Rosario Alberro
Rosario is currently the Associate Director of the Health Initiative of the Americas (formerly known as the California-Mexico Health Institute) based at the California Policy Research Center, UC-Berkeley. She received her BA in History at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, and she completed her training at the University of London with a master's degree in Education. For nearly fifteen years she was a professor and researcher at Mexico's National Ministry of Education, where she also directed the Research and Publishing Department of the Institute for Adult Education. She has published various works about the history of Mexican education.< back >
Fang-yu Chou
Fang-yu is an assistant professor of Nursing at SFSU. Her professional background focuses on cancer and adult nursing care. Her research interests include self management in minority families and adults, quality of care in cultural context, and symptom management in Oncology/HIV. Her primary teaching interests included utilization of research methods and adult nursing care.< back >
Sandy Close
Sandy received a BA from UC-Berkeley in 1964 and then moved to Hong Kong where she worked as the China editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Upon her return to the U.S., she founded The Flatlands newspaper, a raw voice of the inner city communities of Oakland, California. In 1974, she became executive director of the Bay Area Institute/Pacific News Service, helping to develop it into one of the most diverse sources of literary voices and analytical ideas in the U.S. news media. In 1991 she founded YO! (Youth Outlook), a collaboration of writers and young people, and in 1996 she co-founded "The Beat Within", a weekly newsletter of writing and art by incarcerated youth. In 1996 she also co-founded New California Media (now known as New America Media), a nationwide association of over 600 ethnic media organizations, an awards program and an inter-ethnic media exchange and website. In 1995, Close received a MacArthur Foundation "genius award" for her work in communications. In 1997 a film she co-produced, "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien", won the Academy Award for best short documentary.< back >
Gerald Eisman
Jerry earned his PhD in Mathematics from UC-Berkeley in 1977. He joined the faculty of Computer Science at SF State in 1989 where he served as full professor and chair for 9 years. His teaching and research has bridged his two disparate interests: systems theory and community scholarship. Within the discipline he has published extensively on automata theory and neural network systems. Since the mid-90s his work has focused on how the knowledge processes of the university can combine with the knowledge assets of communities to generate new knowledge that has direct impact on community needs. In 1998 he became the Community Service-Learning Director, expanding the program into 43 departments of the University, and from 2004-2006, he seved as the first Service-Learning Faculty Scholar in the California State University Office of the Chancellor. In fall 2006, he returned to Sf State to become Acting Director of the Institute for Civic and Community Engagement.< back >
Charlotte Ferretti
As a faculty memeber in the School of Nursing since 1985, Charlotte has focused her teaching on advanced practice and case managment in the graduate nursing program and she is a nationally certified case manager. She received a master's degree in Nursing from UCSF and a doctorate in Education focusing on curriculum and instruction from USF. In 1994, with federal and private funding, she opened the Mission High School Health Center, a primary medical clinic for adolescents and a training site for nursing, social work and counseling students at SFSU and UCSF. As Director of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute at SFSU, Dr. Ferretti oversees major student and community projects such as the Child and Adolescent Development Program, Head Start for the City and County of San Francisco, Jumpstart, the Child Study Center, and Gateway to Quality, a program evaluating child care sites throughout San Francisco.< back >
Jon Funabiki
Jon is a graduate of SFSU, where he now is an Associate Professor of Journalism, teaching various journalism classes. He is establishing a new center focusing on the fast-changing developments in the community, ethnic and independet media scene. He was a visiting scholar with the Center on Politics and Public Service at UC-Berkeley and has received the Jefferson Fellowship of the East-West Center (Honolulu) and the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship from Stanford University. Jon has previously served as the deputy director of media, arts, and culture for the Ford Foundation; the first director of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism; a Pacific Rim reporter, foreign editor, assistant city editor, and reporter for the San Diego Union; a stringer for the New York Times; a reporter for the Catholic Monitor; Enterprise Journal and Ravenswood Post, and a columnist for the Hokubei Mainichi.< back >
Cynthia Gomez
Cynthia is the founding director of Health Equity Inititatives at SFSU where she leads efforts to enhance and integrate campus research, curricula, community service and training programs that address health disparities and/or promote health equity in the United States. She previously served as co-director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at UC-San Francisco where she was also an associate professor in the Department of Medicine and a leading scientist in HIV prevention research since 1991. She received her master's degree in counseling psychology from Harvard University and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Boston University. Prior to her work with CAPS, Dr. Gomez spent 12 years working in community health settings, including five years as director of a child and family mental health center in Boston.< back >
Roma Guy
Roma is Clinical Faculty at the Department of Health Education at SFSU. She has been a lifelong community activist for women, lesbian and gay rights and is a founding member of several women's and girls' organizations such as the San Francisco Women's Building and the Women's Foundation. She co-chairs the Health Committee for the California Women's Agenda and is a member of the Women's Leadership Alliance in San Francisco and on the Board of Directors of Health Access. She was a member of the Mayor's Homeless Task Force that developed the Continuum of Care Plan. Roma is also chair of the Population Health and Prevention Joint Conference Committee.< back >
Richard Harvey
Rick is an Assistant Professor in the SF State Department of Health Education and Institute for Holistic Healing Studies. He received a PhD from UC- Irvine while also working there with high risk youth through the Counseling Center and as a research fellow focusing on reducing adolescent tobacco use. Before joining the SF State faculty, he worked as a maternal, child and adolescent health (MCAH) epidemiologist for the Orange County Health Care Agency. Scholarly publishing includes work on increasing psychological courage in high risk youth, methods for reducing computer-related discorders and policies for reducing teen susceptibility to tobacco use. New research includes university-community collaboration addressing health literacy.< back >
Paul Heavenridge
Paul currently serves as the Executive Director of Literacyworks in Oakland, CA. Paul has an MA in Counseling and Adult Education. He has an extensive background in educational technology and delivery, distance learning, and web-based training. He has been the director of the National Institue for LIteracy's LINCS Regional Technology Center for the last eleven years and is now the director of the new Region III Regional Resource Center. Literacyworks manages the California Health Literacy Inititative and many other quality literacy programs.
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Yvonne Liang
Yvonne has an MS in Public Health Nutrition from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA in Dietetics from UC-Davis. She has worked as an outpatient dietician with the Chinese Community Health Resource Center in San Francisco since 1990. She oversees nutrition assessment and care plan development, including individual nutrition counseling. Yvonne is also responsible for the development and translation of nutrition and health eudcational materials, and the creation and evliery of health education/disease management classes. She is also involved in community-based activities related to health and nutrition. Her work experiences include positions at the Memorial Hospital of Gardena, California, St. Vincen't sMedical Center of Staten Island, and the Medical Health and Research Association, New York City Department of Health, NY.< back >
Lisa Lim
Lisa is the Associate Director of Development for Foundation Relations at SFSU. Prior to joining the Development Office, she was the Development Director for Radio Bilingüe, Inc., a non profit Spanish language public radio network based in the Central Valley that is the only Latino owned and operated network providing national and international coverage through its affiliates in the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Argentina. Radio Bilingüe programming is streamed live on www.radiobilingue.org. Prior to her work at Radio Bilingüe, Lisa was the Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a non profit civil rights advocacy group in San Francisco.< back >
Wylie Liu
Wylie has significant experience working with non-profit community organizations both locally and internationally on health and social issues. Prior to joining California Pacific Medical Center as the Community Health Programs Manager, she served as a planner with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Wylie grew up in Southeast Asia and has lived and worked in Papua New Guinea, Thailand and China. She earned her undergraduate degree from UC- Berkeley, Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and Masters in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.< back >
Lourdes Muguerza
Lourdes is the Director of the Community of Learners Programs at Nuestra Casa, a community based non-profit organization in East Palo Alto, CA. She holds an MA in English with a TESOL concentration from SFSU as well as a BS in Business with an emphasis in management from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. She has taught ESL in the Bay Area for the last five years, and is now involved in program, curriculum, and assessment design along with her teaching. She has participated in community research projects on U.S./Mexico border issues, developed and implemented social programs for women in the maquila industry in Mexico, and has developed ESL courses and curriculum for immigrant populations here in the U.S.
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Rena Pasick
Rena is Associate Director for Community Education and Outreach, UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center. Trained as a Health Educator, she has been a population-based cancer control researcher for almost fifteen years. Dr. Pasick’s research has included community- and clinic-based intervention studies designed to increase the use of breast and cervical cancer screening among ethnically diverse and underserved women in African American, Chinese, Filipino, Latino, Vietnamese and white communities. More recently she is involved in research on culture and communication among public hospital cancer patients. Her community work includes a range of collaborations to establish partnerships between the UCSF and community-based organizations. Dr. Pasick also developed and leads an NCI-funded training grant to encourage minority master’s students and master’s trained health professionals to pursue a doctoral degree and career in cancer control (Increasing Diversity in Cancer Control Research, 1998 – 2011).< back >
Maricel G. Santos
Maricel is an Assistant Professor of English (TESOL) at SF State where she teaches various courses related to second language acquisition theory and research, adult ESL programming and practice, and curriculum development. She previously worked as a research associate with the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy in Cambridge, MA. Her current research examines the role of adult immigrant learners and adult educators as agents of change in health care.< back >
Dean Schillinger
Dean is an associate professor of clinical medicine at UCSF. He also co-directs the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations. He received his education and medical training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, his residence in primary care at UCSF, and his chief residence at San Francisco General Hospital. His main area of research interest is caring for vulnerable populations. His academic and research activities include health communication, chronic disease, health policy/advocacy, literacy, education and health, and public systems of care. < back >
Gail Weinstein
Gail’s research and publications have focused on a range of issues in the ethnography of language and literacy, adult and family literacy in multilingual communities, and learner-centered education for community building. She directs Project SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders), a community service learning initiative in which student “coaches” are placed in language, literacy and citizenship classes to assist older immigrant learners. She is interested in the connection of materials development with ESL professional development, and provides training for practitioners both locally and nationally. Her current focus is to bring learner-centered teaching with accountability to contexts for family, health, community and workplace language/literacy instruction while fostering partnerships among networks that serve immigrants. < back >
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Many thanks to our colleagues who volunteered their time as note-takers in our sessions!
Ann Fontanella, ESL Instructor, City College of San Francisco*
Pamela Howard, Senior Assistant Librarian, SF State
Sally Freyberg, ESL Instructor, Canada College*
Lisa Lim, Associate Director, Foundation Relations, SF State
Gregory Keech, Chair, ESL Department, City College of San Francisco
Brandee Marckmann, College Relations Officer, Health & Human Services, SF State
Lourdes Muguerza, Director, Community of Learners Program, Nuestra Casa*
Thomas Mullaney, College Relations Officer, Humanities, SF State
Bruce Smith, California Pacific Medical Center / SF Vietnamese Community Center*
* Indicates the individual is a graduate of SF State
