Who we are

Sarah has a successful track record of developing, launching and scaling innovative programs that address the needs of individuals with complex conditions. Sarah has more than a decade of experience working with Medi-Cal managed care plans and building specialty provider networks. She has an ability to translate complex policy into operational steps in a way that entities can see their role and take action.

Specifically, her experience ranges from product design for a technology services company to being a California Plan President for a managed behavioral health organization to consulting with state and federal Medicaid leaders. Sarah worked as a value-based health care services researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health and began her career as a newspaper reporter, winning awards for coverage of local health and social services issues. Her writing has been published in the New York Times and Harvard Business School Press. She holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and Spanish from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Brian Blalock is a human rights lawyer, educator, and strategic reform consultant. He has worked as a religious affairs advisor, a fight trainer, a game designer, and a public school teacher in the south Bronx.

Previously, Brian served as Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department, leading reforms that launched extended foster care with 95% of participants stably housed, halved out-of-state placements, increased kinship placements, launched a rebuild of youth mental health services, and created the Office of Youth Homelessness.

Before that, as Law and Policy Director at Tipping Point Community, he co-founded a $125 million initiative creating youth housing supports, building permanent supportive housing, and expanding legal advocacy for people with disabilities. Earlier, as a Skadden Fellow at Bay Area Legal Aid, he founded and directed the Youth Justice Project, providing direct representation for youth with a team of attorneys and social workers, and co-founded Alameda County’s juvenile mental health court and legal clinics at youth homeless shelters throughout the Bay Area.

Brian is currently a Directing Attorney at a national nonprofit law firm, the Youth Law Center, where he works directly with young people. His work focuses on expanding legal access for youth experiencing homelessness, advancing community-based therapeutic models using Medicaid, and supporting juvenile justice reform nationwide. Brian is co-founder of YExLS, a youth experiential learning simulation focused on social change and policy development through games. Brian holds graduate degrees from Columbia and Harvard and a law degree from Stanford Law School, where he has taught youth law and policy for a decade.

Rhea is a pediatrician, public health advocate, and scholar. She writes and teaches on the relationship between structural racism, inequity and health. She works clinically, teaches nationally, and has a scholarly focus on the child and public health impacts of structural inequality.

She partners with community-based and non-profit organizations, public health departments, and academic centers to understand and address forms of social inequality that contribute to poor and inequitable health outcomes. She co-leads Public Works Alliance’s Perinatal Equity work, with a focus on honoring and elevating the ancestral wisdom and healing practices of doulas of color in California.

She’s a Senior Advisor on Equity and Justice for The California Children’s Trust, an initiative to advance mental health access for children and youth across California.

She graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Africana Studies and Health from the University of Notre Dame. She earned an M.D. at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency at University of California, San Francisco.

In 2017, she graduated from the Commonwealth Fund Mongan Minority Health Policy Fellowship at Harvard University’s School of Public Health, earning an M.P.H.

Shani Boykin is a Mental Wellness Consultant and Life Coach professional with over 15 years of experience. In her multifaceted career, she has provided services to children, teens, couples, families, individuals, corporations, and teams to equip them with the necessary tools to fulfill their journey to healing.

Connection, commitment & consistency is key in her approach to help her understand the many complexities clients experience which include but are not limited to race, culture, socioeconomic status, access, as well as sameness and differences that aid in the development of a person.

Shani is a Bay Area native and had the privilege of experiencing a full circle moment when she returned to her high school alma mater to serve as a classroom therapist working with underserved and underrepresented students and families of color. She also leads initiatives with Bay Area organizations such as Alameda EMS Corps as their Mental Health / Life Coach for the women’s division, and facilitated seminars for Centerforce. These trainings raise mental health awareness, provide resources, tools and language to leverage while working in high stress and traumatic environments. Her guidance in these spaces has proven to be beneficial when engaging in hard conversations that result in clients displaying astute situational awareness where lives are at stake. Additionally, she partnered with the University of California at Berkeley to establish introductory mental health courses to first generation college students of color to prepare them for their educational journey.

Shani is the founder of Healthy Mentals Consulting & Coaching where she continues to work with clients who struggle to build and achieve their life and relationship goals.

Committed to her life’s work (healing and relationship building), she graduated from Holy Names University nestled in the hills of Oakland California receiving her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Master’s in Counseling Psychology while obtaining a certificate in traumatology. In the spirit of being a life-long learner she consistently attends numerous continuing education classes, courses, trainings and seminars to remain current in the ever-evolving field of mental health. At Public Works Alliance, Shani oversees the wrap around support model for EMS Corps.

Alex previously served as the Executive Director of the California Children’s Trust (CCT). Prior to forming the CCT, he served as Chief Executive of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, one of California’s largest public health systems.

In his twelve years with the agency, he oversaw a budget of over a billion dollars that included one of the nation’s highest volume 911 systems, multiple general acute care hospitals, public health services, and more than $200 million in child and adolescent mental health services and contracts.

Before joining Alameda County, Alex was the director of the Chappell Hayes Health Center at McClymonds High School in West Oakland, a satellite outpatient center of Children’s Hospital and Research Center. His work there has helped define the nexus of public health and public education.

He has designed and administered mental health and physical health programs and services in child serving systems, including home visiting programs, programs for medically fragile children, and clinical and development programs in child welfare, juvenile justice, and early childhood settings.

Alex has served on the Alameda County First Five Commission, The Alameda Alliance, and The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and The Uninsured, along with other public and private boards and commissions.

He is a mental health practitioner specializing in adolescent services and youth development. He has advised or collaborated with a number of local and national foundations including The Atlantic Philanthropies, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The California Endowment, and most recently with Tipping Point Community. He has specialized in Medicaid policy and administration, emergency medical services, youth voice and crisis counseling, and safety net design and administration.

Rajni leads organizational strategy and development at PWA, and serves as Program Director for When We Lead, a multi-state initiative that brings together young people, community leaders, and system owners to unlock Medicaid as an engine for youth mental health transformation.

She brings more than 15 years of experience driving systems change across philanthropy, policy, and the private sector.

Before PWA, Rajni led Genentech’s Giving and Social Impact function, managing an annual portfolio of $55 million and mobilizing more than $225 million in equity-centered investments. Rajni designed and launched The Resilience Effect, a $22 million initiative to address the health impacts of childhood adversity, shaping care delivery at Bay Area Federally Qualified Health Centers and seeding advocacy efforts by the California Children’s Trust. She went on to become Executive Director and Head of Health Equity at Genentech, where she created the first enterprise-wide strategy to embed equity across the company’s U.S. business and commercialization value chain.

She began her career as a strategy consultant at FSG, advising companies and foundations, and aligning cross-sector coalitions on everything from the global tuberculosis drug supply to juvenile justice reform.

Rajni holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Studies from Northwestern University and a master’s in International Development Management from the London School of Economics. A Missouri native, she has called the Bay Area home for more than a decade and lives in Oakland with her husband and two daughters.

Michael Gibson is PWA’s Chief Program Officer for EMS Corps and the current Executive Director for Alameda County EMS Corps, a program that has become a national model for addressing a crisis level workforce shortage in EMS while providing an opportunity for young people currently underrepresented in the healthcare workforce.

He has over twenty-five years of experience in Violence Prevention, Workforce and Leadership Development, Transformative Mentoring, and Juvenile Justice and provides technical assistance and training to community-based organizations and foundations focused on improving equitable outcomes for underserved communities.

Overcoming hardship as a young person in Oakland, Mike has firsthand experience with the barriers many young people face as they seek employment in fields with upward mobility.

Mr. Gibson is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and received a master’s degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Public Management and Policy Analysis from the California State University, East Bay. He also received a Professional Coaching for Life and Work certificate from University of California, Davis, and a Professional Coaching Credential from the International Coach Federation.

Azmera is a dope emcee, compassionate listener and capoeirista. She is the founder of Break The Boxes and has over twelve years of experience in facilitating liberatory education, leadership development and youth advocacy.

From Salvador Bahia, Brazil to the United Nations, Azmera’s work is committed to healing and transformation. She has published articles on Capoeira as creative resistance, Call and Response in spiritual care, gender in Hip Hop, and unlearning religious fundamentalism.

She served as Community Partnership Lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she led the design and implementation of Storytelling & Justice programs for currently and formerly incarcerated youth and adults.

She also taught youth educators her signature framework The Capoethic Method™ at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services Racial Trauma & Healing Conference and hosted vital conversations on family-systems change with the Transforming Justice Initiative.

Azmera received her master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School, a dual bachelor’s degree in Visual & Performing Arts and Social Sciences Psychology from the University of Southern California, and a Fulbright Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship.

Azmera is supporting PWA in developing the Justice Serving Network, prioritizing healing-centered engagement and collaborating with community based organizations to shift power and agency toward youth directly impacted by criminal legal systems.

Jen Irish is an operations and growth leader with more than 15 years of experience helping organizations build the systems, teams, and processes needed to scale. Her background spans startups, technology companies, ecommerce, membership organizations, and nonprofit operations, with leadership experience across finance, HR, compliance, marketing, sales operations, supply chain, and technology.

Gillian joined PWA as the inaugural Public Works Alliance Child Welfare & Health Law Fellow hosted by Youth Law Center (YLC) in September 2025.

Her fellowship project is focused on the intersection of child welfare and health care, specifically on collaborating with the public sector to use Medicaid as a primary prevention and intervention strategy for child welfare system-involvement and to finance strategies that divert or limit system-involvement for families. Gillian graduated from UC Law SF (formerly UC Hastings) in May 2025. Prior to law school, she held multiple positions in mental health fundraising, communications, and administration at the Seneca Family of Agencies.

Jeff Metcalfe is a founding member of the Public Works Alliance team. He led PWA’s expansion of EMS Corps into New Mexico in 2021 and worked on revenue maximization initiatives that have generated millions in increased annual revenue for safety net and child-serving systems in California and New Mexico.

Denise is a Registered Nurse and EMS educator with years of frontline experience in emergency medicine. As a Clinical Instructor and Course Coordinator at the UCLA Center for Prehospital Care, Denise brings a wealth of clinical expertise and instructional leadership to the EMT program, delivering dynamic classroom and simulation-based training, coordinating ride-alongs, and ensuring alignment with EMS and NREMT standards.

Skilled in curriculum design, student coaching, and high-impact skills instruction, Denise has trained and mentored thousands of EMTs and paramedics while also supervising BLS/ALS operations, leading teams of 50+ providers, and fostering interagency collaboration. Dedicated to advancing emergency medicine through education, professionalism, and evidence-based practice, Denise inspires student success, critical thinking, and operational excellence both in the classroom and the field.

Solomon is a national leader on violence prevention, compassionate response, and the reimagination of public safety with over 15 years of experience designing innovative community safety and development initiatives. He is particularly passionate about strengthening the credentials and employability of crisis response street teams, violence interrupters and credible messengers.

Solomon served as the Deputy Director of the Newark Community Street Team, where he spearheaded strategies and community-wide collaboration that decreased homicides by 40% in Newark, bridging high-level policy with grassroots action.

He serves on the New Jersey Opioid Remediation Advisory Council and as board chair of The Village Revival Project, an arts-based transformative justice initiative that seeks to humanize the relationship between those who have caused violent harm and their surrounding communities.

Dr. Sol Montero is a physician and healthcare educator dedicated to advancing equity, diversity, and excellence in EMS education. With a background in general medicine and a Master’s degree in Administration and Management of Health Institutions, Dr. Montero brings a unique blend of clinical expertise and leadership experience to the EMS Corps.

She supports instructors, develops engaging curricula, and integrates cutting-edge tools such as virtual simulation and interactive learning modules.

Dr. Montero’s work emphasizes cultural humility, inclusivity, and growth mindset principles, ensuring that students from diverse backgrounds feel supported and prepared for success in the classroom and in the field. She collaborates closely with EMS leaders to strengthen EMS education and create sustainable pathways for future providers.

David Page is the director of the Prehospital Care Research Forum at UCLA and active field paramedic with Allina Health. He serves on the National Registry of EMTs Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) committee, the National Association of EMTs education and international committees, and the National Association of EMS Physicians DEI committee.

A native of Mexico, David came to the US in 1983 and began volunteering in the Maryland fire-rescue system just outside Washington DC. He has worked clinically in Boston, Fort Worth, Denver and Minneapolis/Saint Paul, serving now continuously as a field EMS provider for over 39 years, instructing for 34 of these. David holds a Master’s degree in Experiential Education from Minnesota State University focusing his academic research on development of student competency during field, clinical and simulation experiences, and inequities of prehospital care and education based on race, ethnicity and gender.

As an EMS instructor and program director, David’s first opportunity to operationalize his passion for diversifying the EMS workforce started in 1992 when he created and instructed the grant funded Frontline Women EMT program in Washington County, Minnesota. After working for decades to diversify the EMS workforce in Minnesota, he was recognized in 2012 as one of the “EMS 10 Innovators” for his role in creating and instructing the Saint Paul Fire Department’s EMS academy and Freedom House BLS unit, a project focused on helping low-income, under-served and under-represented youth succeed.

Dave is well known as an award-winning national and international educator, speaker and author. His work includes authorship in EMT and Paramedic textbooks, peer-reviewed research publications, online learning video instruction, predictive competency assessments, and flipped classroom EMS curriculum. He is a regular speaker at National EMS conferences, having delivered more than 500 presentations in the past 30 years. David was awarded the “Power of One” award (2008), the National Association of EMS Educators “Legends that walk among us” award (2009), the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities “Educator of the Year” award (2011), the National Association of EMTs president’s award (2017), and the prestigious Pinnacle National Leadership Award (2016).

In addition to his work in the United States, David serves as the current and founding chair of the International Paramedic Registry assessment and credentialing board. Current projects include work in 21 countries including Morocco, Australia, Philippines, Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica and others. He was awarded the 2019 Scott B. Frame Service Award for his work teaching prehospital care in developing nations.

Dr. Macheo Payne loves an adventure. Whether it’s sailing the seven seas, raising 2 sons in Oakland, or learning how to DJ, adventure is where he finds joy.

Macheo is a social work professor at CSUEB and former executive director of Youth UpRising and Community & Youth Outreach. Macheo worked with the California Children’s Trust in 2019 to build community & youth engagement in the Trust.

Most recently, Macheo developed a credible messenger program to reduce violence in Oakland schools. Dr. Payne has led the Oakland Freedom Schools over the span of 20 years, operating in schools and juvenile hall.

As an expert on school discipline, Macheo has worked with schools and school districts across the country.

Palak Shah is a consultant who guides leaders and organizations to realize their visions. With over a decade of expertise in PK-12 education, youth behavioral health, child welfare, and public systems, Palak offers strategic planning, quantitative analysis, project management, community engagement, financial modeling, and report writing.

Highlights of Palak’s recent projects include project managing a cross-agency pilot supporting students in shelters in New York City, building capacity around youth behavioral health strategies and Medicaid in Georgia, establishing the governance structure for a collective impact organization in Oakland, and aiding Berkeley Public Schools in crafting a back-to-school pandemic response plan.

In the philanthropic and private sectors, she has provided strategic counsel to startups, spearheaded Salesforce implementations, and supported foundations with grantmaking analysis. Palak holds a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kaia is co-founder and director of the Prison Studies Project, which began at Harvard University in 2008. She is faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and was the first Practitioner in Residence at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute where she led the Law, Education and Justice strategic focus area.

From Sing Sing prison to The White House, Kaia’s work is grounded in reimagining justice. She has taught extensively on liberation theology, ethics, punishment, race, eye contact, and transformative justice, and is the author of Voices from American Prisons: Faith, Education, and Healing (Routledge, 2014).

Kaia serves as a consultant to educational communities across the nation. She received her master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School and her PhD from Emory University. She is ordained as an interfaith minister and has been learning/teaching in and about U.S. jails and prisons for 30 years.

Kaia is supporting PWA in developing materials to facilitate capacity building training for organizations working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth and forging partnerships with CBOs, employment partners and youth-serving public systems that continue to advance transformative shifts in agency and power toward young people and their communities.

Peter has a big passion for helping others in any way he can. He grew up in Santa Barbara and graduated from CLU in 2005 with a master’s degree in Liberal Studies and a minor in music theory.

From there, he spent a bit over a decade working in the Goleta Union School District as a Certificated Tutor, and then for Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes as a literacy instructor for children with developmental and learning challenges.

In late 2016 he decided that he wanted to explore new ventures, and a housemate at the time urged him to apply at Ontraport, a local software company providing a robust CRM solution in marketing and sales automation.

At Ontraport, Peter quickly learned many new skills in IT and his career took somewhat of a hard left turn. He started on their client-facing support team and quickly moved up into their marketing team, overseeing all of their internal automations and managing their public-facing web assets.

In October of 2024, Peter finally parted ways with Ontraport and brought his knowledge to Public Works Alliance, where he now handles the IT needs of the team as well as the IT needs of those involved with Public Works Alliance’s initiatives (EMS Corps, Justice Serving Network, etc.)

When he’s not behind a computer screen, you can find Peter on stage performing as ‘DJ Professor West’ at some of the hot nightclubs in Santa Barbara and in the surrounding area, or playing his clarinet with the SB Prime Time Band. When he’s not creating music, he’s likely to be found on the golf course practicing his swing.

Erika Williams is a strategist with over 20 years of experience advancing equity through philanthropy, government, and the nonprofit sector. She specializes in advancing equity-centered initiatives and supports mission-driven organizations with strategic planning, resource development, and partnership cultivation.

At Public Works Alliance, Erika is helping shape the expansion of EMS Corps in Atlanta through landscape analysis, partnership development, and resource mobilization. She also supports national strategy and fundraising for EMS Corps in cities including New Orleans, Newark, and New Mexico.

Erika previously led wealth-building and health equity initiatives as a Senior Program Officer at Bloomberg Philanthropies and held leadership roles at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Morgan Stanley Foundation, and Fulton County Government. She holds a B.S. from Lincoln University and an M.S. in Urban Policy and Analysis from The New School. Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to community building and systems change.