PHI at APHA 2021

Renae Badruzzaman, MPH, Program Manager
Build Healthy Places Network

Renae A. Badruzzaman (she/her) is a public health practitioner and social justice entrepreneur passionate about systems change at the root of social and health inequities. Renae is a Program Manager for Build Healthy Places Network where she operationalizes and implements the Network’s place-based strategy. She brings a decade of multidisciplinary and cross-sector experience to collectively advance health equity, inclusion and justice for people of color and communities with low-incomes. Renae is the Housing Justice Director for the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EB PREC) and a Founding Member of the Eden Area Community Land Trust.

Stephanie Bultema, MAAL, PhD(c)
Population Health Innovation Lab

Stephanie Bultema is Director of Research and Network Science in the Population Health Innovation Lab (PHIL) at the Public Health Institute and a PhD candidate in Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. Her work, teaching, and studies focus on large-scale collaboration for the common good.

Julia Caplan, MPP, MPH
Health in All Policies

Julia Caplan is Program Director of the California Health in All Policies Task Force, which is a collaborative project between the California Strategic Growth Council, the Public Health Institute (PHI), and the California Department of Public Health. In this capacity, Julia facilitates a multi-agency process that brings together over twenty state agencies, departments, and offices to build collaborative partnerships to incorporate health, equity, and environmental sustainability considerations into decision-making and government operations across policy areas as diverse as transportation, land use, education, agriculture, and social services.

Amy DeLisio, MPH RDN
Center for Wellness and Nutrition

Amy DeLisio is the director at the Center for Wellness and Nutrition (CWN) and has over fifteen years of experience working on nutrition education, food security, social marketing, and chronic disease prevention interventions serving vulnerable populations. She is passionate about implementing community driven approaches that support food justice and health equity. Amy has extensive experience with capacity building efforts, multi-level interventions, community and youth leadership, and coalition building around common goals in California and nationally. Ms. DeLisio is a Registered Dietitian with a master's degree in public health from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Kim Garcia, MPH, Research Associate
Berkeley Media Studies Group

Kim Garcia is a Research Associate at Berkeley Media Studies Group supporting news and content analysis on social and health equity issues. Kim has 10 years of experience in both quantitative and qualitative methods, primarily in the field of public health with a focus on race, class, gender, and youth development. Outside of research, Kim works on data visualization, graphic design, and writing. With roots in the Philippines and Canada, Kim brings an internationalist lens to her social justice work. Kim holds a B.S. from McMaster University and a master’s in public health from the University of California, Berkeley.

Thomas Greenfield, PhD, Scientific & Executive Director
Alcohol Research Group

Tom Greenfield's expertise is in the area of epidemiology of alcohol use and problems, alcohol policy studies, and alcohol-related problem and consumption measurement. He also researches drinking patterns and mortality, cultural and ethnic variations in drinking behavior, conducts US and cross-national population studies and focuses on alcohol’s harm to others. More recently as part of the Alcohol Research Center together with his colleague, Dr. Camillia Lui, he is investigating correlates and outcomes of high intensity drinking (amounts greatly in excess of 5 drinks in any day).

Sue Grinnell, MPH, Director
Population Health Innovation Lab

Sue Grinnell is the Director of Population Health Innovation Lab (PHIL) with current focus on Accountable Communities of/for Health (ACH) sites and health focused multisector collaboratives (MSCs). Experience includes supporting the formation of the ACH model in Washington, Vermont ACH Learning Lab, and California Accountable Communities of Health (CACHI) Accelerator sites. Sue supports deepened capacity for collaboratives to navigate the complexity of population health using various innovative practices including the Art of Hosting and Design Thinking.

Camillia Lui, PhD, Scientist
Alcohol Research Group

Camillia Lui's research focuses on using a life course perspective, understanding socioeconomic disparities in alcohol and tobacco use, problems and treatment. She also works in the area of environmental prevention strategies and local policies to reduce alcohol, tobacco and other substance use and has expertise in program evaluation and organizational capacity building. More recently, she has been collaborating with community colleges through her smoke-free college study.

Tooru Nemoto, Research Project Director, PhD
Health Intervention Projects for Underserved Populations

Dr. Tooru Nemoto is Research Program Director at the Public Health Institute (PHI). Before joining PHI, Dr. Nemoto was Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He has been mainly engaging in substance abuse and HIV prevention studies and service projects for under-served and stigmatized populations, such as transgender and gender non-binary people, men who have sex with men (MSM), and sex workers in the U.S. and Asian countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia. He has been awarded a number of grants and service contracts from NIH, SAMHSA, CDC, HRSA, and private foundations.

Carmen Rita Nevarez, MD, MPH
Center for Health Leadership and Practice

Carmen Rita Nevarez, MD, MPH, is senior vice president, external relations and preventive medicine at Public Health Institute. She directs Center for Health Leadership and Practice, supporting communities addressing complex issues through broad-based collaborations. Main focus areas include health equity, chronic disease and opioid use disorder. Dr. Nevarez has served as president of APHA, is a member of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California board, and is board chair of the Langeloth Foundation.

Alisa Padon, PhD, Research Scientist II
Getting it Right from the Start

Dr. Alisa Padon completed her doctorate in public health from the department of Health, Behavior & Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and finished a postdoctoral fellowship at the Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her past research focused on youth-targeted marketing and promotions of alcohol and tobacco products, examining the unique vulnerabilities of youth and the psychosocial and neurocognitive appeals and techniques used in marketing. She is now translating that work as a research scientist at the Public Health Institute, into the regulation of sugar sweetened beverages and legalized recreational cannabis.

Sarah Perez-Sanz, MPH
Berkeley Media Studies Group

Sarah Perez-Sanz assists BMSG with various content analysis projects related to soda taxes, housing, immunizations, and police violence. Sarah has a BA from Colorado College and an MPH from the University of Minnesota – School of Public Health. Her master’s project focused on the health policy messaging of political TV ads during the 2018 midterm elections. Sarah’s passionate interest in public health and its many intricacies blossomed from her background in ecology.

Sandy Tan, Research Associate & Health Educator, MPH, CHES
Health Intervention Projects for Underserved Populations

Sandy Tan obtained her bachelor of science in Health Education with a minor in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and a Master's in Public Health at the University of San Francisco. She is passionate about improving health outcomes among underserved communities, especially the Asian American community. She has been part of a SAMHSA-funded project that targets Asian youth in accessing mental health services and addressing mental health stigma in the Asian American community.

Marley Williams
Public Health Alliance

Marley Williams serves as the Health Equity & Justice Manager for the Public Health Alliance, where she works on advancing health equity and racial justice across Southern California through stakeholder development, engagement and training. Prior to joining the Alliance, Marley helped launch the region’s first Office of Equity housed in the City of Long Beach’s Department of Health and Human Services. Marley has dedicated her career to looking at ways that policy formation and implementation can truly achieve equity for all. Marley holds a dual master’s degree in Public Affairs and Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin.