ABOUT
Mission
The Borders and Bodies Collective is a professional, student-run organization that aims to raise consciousness around immigration and health. Our mission is to cultivate leadership and advocacy skills among health professionals through work focusing on the intersection of immigration and public health.
Vision
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To create a safe space to discuss health issues affecting our communities, increase visibility of immigrant health, and engage in critical discussions to better understand and address the issues affecting immigrant communities.
Our Team
Miriam Avilez, MPH
Miriam has experience in healthcare coordination and direct patient interaction seeking opportunities to impact the health of communities by leading and supporting teams and health initiatives in innovative ways.
Gladis Chavez, MPH
Gladis, a graduate of the UC Berkeley MPH program, is a dedicated advocate for immigrant rights issues and promoting inclusive policies. She brings years of experience as a student organizer and bilingual public health researcher. Most recently, Gladis lead a project in the San Francisco Tenderloin investigating the early impacts of Proposition 56.
Johanna Figueroa, MPH
Johanna is currently employed as a Community Health Advocate with St. Joseph's Mission Hospital in Orange County where she is working to reduce health disparities of the vulnerable communities of southern Orange County. She is a recent MPH graduate in the Health and Social Behavior program at UC Berkeley. She received her BA in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was a Medi-Cal worker for the Social Services Agency in Orange County for three years, and has experience in community organizing, and strategic planning.
Miriam Magaña López, MPH
Miriam is a bilingual policy analyst at the Institute for Research on Labor & Employment at UC Berkeley. She recently completed her Master in Public Health at UC Berkeley with a Health and Social Behavior Concentration. Prior to coming to Berkeley, Miriam was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health where she conducted and published qualitative and quantitative research. Her research interests focus on trends in transnational migration, contextualizing drivers of migration and media representation of migrants in the USA. She has multiple years of experience working with community organizations and community members in multiple settings, including research recruitment, advocacy, conducting needs assessments and interviews.
Luciana Rocha, MPH
Luciana has over six years of experience with public health research, including evaluation of federal programs and community-based participatory initiatives. She received her MPH from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health with a concentration in Health and Social Behavior and is passionate about addressing persistent disparities in health that are rooted in systems of inequality and oppression. She is motivated by the increasing urgency of these issues for immigrant communities in California and across the country.
Nancy Ceja, MPH
Nancy grew up in California’s Central Valley and is passionate about improving the health and wellness of underserved communities. She has experience in providing services to vulnerable populations and brings expertise in event planning and delivery of presentations and workshops tailored to diverse audiences.
Bo Chung, MPH, MCP
Bo is a graduate of Dual Masters degree program of city planning and public health at the University of California, Berkeley. Sustainability expert and social justice advocate in the Bay Area. Proven experience in project and personnel management, expertise in policy and spatial analysis from a racial health equity perspective. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, professional level Putonghua, and functional Cantonese.
Daniela Flores, MPH
Daniela, a graduate of the UC Berkeley MPH program with a concentration of Public Health Nutrition, has strong experience in community research and public health initiatives. As a bilingual researcher, Daniela is comfortable and experienced in developing tools that are culturally relevant and easily understood by diverse groups, in her native Spanish and beyond. She offers a mix of experience working in healthcare related projects, etc.
Maria Isabel Rangel, MPH
Isabel received her MPH in Health and Social Behavior from UC Berkeley and graduate with a B.A. from UCLA in Anthropology with minors in Public Health and Labor and Workplace studies. Her passion for addressing Latinx health inequities stems from her first-hand experiences of living in rural farmworker communities both in Mexico and in the California’s Central Valley. Her experiences include working to plan and implement community-based projects with Latinx im(migrant) communities with the goal of sustainability in collaboration with diverse community stakeholders. Ms. Rangel is fluent in both English and Spanish and has worked to translate and develop tools for Spanish speaking communities for over 8 years.
Sofia Villagomez, MPH
Sofia has a background in nutrition and community health and believes in fighting for health equity and access for all, especially women, children, immigrant and refugee populations who often represent our most vulnerable members of society. Recently graduated from the Master’s in Public Health Nutrition program at UC Berkeley, she is currently an evaluator on the Trauma Informed Systems Initiative for the San Francisco Department of Public Health to improve environment and service delivery for all persons who interact with SFDPH on a daily basis.