Sasha Ahuja, L.M.S.W., is the Director of Government Relations at PPNYC. Having previously worked as a racial and gender justice organizer and advocate, she has expertise that helps PPNYC to advocate for reproductive justice and equitable access to health care. Ms. Ahuja has spent her professional career as a youth worker and labor organizer, working at the intersections of migration, race, and gender. She graduated from Hunter College of the City University of New York and later obtained a degree in Social Work at Columbia University. Before joining PPNYC, she consulted with the Urban Justice Center, guiding a membership-led effort to advance progressive legislation on the city level.
Alice Berger, R.N., M.P.H., is the Vice President of Health Care Planning at PPNYC. Ms. Berger has more than 20 years of experience working in the policy and program areas of public insurance, health care reform, and family and reproductive health. She directed a large New York City PCAP program and comprehensive primary care identification-and-tracking program for at-risk infants. Ms. Berger currently chairs a citywide Adolescent Health Committee and has been instrumental in the process of implementing health care reform in New York State. She is on the Board of the National Family Planning Reproductive Health Association and the National Advisory Board of Merger Watch. She was recently appointed to two New York State Department of Health committees: the Regional Advisory Committee, which will advise about implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and the Promoting Healthy Women, Infants, and Children Committee, which will define the scope of the priority area and identify best practices for action and indicators to track progress.
Carmina Bernardo, M.A., M.P.H., is the Director of Health Care Planning and Family Planning Benefit Program (FPBP) Training Coordinator at PPNYC. She conducts outreach, training, and technical assistance about the FPBP and other public health insurance for health and social service providers in all five boroughs of New York City. She has been a PPNYC staff member since September 2000 and volunteered as a PPNYC Center Escort for six years. Before joining PPNYC, Ms. Bernardo worked at Women in Need, a nonprofit organization that provided housing and other services to homeless women with children. She has Master’s Degrees in both Public Health and Sociology.
Kim Chinh is a Body Literacy Advocate of the Justisse Method, a fertility awareness method in which a woman learns to recognize specific symptoms of her cycle as fertile or infertile in order to avoid or achieve pregnancy (see http://www.justisse.com/). She has been charting her own menstrual cycles for the past 10 years and has been teaching fertility awareness to women and men since 2008. She lives in Brooklyn and conducts introductory workshops and classes on charting.
Randa Dean, M.P.H., is the Director of Capacity Building and Professional Development at PPNYC. She spearheads PPNYC’s innovative work helping organizations around the city to become more “Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH)-Ready” and spearheading the PPNYC Training Institute. She also oversees the DYCD Teen ACTION SRH Technical Assistance program, which provides SRH training and support to afterschool providers who coordinate service-learning programs. Previously at PPNYC, Ms. Dean was the Associate Director of Adult Education, supervising the Adult Role Models program and coordinating SRH training for professionals. She has also worked with International Planned Parenthood Federation and Partners in Health in Haiti. Prior to coming to PPNYC, she offered outreach and HIV education to homeless youth and adults in Sacramento, facilitated HIV education sessions for staff at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, and conducted HIV education workshops abroad, primarily in Kenya. Ms. Dean has an M.P.H. in Sexuality and Health from Columbia University.
Stephanie Demmons is the Director of Community Organizing at PPNYC. She oversees the agency’s online and offline organizing and outreach campaigns, including the work of the Activist Council. For the past 10 years, Ms. Demmons has spent her career as an organizer – on environmental issues, international development, and reproductive health and justice. She has extensive experience recruiting, training, and developing leadership within social justice movements and legislative and electoral campaigns.
Shaquana Gardner is a Sexuality Educator/ Trainer at PPNYC. She has been in the Sexual Reproductive Health field for more than eight years, beginning her career at PPNYC as a Lower East Side teen advocate. She has previously worked as a Community Liaison for the Lower East Side Teen Advocate Program. After leaving for a few years, she returned to PPNYC to work as a Sexuality Educator for the Making Proud Choices team. In her current position on the Youth Programs Team, she delivers workshops to youth and young adults throughout New York City on sexual reproductive health topics ranging from STI/ HIV prevention and contraception to healthy relationships and communication. She is responsible for facilitating Making Proud Choices, an evidence based curriculum, in addition to in house workshops and trainings. She recently developed and implemented an Interrupting Oppressive Behaviors Training for PPNYC’s Sexuality Educator’s Academy.
William Humphries is a Sexuality Educator/Trainer at PPNYC. Mr. Humphries began his career as one of PPNYC's Bronx Teen Advocates and later became the Program Assistant for the Teen Advocates from the Lower East Side. He attends John Jay College of Criminal Justice, majoring in Deviant Behavior and Social Control. Mr. Humphries conducts workshops for youth on topics that affect their everyday lives and help them to make better decisions. He has taught the Making Proud Choices evidence-based curriculum as well, and he co-facilitated the "Sexually Transmitted Infections: Clinical Facts and Engaging Educational Strategies" training that PPNYC offered to professionals. He has also attended trainings himself and become a certified HIV tester and counselor.
Louise Marchena, M.S.W., is the Director of Youth Programs at PPNYC. She oversees PPNYC’s sexuality education programs targeted at youth, including community-based and citywide initiatives. Ms. Marchena has more than 10 years of experience working in the mental health field, specializing in children and family therapy. Prior to joining PPNYC, Ms. Marchena developed and implemented multifaceted after-school programming for children suffering from serious emotional disturbances and designed programs to provide support to their families.
Haydee Morales, M.A., is the Vice President of Education and Training at PPNYC. She oversees programs that reach more than 25,000 young people, parents, and professionals every year. Ms. Morales joined the staff of PPNYC in 2003, bringing more than 20 years of experience in grassroots, local, national, and international health education including reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, advocacy, and cultural awareness initiatives. Ms. Morales is a veteran of community-based programming and management, having worked in organizations such as the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, the Hispanic AIDS Forum, the March of Dimes. She was a founder and Executive Director of Casa Atabex Aché, a women’s health and action organization based in the South Bronx. Ms. Morales holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Community Health and a Master of Administration in Organizational Management degree.
Matthew Morales, M.B.A., has been a Health Educator for the past 11 years. He has conducted more than 1,200 workshops on reproductive health, has educated more than 10,000 adults and teens from East Hampton to Staten Island, and has developed prostate and testicular cancer prevention initiatives in Nassau County and beyond. His workshops are requested frequently because of his dynamic approach of mixing humor with education. His well developed presentation skills and expertise in the area of sexuality education add to his instinctive approach to putting his audience at ease regardless of the subject matter. Mr. Morales currently is the Programming and Training Manager for Planned Parenthood of Nassau County’s (PPNC) Education and Training Department. He manages PPNC's Male Health Education programming with the goal of educating residents throughout Nassau County about the need for reproductive health awareness, services, and education as means to community empowerment. Mr. Morales is also an Adjunct Professor at Nassau Community College, teaching human sexuality and family planning.Lauren Porsch, M.P.H., is the Program Director for Clinical Training, Research and Special Projects at PPNYC. She collaborates in the planning and delivery of PPNYC's training and education programs for physicians, advanced practice clinicians, and medical students, and in the implementation of clinical research projects at the agency’s health centers. Her areas of expertise are contraception, abortion, HIV risk reduction counseling, and the provision of LGBT-sensitive reproductive and sexual health education and services.
Jessica Rivera is the Sexuality Educator Coordinator at PPNYC. Ms. Rivera previously coordinated PPNYC's Teen Advocate Program for both the Bronx and Lower East Side sites. She currently contributes to the development and implementation of youth programs in various communities across New York City. Prior to joining PPNYC, Ms. Rivera was the Outreach Specialist at the Adolescent AIDS Program at Montefiore Medical Center. Ms. Rivera has also presented at Ryan White conferences and at the National Youth Advocacy Coalition's Annual Youth Conference. Through education and outreach efforts, she has empowered youth to get tested, obtain information, and better understand their rights to sexual and reproductive health care.
Emily Saltzman, M.S.W., currently serves as the Adult Role Models Program Coordinator at PPNYC where she supports an inspiring team of parent peer-educators who facilitate workshops for other parents on how to talk about sexuality with their children. Ms. Saltzman also co-facilitates workshops for professionals covering topics such as creating LGBTQ accountable spaces, enthusiastic consent and communication in relationships, and progressive sexuality education. Her passion and social justice framework have been greatly influenced by positions previously held at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queers for Economic Justice, and The Undoing Racism Internship Project.
Nelson Santana is a Sexuality Educator/Trainer at PPNYC. Mr. Santana began his career as one of PPNYC's Lower East Side Teen Advocates and later became a Part Time Sexuality Educator in the Lower East Side office. He has been promoted to Full Time Sexuality Educator and is currently in that position. He attends Bronx Community College and is majoring in Radiology, but is looking to transfer and major in a field similar to the work he does. Mr. Santana conducts workshops for youth and adults on sexual health topics that affect their everyday lives such as HIV, STI’s, contraception, healthy relationships, abstinence and more. He also provides factual information and statistics that help the youth make better decisions in their everyday lives. He has taught the Making Proud Choices evidence-based curriculum as well.
Cory Silverberg, M.Ed., is a sexuality educator, author, and trainer. He received his Master's of Education degree from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and trains across North America on topics including access and inclusion, sexuality and disability, and sex and technology. He is currently writing a series of three inclusive books for children about sexuality for Seven Stories Press. The first, What Makes a Baby, was released in May 2013.
Alex Stevens, M.P.H., provides training and support about sexual and reproductive health to afterschool program providers participating in the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development's Teen ACTION program. Prior to her work at PPNYC, she conducted weekly sexuality education classes and counseling sessions for middle and high school students taking part in the Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program. Ms. Stevens has also led education, training, and research efforts at the Young Men's Health Clinic, Columbia University’s Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She has extensive experience in curriculum development and sexual education and training for adolescents, college students, parents, and professionals. Ms. Stevens received an M.P.H. in Sexuality and Health from Columbia University.
Lila Starbuck is the Training Institute (TI) Coordinator at Planned Parenthood of NYC, where she manages the TI's operations and collaborates with PPNYC trainers to develop and implement the TI's vision and content. In the past, Ms. Starbuck has served as a sexuality and health educator, including with PPNYC, facilitating evidence-based programming, offering individual contraceptive counseling, coaching peer health educators, and developing and implementing creative and participatory in-class health education workshops. She also brings experience serving as a Sex Educator with Babeland, providing pleasure-focused, sex-positive education and workshops for adults.Jini Tanenhaus, P.A.-C, M.A., is a Physician Assistant with over thirty years of experience as a primary care medical provider specializing in adolescent and reproductive health, and as a Pro-Choice advocate. For the past 18 years, she has worked at Planned Parenthood of New York City in a number of different capacities, as a clinician, an administrator, a clinical research investigator and as a trainer. She initiated medication abortion services at PPNYC in 1996 and since then has worked to develop and deliver numerous clinical and didactic educational sessions, locally, nationally and internationally on abortion related topics including medication abortion, manual vacuum aspiration , basic ultrasound, counseling and values clarification. She has represented PPNYC, the National Abortion Federation (NAF), Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), and the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP) as trainer and advisor. She is a long-standing member of the Clinicians for Choice Advisory Committee.
Ruth Vega, M.P.A., is the Comprehensive Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (CAPP) Project Coordinator at PPNYC. Ruth coordinates and facilitates the Lower Eastside Community Advisory Council (CAC) and actively participates in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Upper Manhattan CACs. Together with the CAC members Ruth works to improve the environment for adolescents by ensuring that they have the information they need to make informed sexual and reproductive health (SRH) decisions. To accomplish this community stakeholders are recruited to the CACs, SRH needs assessments are conducted and action plans are developed to address the community’s needs. In addition Ruth is responsible for monitoring and reporting of the CAPP grant activities. health Prior to joining PPNYC, Ruth Vega was the Deputy Director of Legal Information for Families Today where she was responsible for managing the day to day operations of the organization, and managing their government contracts. Ms Vega’s previous work experience includes conducting community outreach activities, informational workshops, and participating in advisory councils and committees. Ms. Vega received a M.P.A from Long Island University.
Meghan Weidl, M.P.H., is the Associate Director of Adult Education at PPNYC. Ms. Weidl manages PPNYC’s Promotores de Salud Program that aims to increase access to sexual and reproductive health care for Latina immigrants in New York City. Prior to coming on board at PPNYC, Ms. Weidl managed a women’s HIVeducation and prevention program at five methadone clinics in the Bronx. She has also developed and implemented sexual and reproductive health education programs in adolescent group homes in Bolivia.
