Appendix B
Speaker Biographical Sketches
Alejandra Baltazar-Molina is a DACAmented Voices in Healthcare participant. Currently employed as a Community Health Advisor at El Rio Community Health Center in Tucson, Arizona, Ms. Baltazar-Molina graduated from the University of Arizona in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and a minor in Portuguese. She is currently a graduate student pursuing a dual degree in Mexican American Studies (Spring 2018) and Public Health (Fall 2018). Ms. Baltazar-Molina has been active in her community since August 2010, when she started volunteering as an English as a Second Language teacher for adults with the nonprofit organization Literacy Connects in Tucson and for various organizations that are pro-immigrant.
Heide Castañeda, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her research combines medical anthropology and public health perspectives and focuses on migrant health and health policy in Germany, Mexico, and the United States. She is the co-editor of Unequal Coverage: The Experience of Health Care Reform in the United States (New York University Press, 2017) and the author of two forthcoming books, one titled Migrant Health: Cross-Disciplinary and Critical Perspectives, as well as an ethnography of mixed-status families in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Dr. Castañeda has published dozens of articles on health care access for immigrant and minority populations. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Fulbright Program, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Emmanuel Cordova is a first-year medical student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), David Geffen School of Medicine. His interest in medicine comes from having lived as an undocumented immigrant and experiencing health inequities for most of his life. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania where he double majored in Health and Societies and Hispanic Studies with a minor in Latin American and Latino studies. Mr. Cordova is interested in conducting health equity research as a physician and using community-based research to incorporate voices from the community. Before medical school, he worked at Northwestern University on a randomized controlled trial focused on increasing smoking cessation rates among low-income patients attending federally qualified health centers.
Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D., is a Senior Researcher at the American Immigration Council. Dr. Ewing has authored numerous reports for the council, including The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States (co-written in 2015 with Daniel Gonzalez and Rubén Rumbaut), which received considerable press attention. He has also published articles in the Journal on Migration and Human Security, Society, the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, and the Stanford Law and Policy Review, as well as a chapter in Debates on U.S. Immigration, published by SAGE in 2012. Dr. Ewing holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the City University of New York.
Sofia Gómez, Dr.P.H., M.P.A., obtained her doctorate in public health at the University of Arizona’s Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Dr. Gómez’s doctoral research examines immigrant families’ health care experiences in Arizona’s comparatively restrictive political climate. Her dissertation work titled DACAmented Voices in Healthcare examines DACAmented youth’s experience in Arizona via documentary photography. Importantly, the DACAmented Voices in Healthcare project promotes participatory research methods that engage community members in addressing their own health concerns.
Dr. Gómez served as the Executive Director of Humane Borders, a human rights organization addressing migrant deaths along the U.S.–Mexico border. In addition to her work with Humane Borders, she served as a Research Associate with the University of Arizona’s Binational Migration Institute (BMI). She was part of the research team that investigated the deaths along the U.S.–Mexico border. Her work contributed to BMI’s publication of Protocol Development for the Standardization of Identification and Postmortem Examinations of UBC Bodies Along the U.S.–Mexico Border: A Best Practices Manual.
Her scholarly work provides scholars, policy makers, and health practitioners with information on the effects of restrictive immigration on
immigrant health and strategies to overcome them. Because of the importance and relevancy of her work, she has been recognized with awards and scholarships that include the Marshall Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Award, the Hispanic Women’s Corporation Scholarship, the Zuckerman Family Foundation Public Health Student Scholarship, BMI’s 2017 Excellent Migration Research Graduate Student Award, and most recently her dissertation was nominated for the 2017 Council of Graduate Schools and ProQuest Dissertation Award.
Tiffiany Howard, Ph.D., L.L.M., is an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Center for Migration, Demography, and Population Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Earning her dual doctorate in Political Science and Public Policy from the University of Michigan, Dr. Howard’s teaching interests reflect her dual expertise and training in policy and politics and she has taught courses on international security and foreign policy, terrorism and political violence, immigration and refugee policy, race and gender, and research methods and statistics. Since joining the UNLV faculty in 2008, she has been awarded several prestigious and nationally recognized research fellowships and visiting scholar positions, including the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar Fellowship (University of California, Los Angeles, 2013–2014), the American Political Science Association Centennial Center Visiting Scholar Position (2014), the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-VIPCAT Research Fellowship (University of Georgia, 2008), and most recently, the Black Mountain Institute–Faculty Research Fellowship (UNLV, 2015). Dr. Howard is also the 2013 recipient of the Marjorie Barrick Faculty Scholar Award for distinguished research and the 2011 Faculty Diversity Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship. Lastly, Dr. Howard has published extensively in her areas of expertise and is the author of three books: The Tragedy of Failure (Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2010), Failed States and the Origins of Violence (Ashgate, 2014), and Sex, Power, and Politics (Palgrave, 2016).
Octavio A. Hinojosa Mier, M.P.A., is the Veterans for New Americans Coordinator on behalf of the National Immigration Forum. He is responsible for leading and managing the growth of veterans networks at the state and national level. He also oversees the day-to-day operations in coordination with the Forum’s Field Director; the Bibles, Badges, and Business (BBB) Campaign Manager; and the Veterans for New Americans Co-Chairs. Mr. Hinojosa Mier has extensive national security and public policy expertise gained from his years at both the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Congress. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Latin American Studies from the University of Kansas and a Master of Public
Administration degree from the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is also a former Graduate Fellow of the Maxwell School National Security Studies Program. In April 2013, Mr. Hinojosa Mier was decorated with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Civil Merit by the Spanish Ambassador to the United States on behalf of His Majesty King Juan Carlos I and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation for “extraordinary services” in benefit of the Kingdom of Spain. He is a 2017 Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Ninez A. Ponce, Ph.D., M.P.P., is a Professor in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management; Associate Center Director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR); and Director of the UCLA Center for Global and Immigrant Health. She is the Principal Investigator for the California Health Interview Survey, the largest state health survey in the nation, housed at CHPR. She led pioneering efforts in the measurement of race/ethnicity, citizenship status, generational status, the implementation of the Asian ethnic oversamples, and the cultural and linguistic adaptation of the survey. A health economist, her research contributes to the elimination of racial, ethnic, and social disparities in health and health care in three areas: multicultural survey research, social penalties in health access, and global and immigrant health. Dr. Ponce has worked at the Asian and Pacific Islander American Forum, RAND, Catholic Relief Services, and the World Bank. She has served on the board of the National Health Law Program, the California Pan Ethnic Health Network, and the New Heights Charter School in South Los Angeles, and is a current member of the multicultural advisory board for Nielsen, Inc. She served on a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) subcommittee and on the National Quality Forum’s (NQF’s) expert panels. She currently co-chairs the NQF’s Disparities Standing Committee. Her service for the NQF and the NAS committees focused on setting guidance for health systems in the use of social determinants of health and standardized race/ethnicity collection as tools to eliminate health disparities. Recently, Dr. Ponce was appointed to the Board of Scientific Counselors, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thu Quach, Ph.D., came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam. Her lived experiences during immigration and resettlement have grounded her and motivated her commitment to addressing disparities that affect underserved communities. She is currently the Director of Community Health and Research at Asian Health Services (AHS), a federally qualified health center in Oakland, California, providing culturally competent health care to more than 28,000 patients in English and 12 Asian languages. In this role, she oversees community outreach, patient engagement, and health
policy advocacy efforts. In addition, she leads research projects on clinic-based interventions, quality improvement, and payment reform analyses. As an epidemiologist, she has focused much of her work on examining the influence of environmental and sociocultural factors on the health of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders population. In addition to AHS, she previously worked at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California as a Research Scientist, where she led research studies on environmental health issues affecting disadvantaged populations, including occupational chemical exposures for Vietnamese nail salon workers. Dr. Quach is involved in local, statewide, and national research and policy efforts to promote health equity, including data warehouses, community-based participatory research, civic engagement, and health policy. She received a Master’s in Public Health from the University of California (UC), Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from UC Berkeley.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean of the University of California, Riverside, School of Public Policy, and a Professor of Public Policy and Political Science. He is also a Board Member of The California Endowment, Chair of the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) Affairs, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. He received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University and has held fellowships at the Russell Sage Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Dr. Ramakrishnan’s research focuses on civic participation, immigration policy, and the politics of race, ethnicity, and immigration in the United States. He directs the National Asian American Survey and is the Founder of AAPIData.com, which features demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. He has published many articles and six books, including Framing Immigrants (Russell Sage, 2016) and The New Immigration Federalism (Cambridge, 2015). Dr. Ramakrishnan has received many grants from sources such as the National Science Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation, and has provided consultation to public officials at the federal and local levels.
In addition, Dr. Ramakrishnan is the founding Editor of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, an official section journal of the American Political Science Association; the Director of the University of California–wide program on AAPI policy; and an Assembly appointee to the California Commission on APIA Affairs (2014–2017). He has written dozens of op-eds and appeared in more than 1,000 news stories, many in major news outlets such as The New York Times, The Economist, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, PBS Newshour, MSNBC, CBS Evening News, and CNN.
Alicia Wilson is the Executive Director of La Clínica del Pueblo, a federally qualified health center serving the immigrant Latino community in and around Washington, DC. La Clínica was founded in 1983 as a direct response to the linguistic and cultural barriers to health care experienced by Central Americans who had come to the DC area fleeing war, human rights violations, and poverty. Today the clinic provides primary care, behavioral health, interpreter services, comprehensive chronic disease care with particular focus on diabetes and HIV, community health promotion and education, advocacy, and outreach for men, women, and children throughout the DC metropolitan area. La Clínica’s mission is “to build a healthy Latino community through culturally appropriate health services, focusing on those most in need.”
Ms. Wilson received her B.A. in Religion and Sociology/Anthropology from Swarthmore College and began working in the social services field immediately after graduating. She first served as a case manager working with the homeless and working poor in and around Washington, DC, then shifted to working with HIV positive Latinos at La Clínica del Pueblo. In 2001, Ms. Wilson joined the development department of La Clínica and in 2002 became the Director of Grants and Contracts Administration. After playing an increasing role in the leadership of the clinic, Ms. Wilson was selected to be La Clínica’s Executive Director beginning in January 2009. Ms. Wilson currently sits on the Board of Directors of the DC Primary Care Association and the Institute for Public Health Innovation, and she serves on the DC Department of Health’s Bureau of Cancer and Chronic Disease Community Leadership Team. She has played an active role in local health care advocacy through her frequent testimony in front of the DC City Council, as well as her work in coalitions across the region. Ms. Wilson was named a 2015 Disruptive Woman to Watch by Disruptive Women in Healthcare. In 2017, Ms. Wilson was appointed to DC’s Health Equity Commission by the City Council.
Hal F. Yee, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., is the Chief Medical Officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, the nation’s second largest metropolitan health system, which includes four academic medical centers; a large ambulatory care network; affiliations with the University of Southern California (USC); the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and Charles Drew Schools of Medicine; approximately 20,000 employees; and a $5 billion budget. He serves on the Board of the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, and the advisory boards of the USC and UCLA Clinical Translational and Science Institutes. Dr. Yee was the Rice Memorial Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); founding Director of the UCSF-San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) Center for Innovation in Access and
Quality; and Chief Medical Officer and Chief of Gastroenterology at the SFGH and Trauma Center. He has more than 20 years of extramural grant funding and has authored more than 80 publications. He made fundamental discoveries in the understanding of the molecular signals controlling cellular contraction and motility, and the pathogenesis of hepatic and intestinal fibrosis. Over the past decade his research has evolved to focus on development and implementation of disruptive interventions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health care delivery. Most notably he (1) conceived of and designed the implementation and evaluation of an award-winning electronic specialty care consultation management system in both San Francisco and Los Angeles; (2) developed and implemented a novel approach, the Expected Practice, that effectively standardizes clinical decision making and behavior; and (3) transformed the Los Angeles County Health System into a model for testing disruptive health care innovations that improve the quality and efficiency of clinical care.
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