Ms. Francis is the Community Engagement Manager for the Let’s Get Healthy, Boston! (LGHB) a U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Partnerships to Improve Community Health program. She has Caribbean heritage, and has lived or worked on several islands on bilateral international development projects funded by the World Bank, USAID, and the European Union. She… Read more »
Jamiah Tappin is a Director on both the Grantmaking and Health & Racial Equity teams at HRiA. She spearheads transformative processes that cultivate stronger community—institutional partnerships, shared values rooted in equity, and movement building for collective impact. Her expertise spans many disciplines, including community organizing, coalition building, advocacy, participatory grantmaking, and facilitation, all viewed through… Read more »
Keith H. is a Screening & Information Specialist for the MA and IL Helplines, and a Certified Community Resource Specialist. He bring his life experiences, social skills, and drive to excel at the duties that are required of him. Keith brings a consistent, reliable, professional presence to the department as well as a respectable sense… Read more »
Kathy is a Screening & Information Specialist for the MA and IL Helplines. She has worked at HRiA since 2009, and has been in recovery since 1984. Prior to joining HRiA, she was the director of two residential treatment programs. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Human Services, a Graduate Level Certificate in Social… Read more »
Anthony is a Screening & Information Specialist III with the MA and IL Helplines, with a specialization in mentorship. He is a person in recovery, dedicated to his sobriety since April 22, 2008. Before joining the Helpline, he worked with the Caspar Residential Treatment Program for several years. He is a Certified Community Resource Specialist,… Read more »
Dr. Ridini is President and CEO of HRiA. He has over 25 years of experience working in public health within the US and internationally. He has extensive experience providing training and technical assistance to hospitals, health departments, health centers, and foundations on community health assessments, health improvement planning, and strategic implementation planning. Dr. Ridini also has a proven… Read more »
Brittany Chen, DrPH, is the Vice President of Health Equity at Health Resources in Action. She has extensive expertise in policy research, analysis, and translation, community engagement and mobilization, training and facilitation, and youth development. In her role, she oversees HRiA’s internal health equity strategic planning work, and conducts health and racial equity assessment, capacity… Read more »
Kathleen Murray is a Managing Director of HR and Operations at HRiA. Ms. Murray is a versatile and dedicated human resources (HR) professional who believes in building and fostering a positive and supportive employee culture. She has a strong background in HR systems implementation, benefits, recruiting and employee engagement. She takes pride in being involved… Read more »
Ms. Fennel has over 20 years of nonprofit management experience at the senior level. In her role at HRiA, Ms. Fennel oversees finance, administration, and human resources. Skilled in strategic management, planning, and operational systems development, she integrates finance and operations with organizational and program goals. She holds a Master of Business Administration with a… Read more »
Kevin Myers is a Director of Planning & Facilitation on the Strategic Planning & Organizational Effectiveness team at HRiA. Kevin has been at HRiA since 2015, serving as a Sr. Project Associate on the Policy & Practice team followed by Associate Director on the Community Health Grantmaking team. Recently, he has helped lead the strategic… Read more »
Dr. Holman has over 20 years of experience in public health, with a focus on building and sustaining effective organizations and diverse teams to accomplish public health goals. Throughout his career, he has helped stakeholders tackle complex public health challenges by developing and implementing high quality programs and solutions, building the capacity of community-based organizations to achieve… Read more »
Allyson Auerbach is a Director on the Research and Evaluation team. In this role, Allyson develops comprehensive research plans, conducts community health assessments, and evaluates the impact of health programs and policies. Allyson has significant quantitative and qualitative research experience organizing, collecting, analyzing, and reporting data for numerous assessments and evaluations, including several assessments that… Read more »
Mo Barbosa is a Senior Director of Community Engagement at HRiA. Prior to joining HRiA, he was Program Coordinator for the Fellowship Center in St. Louis, MO and Director of the Area 4 Youth Center in Cambridge, MA. Mo delivers training, provides technical assistance, and participates in field-building initiatives. He promotes the professionalization of the… Read more »
Amanda K. Henry is a Managing Director of Strategic Planning & Organizational Effectiveness at HRiA. Ms. Henry has been working in the field of public health for nearly 20 years, and has expertise in strategic planning, evidence-based prevention, coalition development, capacity building, and sustainability. Her work on CHA-CHIP and strategic implementation planning in several states… Read more »
As a youth advocate since 2000, Ms. Caminiti has extensive experience in the field of tobacco control. While living in Spain, she worked on smoke-free policies ranging from local, campus-wide policies to national policies. She has worked for organizations such as the American Lung Association of Illinois-Greater Chicago, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, and the Center… Read more »
Rose Swensen is a Senior Director of Strategic Planning & Organizational Effectiveness at HRiA. For over 20 years, Ms Swensen has helped a broad range of organizations, including educational institutions, public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and public health-focused community coalitions, achieve and sustain excellence. She is an experienced management consultant skilled in strategic planning, organizational development,… Read more »
Lisa Aslan is a Senior Director of Capacity Building Assistance at HRiA. She brings over a decade of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating community-based programs for adolescents. After completing an MPH at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Lisa returned to New York City where she served as the Director of Special Projects… Read more »
Ms. Ortega is Managing Director of Training and Capacity Building at HRiA. In this role, she works tirelessly to deliver cutting-edge capacity building programs focused on youth development, program improvement and planning, and community building and mobilization. She has expertise in the positive youth development approach, supervising youth, curriculum development, community building, conflict resolution, program… Read more »
Erika Gaitan is an Associate Director of Community Impact on the Health and Racial Equity team at HRiA. In her role, she collaborates with public and private partners to bolster community influence in neighborhood, municipal, and state level decision-making. Most recently, Erika led HRiA’s advocacy efforts to support Massachusetts community groups, residents, and local governments… Read more »
Ms. Toro joined HRiA in 2014 as a volunteer and now serves as Finance Coordinator for the Administration and Finance team. She has five years of experience as a statistician at the Institute of Statistics in Albania. Ms. Toro received a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Master of Science in European Economics Studies in February 2013. She is… Read more »
Stacey Chacker is Director of Climate and Environmental Justice at HRiA. She has served as Project Director of several initiatives at HRiA, including the Asthma Regional Council, New England Asthma Innovation Collaborative, and the Massachusetts Asthma Action Partnership. She is a leader on policy, advocacy, and research on environmental health/justice issues at community and governmental… Read more »
Karen Schoneman is a Managing Director of Health Communication at HRiA. Ms. Schoneman works with clients to develop and implement communication and marketing strategies to improve the health of a variety of populations. She has over 15 years of experience in strategic communication planning, qualitative research, creative direction, media planning, digital strategies, and content development…. Read more »
Valerie Polletta is a Managing Director of Community & Culture Transformation at HRiA. She has over 15 years of experience working in public health. She was previously a Director of Research & Evaluation, where she developed and implemented research plans to inform programs and measure impact, including conducting community health assessments and evaluation studies for… Read more »
Ms. Wallace has spent the last 27 years promoting healthy communities and healthy youth in Boston. She has expertise in peer leadership, program development, curriculum development, coalition building, youth/adult collaboration, conflict resolution, physical health and healthy eating, and alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention. In her role as Senior Director of Training & Capacity Building… Read more »
Donna Burke is a Director in the Strategic Planning & Organizational Effectiveness team at HRiA. Ms. Burke has extensive experience in strategic planning, training, and organizational development. At HRiA, she has facilitated processes in 10 states to develop more than 30 community health improvement, strategic, organizational development, and community benefits strategic implementation plans, addressing a… Read more »
Ms. Jew joined the Policy & Practice team at HRiA in 2015 as a Program Coordinator. She previously worked at the Brookline Department of Public Health, where she supported a number of community health initiatives ranging from domestic violence prevention to Lyme disease prevention. She also worked as a policy analyst at Health Canada, where she focused on… Read more »
Tom Harty is a Senior Account Manager on the Administration & Finance team at HRiA. Mr. Harty has experience in all aspects of accounting and financial statement analysis, including the design and creation of detailed financial statement reports. In 2009, he earned a Master in Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Bentley… Read more »
Tamaki West is a Managing Director of Capacity Building Assistance at HRiA. Since joining HRiA in 1999, Ms. West has worked on creative development, online marketing, digital and social media strategy development and implementation, and graphic design for a range of projects, including those focused on community water fluoridation, child health, substance abuse, tobacco prevention… Read more »
Dr. Nelson has 20 years of experience developing, implementing, managing, and evaluating public health and health care programs for nonprofit and for-profit organizations as well as governmental agencies. Currently, she leads evaluation and assessment projects in diverse content areas across the country. Dr. Nelson has expertise developing and building consensus around common data measures, instruments and… Read more »
Ms. Atkins has over 25 years of experience in planning and conducting community-based research and evaluation projects. As a senior member of HRiA’s Research and Evaluation department, Ms. Atkins works with a wide range of public and private clients including hospitals, public health departments, school districts, nonprofits business and philanthropic entities. She leads diverse teams in… Read more »
Allyson Shifley, MPH, is an Associate Director on the Training & Capacity Building team at HRiA. She previously held positions with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Lahey Clinic, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, and Lewisham Refugee Network in Lewisham, UK. Ms. Shifley has over 10 years of expertise in youth development, education, public health,… Read more »
With an extensive background in community health and research methods, Dr. Wolff brings a qualitative and evidence-based rigor to HRiA’s program planning approach. Dr. Wolff’s team has conducted over 50 community health assessments for hospitals, health departments, and community collaboratives and numerous evaluation studies on topics such as behavioral health, obesity prevention, smoking prevention, healthy… Read more »
Ms. Cyran is the Managing Director of Behavioral Health at HRiA. She manages the Massachusetts Substance Use Helpline, the Illinois Helpline for Opioids and Other Substances, and the Vermont HelpLink, overseeing a diverse team of Screening & Information Specialists, Clinicians, and other program staff, as well as the operations of Helpline contact centers and websites…. Read more »
Ms. McCabe is Managing Director of Policy & Practice at HRiA. Since 2007, Kathleen has provided both strategic leadership and technical content expertise to clients. She has led the organization’s smoke-free housing policy work, best practice research in the areas of transportation, chronic disease prevention, climate change and healthy homes, and collaborated with colleagues on strategic planning… Read more »
Mr. Whyte is the Director of Technology at HRiA. He has experience in planning, developing, and maintaining a variety of websites for both internal and external clients. He also helps staff and clients assess and introduce new technologies to achieve public health goals. Chris has a Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New… Read more »
