OUR TEAM


Berta Hernandez, PhD is People Development Manager at the Center for Learning & Innovation with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Berta Hernandez arrived in San Francisco as an undocumented worker from Mexico City in 1987 and began her journey in Community Health Education as a Promotora in the SF Mission District, precisely during the pick of the AIDS Epidemic. After regularizing her immigration status, Berta began working at different community organizations in the Bay Area, such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and Instiuto Familiar de la Raza in San Francisco, and La Clinica de la Raza in Oakland, among others. Berta also worked as a Program Manager of an international editorial company in Buenos Aires, overseeing the production of print, media and web publications and courses for Latin American MDs. She has an extensive training in Popular Education and Theater of the Oppressed and she is a literary artist, a storyteller, and a traditional healer practitioner, that has utilized theater as an educational instrument and healing medium in Mexico, US and Argentina since her teenage years. Berta has also been an advocate for AIDS awareness, HIV prevention, sexual health education, LGBTQ, immigrant, children, youth and women rights, and for racial, social and environmental justice during all her adult life. She holds a BA in Hispanic Language and Literature from the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico,) a MA in Spanish and Latin American Literature from SFSU (San Francisco State University) and a PhD in Education from the UB (Universidad de Buenos Aires). Berta joins the CLI as its People’s Development Manager, after a year of intense COVID response work including the implementation of DPH Neighborhood Vaccination Sites.
Aira Villareal is Training Communications Coordinator with the Center of Learning & Innovation at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. She is a Filipina immigrant, her family settled in Los Angeles in 2004, and she then moved to San Francisco in 2015. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Health Education with an emphasis in community health from San Francisco State University. For the past 3 years, Aira served as Program Administrator for CavityFree SF, a city-wide oral heath collaborative addressing children’s oral health disparities. She provided operational backbone support to keep the collaborative organized and coordinated projects in partnership with local CBOs and city agencies. In the past, she interned with Kaiser Permanente’s Health Education Department and served as an AmeriCorps member with SFUSD. In her free time, she enjoys line-dancing and tending to her plants.
Lorren Dangerfield is Pathways Coordinator with the Center of Learning & Innovation at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. She is a proud San Francisco Native from splitting her time between the Bayview and Fillmore neighborhoods. Lorren is passionate about social justice, working on local campaigns for early youth like, “Free Muni for Youth” and “Ethnic Studies for All.” She has worked with a diverse group of youth in health education, college access and in college success programs. She graduated with a degree in Sociology and American Multicultural Studies from Sonoma State University and will be finishing a Masters in Social Work at San Francisco State University.
Advisory Committee
Barbara Garcia, MA, Director, San Francisco Department of Public Health
James Loyce, MSW, Consultant; formerly with Black Coalition on AIDS
Torsten Neilands, PhD, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California, San Francisco
Art Reingold, PhD, University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health
Past Contributors
Jessica Brown, MPH former SHARP Director/Manager of Training and Workforce Development
Aminta Kouyate former Program Manager/Coordinator
Amaka Agodi former Program Assistant
Karina Ng former Program Assistant
Michelle Fletcher SHARP Alumni
Kelly Taylor, PhD, MS former mentor
Sean Arayasirikul, PhD former SHARP PI
Erin Wilson, DrPH former SHARP PI
Willi McFarland, MD, PhD, MPH&TM is the Director of the Center for Public Health Research at SFDPH and former SHARP PI
Liz Kroboth is the former Training Project Manager at the Center for Learning and Innovation at SFDPH.
May Sudhinaraset, PhD is a former mentor.
