacy work for victims of human trafficking, refugees, and handicap rights, as well as disaster relief projects. In May of 2010 she moved to Austin, Texas to work for the Refugee Services of Texas, where she worked as a case manager for refugees and victims of human trafficking. In this capacity she provided direct care services to these groups and worked with lawyers, doctors, Medicaid/Medicare, grants, and many more programs and organizations on a daily basis.

Angel Shannon is an adult-gerontological nurse practitioner and ethnogeriatric research consultant. Her background includes twenty years of nursing practice during which she gained invaluable clinical experiences in critical care medicine, community health, and case management. She is passionate about working with vulnerable and medically-underserved populations. Her research interests include understanding the intersections and roles of language, literacy and culture in healthcare delivery. She lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.

I was born and raised in New Mexico but lived in Las Vegas, NV for 17 years. I have been involved in many volunteer projects and organizations.