Curamericas Global Board Of Directors
Stacie Arechavala
M. Eng. Biomedical Engineering
Board Member
Stacie Arechavala
Stacie has been involved in a substantial way since early 2020. As a member of our inaugural Young Professionals Board, then as co-chair in 2021 as well as an active member of the Strategic Planning Committee. Today she is an Innovation Fellow at Stanford and working in Artificial Intelligence in Health care.
From Stacie: My family is from Nicaragua — I grew up experiencing the healthcare gap between developed and developing countries firsthand. There are many stories, including some of my own, of the perils and/or consequences of low quality and/or limited access to healthcare that drive me toward wanting to help others by closing that gap. I’m passionate about nonprofit work because everyone deserves access to good healthcare and an equal opportunity to a healthy and full life.
I have always been drawn to maternal and neonatal/child health, but it became even more important to me when I traveled to Kampala and was able to experience the neonatal ward first hand. Curamericas Global’s mission is what intrigued me as it aligned well with my passions.
Partnering with the local community to provide women and children the healthcare they need to eliminate preventable deaths.
Lauren Eberly
MD
Board Member
Lauren Eberly
Lauren Eberly earned her BS in Biology and BA in Spanish from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010, and her MD from University of New Mexico in 2015. She was an intern with Curamericas Global during her undergraduate studies. After college, her work with Curamericas Global brought her to the northwest highlands of Guatemala where she spent several months working to improve health capacity at the Casa Materna. She returned after her first year of medical school in order to help with the implementation of a USAID Child Survival and Heath Grant. During medical school, she volunteered at Clinica One Hope, a community-run health center serving primarily undocumented immigrants. Here, she was involved in a projects to integrate community health workers into the clinic and to diminish language and cultural barriers to care. She is currently at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston completing a combined Internal Medicine and Global Health Equity residency. As a Global Health Equity resident, she has spent much of her time in rural Rwanda, engaging local partners to find innovative strategies to decentralize and integrate care for non-communicable diseases.
Jordan Jones
MPA, MRCP
Vice Chair
Jordan Jones
Jordan Jones is a development advisor for DFI where he supports the mission through providing his real estate expertise through consulting and teaching. He has focused his career on reactivating communities, particularly downtowns, through transformative real estate development projects. He has specialized in creative financing (including historic and new markets tax credits) and public private partnerships to deliver curated developments, particularly in lower wealth communities. With DFI, Jones has advised on more than 20 projects representing more than $600m of development potential.
Jones is also the principal of JA Jones Ventures, his development company that has active projects in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Through JA Jones Ventures, Jones is one of the lead partners behind $65m of private development in his hometown of Fayetteville, NC. These Fayetteville projects include the historic renovation of the Prince Charles ($17m), acquisition/re-positioning of the Festival Park Plaza office building ($6m) as well as new construction of a public parking garage ($17m), upscale select service hotel ($22m), and Class A office building ($20m). These projects are part of the $110m public private partnership with the City of Fayetteville that also includes the delivery of a minor league baseball stadium. JA Jones Ventures has an additional $55m of projects in its pipeline.
Jones received a dual master’s degree from UNC in public administration and city & regional planning. He completed his undergraduate studies from Wake Forest University in business and enterprise management.
Tina Jones
J.D.
Immediate Past Chair
Tina Jones
Tina Jones received a B.A. degree in History in 1993 from Fairmont State College and a J.D. degree in 1996 from West Virginia University College of Law. She joined the board to combine her experience as a healthcare litigation attorney with her interest in work that bolsters the human rights of all women and girls. She believes that by educating and training community members and collecting long-term data, the work of Curamericas becomes a legacy to empower the girls and women of tomorrow. Tina has been an independent, voting member of the Board since July 2015.
Henry Perry
MD, PhD, MPH
Co-Founder of Curamericas Global, Director Emeritus
Henry Perry
Henry currently serves as Senior Associate in the Health Systems Program of the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD. He has a formal background in medicine including general surgery, public health, sociology and anthropology. Henry has lived and worked in Bangladesh and Haiti in maternal and child health issues, primary care, hospital care, and community development. From 2003-2009 he worked with the NGO Future Generations to establish its innovative Master’s Degree program in Applied Community Change and Conservation.
Michelle Richter
Board Chair
Michelle Richter
Michelle received a BS in Chemical Engineering from NC State in 2011. She works in project management for labs, CROs and clinical trial implementing institutions. Michelle has served as the Chair of the Young Women in Bio organization. committed to promoting careers, leadership, and entrepreneurship of women in the life sciences. She has traveled with Curamericas Global to Guatemala and Bolivia to see first hand our work. She has also supported the Strategic Planning process. As vice-chair, she will now lead our next Strategic Planning process. Michelle has been an independent, voting member of the Board of Directors since February 2017. She is in her first term.
Beth Snyder
DVM
Board Member
Beth Snyder
Dr. Beth Snyder holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University.
Beth has long been passionate about the health and welfare of women and children. She has served on numerous mission trips to Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, and Guatemala over the last twenty years.
Throughout her thirty-six years as a veterinarian in Western North Carolina, Beth served in various volunteer and leadership roles in her local and international community. Beth has served as a nonprofit board member, missions committee chair, church treasurer, elder, and small group leader.
Nathan Robinson
Treasurer
Nathan Robinson
Nat Robison served as Executive Director of Curamericas Global’s partner organization in Bolivia (Consejo de Salud Rural Andino, or CSRA) for 27 years until his retirement from that position in 2013. He has extensive knowledge about and experience with community health programming and community development more broadly. In addition to his work with CSRA, Nat has a long experience working with many other development organizations in Bolivia and beyond. He currently serves on the boards of directors of several Bolivian NGOs, including CRECER, a successful micro-credit lending institution; PROCOSI, a network of 26 non-profit organizations providing integrated health services in Bolivia; and SEMTA, which provides technical and financial assistance to families and communities in income generation and social development. Nat was born in Bolivia and is the son of life-long Methodist missionaries who served there. Nat has been an independent, voting member of the Board of Directors since January 2014. He is in his second term.
Curamericas Global Team
Andrew Herrera, MPH, MBA
Executive Director
Andrew Herrera, MPH, MBA
Before joining Curamericas Global in 2009, Andrew served with the City of Raleigh Parks and Recreation for four years and spent a year studying in Ecuador. In 2004 Andrew was a State Department Ambassador to Jiaonan, China through the American Field Service. He has a B.A. in Hispanic Studies and Religious Studies from East Carolina University and an MPH from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health in Public Health Leadership and a concentration in Field Epidemiology (August 2017). He also has his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
In 2020, Andrew led the Curamericas COVID response in NC, reaching 10,000 Spanish speaking families with an innovative volunteer network. He led an $11M contract with NCDHHS to provide 209 community health workers across 26 counties, reaching over 160,000 people in NC in less than one year. The focus of the COVID response was to bring our learnings from abroad to our work here, providing resources to forgotten communities so families could stay safe during a very uncertain time. Andrew has been awarded the Triangle Business Journal 40 Under 40, the Latino Diamante Award for Health and Sciences and the Triangle Business Journal Health Care Hero award, among others.
As Executive Director of Curamericas Global since December 2013, Andrew has been responsible for leading strategic initiatives, development of the Board of Directors and the day-to-day operations of an international Nongovernmental Organization.
From Andrew:
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Montgomery, AL 1957
We must do good for others, but good is not good enough. We must use our minds so that every dollar and every minute of our work is for the most impact. We must hold ourselves to the highest standard, always seeking excellence and using data to ensure our work is verifiable and targeted.
I enjoy practically all music, especially if it is something I haven’t heard before. Some things that make me smile in life are trying to speak different languages, ping pong, laughing with friends, and dancing.
Barbara Muffoletto, MPH
Senior Program Manager
Barbara Muffoletto, MPH
Barbara joined the Curamericas Global team in December 2013. Barbara holds an MPH in Health Behavior from UNC Chapel Hill and a BA in both Political Science and Spanish from UNC Asheville. Before coming to Curamericas Global, Barbara worked with AmeriCorps VISTA, triangle-based nonprofit organizations Stop Hunger Now and International Focus, and with Contextos, a nonprofit organization in El Salvador focused on improving critical thinking and decision-making abilities through literacy. Barbara has also completed capacity-building and research with global health projects in Sierra Leone, Guatemala and with Latinx populations in NC. View Barbara’s resume.
From Barbara:
Working in global health is more than about helping people. Global health is about finding creative solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems. Global health practitioners often work in areas where there is little infrastructure, stability, or funds. They provide the opportunity and impetus for communities to live healthier, wealthier lives and create systems that have the ability to improve the lives of many for generations to come. I am passionate about global health programs that work and prioritize those most vulnerable to illness and death. I feel fortunate to be working with Curamericas Global’s programs serving mothers and children in Latin America and Africa.
“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – H. Thurman
Marva Richey
Marva Richey
Marva has been volunteering with us since 2016 and works with us weekly on our database of donors and saying thank you in a timely manner.
JoAnn Heiser – Volunteer
JoAnn Heiser
JoAnn has been involved since 2020 supporting our administrative efforts to process donations. She works from home and ensures that gifts are accurately credited and accounted for.
Our Board of Advisors
Donna Akuamoah, J.D.
Donna Akuamoah, J.D.
Donna Akuamoah is an activator and organizer for women health. For over 5 years, Donna served as Executive for International Ministries at United Methodist Women’s National Office where she assisted over 70 community health workers across Central Africa to access maternal and child health resources. She has led workshops for more than 2000 women in the United States to raise awareness of health needs and mobilize communities to take action.
Born in Ghana, Donna is the youngest child in a family of 6 children. She completed her primary and secondary education in Ghana, and her Bachelors degree at Claflin University, a United Methodist affiliated college in South Carolina. In 2011, Donna received her Juris Doctor from Duke University. Donna remains a dedicated advocate for human rights worldwide.
Reed Altman, Ed. D.
Reed Altman, Ed. D.
Reed grew up in Chapel Hill, but has lived in Raleigh for over 25 years. He went to NC State and Carolina and has a background in Biology, Aquaculture and Adult Education.
He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia and did his doctoral research in Kenya. He has spent his career involved in Leadership, Organizational Development and Human Resources and has extensive experience with the interface of technology with all of these topics.
He currently works with the Office of State Human Resources in the Talent Management Division.
He and his immediate family (wife, Elizabeth; son, Sebastian; and daughter, Mari) have traveled to Guatemala a number of times, visiting extended (foster) family members and doing service projects. He believes that all people are family, though, and we should treat each other accordingly.
Sonny Bandyopadhyay
Sonny Bandyopadhyay
Sonny is a Product & Strategy professional focused on early stage company building. He’s currently a Product Manager at Cie, an LA-based startup studio which creates both in-house startups as well as corporate ventures. Sonny is also a Fellow with Tech Coast Angels (TCA), an angel investment group based in SoCal.
Earlier in his career, Sonny helped to form a non-profit organization named Global HEED, which partnered with Curamericas to develop infrastructure and programs for Calhuitz, in Guatemala.
Sonny is an avid pro basketball fan (especially when the Lakers win) and is a graduate of Emory University.
W. David Bell
W. David Bell
David Bell is a retired banker, serving over 40 years in NC Community Banks most recently as a part-time management consultant with Fidelity Bank of Fuquay-Varina. David is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.
David has been involved with numerous work teams with Curamericas partner in Bolivia, Consejo de Salud Rural Andino (CSRA), as well as the project site in Guatemala. David has witnessed first-hand the enormous impact on these local communities, and embraces the Census-Based Impact-Oriented methodology (CBIO) having first observed it in 2001 while visiting Montero Bolivia. The CBIO methodology focuses on building a partnership with communities, completing a census of all households, and regularly visiting every household. David believes that we should respect the cultures and traditions of the indigenous people and work with them to address their healthcare needs. As a retiree David looks forward to having more time to devote to Curamericas.
Sita Chandra, MPH
Sita Chandra, MPH
From serving as a student volunteer at Curamericas Guatemala project site in 2011 to serving as an Outreach and Development Intern in the Raleigh office in 2015, she shares a passion for the health and well-being of mothers and children around the world.
With her experiences abroad, she has learned the value of health education and the need to implement it in rural communities, starting with children. Therefore, she believes that Curamericas Global fully embodies that mission and is excited to continue the work with us!
Sita holds an undergraduate degree in Health Communication and Spanish from Campbell University and a Master of Public Health from the University of Georgia. She enjoys writing, videography and a good cup of fresh coffee.
Irene Felsman, DNP, MPH, RN
Irene Felsman, DNP, MPH, RN
Irene Felsman, DNP, MPH, RN, is an assistant professor at Duke University School of Nursing, with a focus in global and community health, where she teaches in the area of health promotion, wellness, community and global health. Dr. Felsman’s expertise includes community engagement methods and the development of culturally aligned community interventions to improve health and access to care for woman and children in diverse settings, both locally and globally. Dr. Felsman relocated to Durham in 2011 from South Africa after 25 years of working in developing countries (Latin America, Asia and Africa) in the capacity of program advisor, consultant, clinician and educator. Populations of particular interest to her include immigrants, refugees and underserved families, women and children. Her research interests include risk and resiliency in refugees and immigrants resettled in the United States, and the implications for quality improvement in community health interventions.
Dr. Felsman received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Duke University, her MPH and Certificate of Health Care in Developing Countries from Boston University School of Public Health and her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Duquesne University.
Dave Heiser, PE, BCEE
Dave Heiser, PE, BCEE
With 43 years of hydraulic engineering experience to contribute, David Heiser serves as Water Consultant on the Curamericas Global’s Board of Advisors. He is passionate about constructing water treatment centers because he believes clean water is the first step in developing healthy communities. Once communities have access to clean water, they can build schools, hospitals, and a higher standard of living.
About David
David started his global experiences from an early age. At the age of 5, David’s family moved from Denver, Colorado to New Delhi, India because of his father’s job as a dam engineer. Throughout his childhood, he lived in India, Pakistan, and Iran. He then attended boarding school in Switzerland where he learned French and German. In 1964, he returned home to the US to complete his final years of high school.
After spending 6 years in the US Air Force during the Vietnam War, David attended Pennsylvania State University. He graduated with a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering, focusing on pure hydraulics. His college days sparked his interest in professional organizations. David has since been active in many engineering organizations including Engineers without Borders, American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists, and the North Carolina Section of the American Water Works Association and Water Environment Federation. In 2003, David earned the title of Engineer of the Year from the Professional Engineers of North Carolina organization.
David currently works at CDM Smith as a Senior Environmental Engineer. He was able to continue his global travels during his career through projects in Hong Kong, Egypt, and Guam. For the past 8 years he has mainly been involved with wastewater treatment plant construction in Greensboro, North Carolina. After a multitude of contributions to design, construction management, pumping stations, and pipelines, David will be retiring at the end of 2018.
Wells of Hope
Between work responsibilities and spending time with his family, David contributes his expertise to constructing clean water facilities in low-income communities. In local North Carolina neighborhoods, he conducted engineering reports at no cost, which are needed to apply for grant money. He has also volunteered abroad in Nicaragua, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Guatemala.
With Curamericas Global, David is paving the way for women and children to access health care in the Mayan highlands of Guatemala. “Usually, when I go on a mission I like it to be water or wastewater related. I get a sense of satisfaction that, when I leave, I’ve helped the community.”
Clean water is necessary for the health of every community. Improper sanitation leads to many illnesses, especially diarrheal diseases. We all know hydration is important in daily life, but drinking water is even more important during an illness. David’s help in developing water systems brings Curamericas Global one step closer to caring for women and children in remote areas of the world. Check out more pictures of David in action on our Facebook page.
Flowing Forward
After retiring at the end of the year, David is excited to devote more time to humanitarian efforts. He looks forward to accompanying Curamericas Global on more international mission trips. David will be continuing projects in Guatemala and Bolivia that help maintain clean and healthy environments for women and children.
David works to make sure that water is accessible for everyone in all corners of the world. His expertise and enthusiasm for helping others has flowed both near and far. At each stop, he creates a spout that will flow into buckets for years to come.
Mark Jayne, MS
Mark Jayne, MS
Mark Jayne is the lead data scientist for Orchard, a Series B startup in NYC that is transforming how homes are bought and sold. In his role at Orchard, Mark developed an automated valuation model (AVM) for residential real estate — <3% median absolute error, 0% bias, 2x better than leading competitors and 30% better than human driven valuation. He achieved this by using computer vision algorithms to extract data from images. He also designed and sold the concept to stakeholders, built the algorithm, and assisted in productionizing it to avoid technical debt.
Wow, that’s some serious technical talk. He is a smart guy and more! Mark is a passionate traveller, co-founding the “Travel Lovers Meet-up” in the Triangle and growing membership from zero to thousands! He is an avid photographer and is deeply committed to Curamericas Global’s mission. He has seen our work first hand in Guatemala and Kenya.
Katie King
Katie King
Katie first became involved with Curamericas Global as a design intern in 2014 and has continued to work closely with the organization on various design projects. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015 with bachelor degrees in journalism (editing and graphic design) and global studies (politics and social movements). In 2013, she spent a semester in Cuzco, Peru, where she studied indigenous peoples and globalization and researched the impact of a local non-governmental organization on a rural community. The following summer, she completed a marketing internship at an eco-hotel in Costa Rica, where she continued to develop her Spanish skills and promote the hotel’s local, environmentally friendly ethos. While she is especially drawn to Latin America, she loves to travel anywhere at every opportunity, and she’s always planning her next trip. As an intern, she saw the perfect opportunity to combine her passions for journalism and international issues with her desire to make a difference in communities around the world.
Katie currently lives in Greensboro, NC, where she volunteers as an ESOL tutor, freelances for Curamericas Global and UNC Global, and works full-time as an editor at North Carolina’s Our State magazine.
Breanne Lesnar, MPH
Breanne Lesnar, MPH
Breanne volunteered at the Curamericas Guatemala project site for two months in the summer of 2017. She worked alongside staff to update the maternal complications registry, pilot test a positive deviance interview tool, and conduct maternal and child health education outreach in the community. She also interpreted for nurses in the Casa Materna clinic. She especially enjoyed playing soccer and basketball with the lively Casa Materna staff in the evenings.
As a volunteer, Breanne was moved by the passionate dedication of the Guatemalan staff and impressed to witness the successful deployment of Curamerica’s Community-Based, Impact-Oriented approach firsthand. Breanne is excited to support Curamerica’s positive global impact on health by joining the Board of Advisors.
Breanne currently works as a Program Coordinator for Research Engagement with AVAC, a global advocacy nonprofit organization for HIV prevention. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Community Health Education & Promotion and Spanish from Central Michigan University and a Master’s of Public Health from the University of North Carolina.
Shayanne Martin, MPH
Shayanne Martin, MPH
Shayanne wears many hats, she is a mom, a researcher, an educator and a volunteer. As a program manager for the South Texas CHW Workforce Preparedness Collaborative at UT-San Antonio she supports training partners to provide and extend CHW training for 38 counties across South Texas. She also facilitates improvements in CHW curricula, training recruitment and retention, and experiential learning (internships and apprenticeships) to bolster the South Texas community health workforce to advance health equity. Previously, she provided training founded in adult learning theory, training monitoring and evaluation, and workforce performance improvement strategy to the UCSF & SF Department of Public Health collaboration on COVID-19 contact tracing. She also worked for USAID for two years after her masters in pubic health from Johns Hopkins. She first experienced global health when recruited to go to Guatemala in 2011 with Curamericas Global, a formative experience to which she attributes her passion for community-based primary healthcare. Trained as a Community Health Worker, she believes that community health is best improved by community members and is driven to optimize support for community health workers locally and globally. Beyond UCSF, through research and technical advising, she has supported community health workforce development in California, Guatemala, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Uganda, and Kenya.
Jason Mose
Jason Mose
Jason Mose, PhD, MBA, MS, CHFP, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services and Information Management at East Carolina University. Jason earned a baccalaureate degree in business administration with a concentration in information management systems from Montclair State University in New Jersey, a master’s degree in health services management and policy from New School University in New York, an MBA from New Jersey City University, also in New Jersey. Lastly, Jason earned his PhD in Health Policy and Management from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill. His dissertation topic was “Estimating the Effects Of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Sophistication and EHRs Years of Experience on Health Care Quality, Patient Experience, 30-Day Readmissions, and Profitability in U.S Acute Care Hospitals.”
Hilary Moshman, MPH
Hilary Moshman, MPH
Hilary is an international development professional with a background in monitoring and impact evaluation in humanitarian response and tuberculosis control. While earning her Master of Public Health at Emory University in 2010, she visited the model community-based primary health care program in Montero, Bolivia, where Curamericas first began in 1983. For her Masters thesis, she studied the Census-based, Impact-oriented (CBIO) methodology, and measured the impact of the program. She found that infant and child mortality had been reduced by 90% over an 18 to 19-year period! Her experience with this study fueled her passion for community-based primary health care, and strengthened her belief in the vital role of community health workers and home visits.
Hilary currently works as Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at a small consulting firm, monitoring humanitarian response projects in Syria for the United Nations. She lives in Boulder, CO, with her daughter, Chava, and enjoys cooking, meditation, and being outdoors
Ira Stollak, MA, MPH
Ira Stollak, MA, MPH
Ira came to international public health work via a life-transforming two years as a middle-aged Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala and Belize, where he designed and implemented projects to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. Prior to this, he had long careers directing educational programs for at-risk youth and teaching college English and Literature. He returned to grad school at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, where he earned an MPH in International Health; his thesis work, funded by the Gates Foundation, examined the HIV dissemination risk of Mexican truckers in the Yucatan. He then worked for a year in Alaska for the Alaska Center for Rural Health, doing research on inequities in health care provision in rural Alaska, and then joined the team at Curamericas Global, initiating two new projects in Liberia and Haiti, before becoming Program Manager for Latin America, supporting CGI’s Guatemala project in partnership with Curamericas Guatemala. View Ira’s résumé.
Ira believes passionately in equity and social justice, and is a great supporter of CGI’s signature methodology, CBIO, since it has the capacity to empower marginalized communities to improve their own health. Ira also has a Master’s Degree in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz and is a formally trained mediator. His avocational passions are playing guitar, photography and photojournalism, hiking, and bird-watching.
Young Professionals Board
Stacie Arechavala
Stacie Arechavala
Stacie has been involved in a substantial way since early 2020. As a member of our inaugural Young Professionals Board, then as co-chair in 2021 as well as an active member of the Strategic Planning Committee. Today she is an Innovation Fellow at Stanford and working in Artificial Intelligence in Health care.
From Stacie: My family is from Nicaragua — I grew up experiencing the healthcare gap between developed and developing countries firsthand. There are many stories, including some of my own, of the perils and/or consequences of low quality and/or limited access to healthcare that drive me toward wanting to help others by closing that gap. I’m passionate about nonprofit work because everyone deserves access to good healthcare and an equal opportunity to a healthy and full life.
I have always been drawn to maternal and neonatal/child health, but it became even more important to me when I traveled to Kampala and was able to experience the neonatal ward first hand. Curamericas Global’s mission is what intrigued me as it aligned well with my passions.
Partnering with the local community to provide women and children the healthcare they need to eliminate preventable deaths.
Laura Dugom
Laura Dugom
Laura was first introduced to Public Health and Curamericas when the organization was a guest speaker in an undergraduate course. After several internships, Laura decided to pursue a degree in public health and earned her MPH from UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in 2020 with a concentration in healthcare leadership. Laura has been working in clinical research for almost 3 years in the academic and CRO setting. She is currently working for a biotech leading global oncology trials. In her free time, Laura loves to bake and cook, paint, and spend time with her family. She is excited to spread the word about the amazing work Curamericas does for women and children around the world!
Susan Hyman, MA
Susan Hyman, MA
Susan currently works as Institutes Project Manager at Engineering World Health, where she oversees international service-learning programs for STEM students. After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in Global Studies, she spent the next year in Nicaragua as a community development volunteer. From then on, her enthusiasm for language and cultural immersion has played a significant role in her life. She recently received her M.A. in Spanish Interpreting and Translation Studies from Wake Forest University and loves the constant challenge and exhilaration of using her second language. She has worked with students and volunteers throughout Central America and is excited to support the Curamericas Global mission.
Annah Okari, RN
Annah Okari, RN
Annah is just a girl who desires to live a giving life; presently working as a Psychiatric Registered Nurse. She is passionate about improving health outcomes through developing sustainable interventions. She served as a volunteer for Curamerica’s KIKOP project in Kenya, as part of her Master’s program internship, where she was able to merge her nursing skills with her community development knowledge in the promotion of maternal and child well-being. In her free time, Annah loves to read, sing, listen to music, and spend time with the people nearest to her heart.
Alyssa Rosenfeld
Alyssa Rosenfeld
Alyssa is an engineer who works in the medical device industry. She received her BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Miami. Since she became a Girl Scout at age 4, Alyssa has strongly believed in the importance of volunteering and striving towards making the world a better place. With a background in the medical field, she is passionate about the work that Curamericas Global is doing to provide critical healthcare access in underserved communities and eliminate preventable deaths by using a data-driven, evidence-based approach. In her free time, Alyssa loves hanging out with friends and family, reading a good book, baking, and cheering on Miami sports teams
Alexis Shindhelm
Alexis Shindhelm
Alexis is a medical and research assistant for the Duke Department of Neurology and a part-time master’s in Biomedical Engineering student at Johns Hopkins University. She majored in BME and global health at Duke where her interests in child and maternal health and reducing health inequities and disparities began. She is very grateful to have been a part of the YPB since its inaugural year and is inspired by Curamericas Global’s work aimed at reaching the most vulnerable individuals, suffering from readily-preventable or treatable conditions, and developing sustainable change based in evidence-based practices through engaging communities directly.
Nilpa Shah, MPH
Nilpa Shah, MPH
Nilpa is a Program Manager for the Digital Health Equity Program at the Center for Vulnerable Populations at University of California San Francisco. She has her MPH from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and BS in Cell Biology and BA in Psychology from UC Davis. Nilpa has experience managing health services projects to improve health outcomes, healthcare delivery, and health disparities in community and healthcare settings. Her work has centered on chronic disease management, family caregiving, violence prevention, telehealth, and maternal and child health. Through her work, Nilpa aims to address sociocultural and biobehavioral determinants of health to achieve health equity in underserved and marginalized populations.
Elysia Su
Elysia Su
Elysia currently works at a maternity-focused digital health company in San Francisco, where she works on insights and analytics. She’s spent the past few years working at various health tech companies with the goal of leveraging technology to improve access to health care and reduce health disparities. Elysia received a BS in Biology from Duke University, where she also studied Spanish and visual arts and worked at the Duke Global Health Institute, as well as the Institute’s Global Digital Health Science Center.
Claudia Tejada
Claudia Tejada
Claudia has served many years in the medical field through various capacities. Her experience includes private pediatric practice, an international medical center, and cancer clinical research, where she developed an interest in increasing minority participation in clinical trials. Her work in public health has been varied, from veterinary medicine to veteran health outreach. She has responded to the needs of her community through volunteer activities such as medical interpreting and food delivery for school-age kids. Claudia is always excited about combining skill and passion to achieve health equity for all. In her free time, you can find Claudia gardening or enjoying a nice cup of tea, and always enjoying the Florida sunshine.
Our Volunteers
Saurabh P. Aneja, MEM
Saurabh P. Aneja, MEM
Saurabh Aneja is the Performance Engineering Manager at FTC Solar, a leading manufacturer of single-axis trackers and digital software solutions within the solar industry. Saurabh’s dedication and work provide for clean energy growth across our country’s electrical grid, and further investment towards a green-economy. Prior to his time with FTC Solar, he spent time at Cypress Creek Renewables, and years working in the energy and educational-technology sectors.
Saurabh believes that many of the solutions for public health work reside near the intersection of healthcare and energy-access. As a proponent of the Community-Based, Impact-Oriented approach, Saurabh believes that Curamerica’s work and record provide a proven and meaningful model for impact. In pulling from his background within energy, education and technology, Saurabh looks forward to working with Curamericas to extend the tangible impacts for women and children all around the world.
