Dr. Emanuel Alcala, PhD, is the Assistant Director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute (CVHPI) at Fresno State, where he plays a lead role in developing and designing methodology for research and program evaluation. Throughout his tenure with CVHPI, Dr. Alcala has collaborated with local government agencies, researchers, and community members to conduct local…

Venise C. Curry, M.D. is a consultant for community-based organizations collectively working to increase voter engagement, build civic capacity through leadership development, and create policy and systems change in Fresno County. The intersection between medicine, environmental and social justice issues are at the core of her advocacy efforts. She has successfully managed local and statewide…

Dr. Chan-Golston is a biostatistician whose research focuses on Bayesian spatial statistics and its applications to Public Health. Specifically, his methodological work examines the estimation of finite population quantities, accounting for both complex sampling designs and spatial associations. His applied interests include the food environment, adolescent health, mental health, wildfire prevention, disease detection, and zebra…

Susie A. Rico-Vasquez, B.S., MPH, is a health educator with the Fresno County Department of Public Health Jointly leading the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education under the State Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Program Branch. Susie comes with eighteen years of experience in community engagement and health education programing. She enjoys coordinating community engagement in six…

Kevin is focused on reducing the burden of chronic respiratory disease and environmental health impacts valley wide. He has served as developer, coordinator, administrator and director for multiple programs in both hospital and community-based settings serving poor and underserved communities in the San Joaquin Valley. Kevin serves on numerous boards and committees associated with grassroots…

Dr. Jaymin Kwon is an Associate Professor in Environmental, Occupational Health and Safety in the Department of Public Health at California State University, Fresno. He is a Registered Environmental Health Specialist in the State of California. Dr. Kwon is an exposure scientist whose teaching and research focuses on exposure monitoring, spatio-temporal modeling, and health impact…

Carolina Simunovic was born in Santiago, Chile and moved to the United States as a young child. She grew up in Fresno and attended Edison High School. Carolina then completed her undergraduate work at Brown University where she studied Spanish Literature and Latin American Studies. After college, Carolina took to heart the slogan, “think globally…

Chang Na, MD, MPH is an internist and an occupational and environmental health specialist practicing with the Southern California Permanente Group in Central Valley, California. She was born in South Korea and grew up in her adopted home in California. She graduated with a major in neuroscience from Wellesley College before going onto University of…