Mildred Thompson, Senior Director and Director of the PolicyLink Center for Health and Place, holds a master’s degree in social work from New York University and has over 20 years experience in the health field. She has been responsible for PolicyLink initiatives that offer solutions to problems rooted in the connection between health and neighborhood factors. These include initiatives that engage community leaders and residents in achieving policies that reduce environmental triggers of childhood asthma, increase opportunities for local access to healthy food, and improve community opportunities for physical activity.
Rebecca Flournoy, Associate Director, leads a range of efforts to improve community environments in ways that support good health. This includes research, policy development, capacity-building, and advocacy work at the local, state, and federal levels to improve access to grocery stores and other healthy food retail options in underserved communities. Her work also addresses topics such as asthma, school and housing environments, outdoor air quality, opportunities for physical activity, and health and place more broadly. To build community capacity to identify and advocate for change, she designs and conducts trainings, advises organizations and coalitions on advocacy strategies, and develops ways to link groups to one another to strengthen their policy efforts. Before joining PolicyLink, she worked at the Kaiser Family Foundation to amplify the public’s voice on health and social policy issues through public opinion research, often in collaboration with The Washington Post, National Public Radio, and other partners. Flournoy has published extensively on health policy and health equity topics, and holds a master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan.
Mary M. Lee, Senior Associate, has been a practicing attorney for more than 20 years; her work has focused on community economic development, land use and civil rights. She received her undergraduate degree in political studies from Pitzer College in Claremont, California, and her law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. As a member of PolicyLink’s Health Team, Lee provides technical assistance to the four Southern California sites of the Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) initiative. She is also working with the staff of the Pat Brown institute, providing strategic planning and organizational development assistance to advance their efforts to form the Health Policy Outreach Center, which would focus on Latino and Asian Pacific Islander communities in the eastern portion of L.A, County. She designs and delivers training to an array of community based organizations, most recently to an environmental justice group working to improve air quality along the Alameda corridor. In addition, Lee is utilizing her economic development and land use experience to provide technical assistance and support to a collective of public health advocates who are collaborating with community development organizations to increase access to healthy foods by attracting a variety of grocery outlets to underserved neighborhoods.
Rajni Banthia, Program Associate, contributes to projects that increase opportunities for physical activity and access to healthy foods by providing research and technical assistance. She helps convene and engage stakeholders to address social determinants of health through a community lens. Her efforts are focused upon health behavior promotion and chronic illness prevention through public policy initiatives that target neighborhood factors, reduce health disparities, and foster new opportunities. Banthia earned a BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley with a minor in South Asian Studies, and a PhD in behavioral medicine from the University of California San Diego/San Diego State University joint doctoral program in clinical psychology. She completed her clinical internship at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Scholars in Health Disparities program.
Shireen Malekafzali, Program Associate, is a member of the health team working to create environmental and policy changes aimed at addressing health disparities. She provides research, technical assistance and training to collaborative efforts intended to create health-enabling environments for all, regardless of race, class or gender. Prior to joining PolicyLink Shireen worked with the San Francisco Department of Public Health on a land use and health team developing area-based methodology to measure the impacts of land use projects and policies on health, analyzing urban planning policies, and conducting a community health impact assessment. She also taught environmental health and research methods at San Francisco State University. In addition, Shireen has worked on a number of projects addressing health in underserved communities, including collaborating with the nonprofit organization Legal Services for Prisoners with Children to conduct a community participatory health assessment of the healthcare provided to pregnant prisoners at Valley State Prison for Women in California, and collaborating with the Harvard University School of Public Health to conduct a study of the pest management policies and practices of low-income housing throughout the state of Massachusetts. Shireen comes with a Bachelor of Science in environmental studies from UC Santa Barbara and a Master of Public Health from San Francisco State University.
Iman Mills, Senior Program Assistant, provides administrative, research, and program support for PolicyLink projects on health disparities and health in communities. Mills provides technical assistance to the Community Action to Fight Asthma (CAFA) initiative on state legislation related to asthma as well as indoor and outdoor air. Iman’s work with the Center for Health and Place also includes creating curriculum for advocacy trainings pertaining to air quality, healthy food access, and increased physical activity. In addition, she coordinates convenings and meetings to advance the work of the Center for Health and Place projects. Previously, Iman was the circulation manager for a health management publishing firm in New York City, where she served as a liaison between the production and marketing departments. Mills holds a BA in English and Comparative Literature with a minor in Neuroscience and Behavior from Columbia University.