About ANSIRH

Staff & faculty

ANSIRH faculty and staff

Faculty and Researchers

Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA, ANSIRH Director; Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Director of Research at ANSIRH Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA, Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and ANSIRH Director. Tracy Weitz is a lifetime advocate of women’s health and reproductive rights. Dr. Weitz’s passion is for those aspects of women’s health that are marginalized either for ideological reasons or because the populations affected lack the means or mechanisms to have their concerns raised. Dr. Weitz’s current research focuses on innovative strategies to expand abortion provision in the U.S. Dr. Weitz also serves as the Associate Director for Public Policy at the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, and was its founding executive director over a decade ago. In 2006, Dr. Weitz was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the Women’s Health Council, an advisory body to the California Departments of Health Care Service and Public Health. She is a current board member of the ACLU of Northern California. In 1999, she received the UCSF Chancellor’s Award for the Advancement of Women. At UCSF, she serves on the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women. She has an MA degree in public administration with an emphasis in health care and a PhD in medical sociology from the University of California, San Francisco. Phone: 510-986-8939.

Diana Greene-Foster, PhD, ANSIRH Director of Research; Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences Diana Greene Foster, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Director of Research at ANSIRH. Diana Greene Foster, PhD, is a demographer who uses quantitative models and analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of family planning policies and the effect of unintended pregnancy on women’s lives. Dr. Foster has worked on the evaluation of the California State family planning program, Family PACT. This work demonstrated the effectiveness of the program in reducing the incidence of unintended pregnancy. Dr. Foster created a new methodology for estimating pregnancies averted based on a Markov model and a microsimulation to identify the cost-effectiveness of advance provision of emergency contraception. She is currently leading a nationwide longitudinal prospective study of the health and well-being of women who seek abortion including both women who do and do not receive the abortion. Dr. Foster received her undergraduate degree in Political Economy of Natural Resources from UC Berkeley, her MA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, and her PhD in Demography and Public Policy from Princeton University. Phone: 510-986-8940.

M. Antonia Biggs, PhD, Senior Researcher. M. Antonia Biggs serves as a senior researcher at ANSIRH, as part of her work for the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Biggs’ research is dedicated towards better understanding the barriers faced by economically disadvantaged populations in accessing reproductive health services so that policy can be designed to improve their social and health outcomes. Her specific research interests include program evaluation, Latina adolescent childbearing, delivery of long-acting contraceptive services, and the psychological well-being of women having abortions. Currently, Dr. Biggs is directing a survey of family planning providers’ delivery of long-acting contraception in California, participating in the evaluation of the Colorado and Iowa Initiatives to reduce unintended pregnancy by increasing access to long-acting contraception, and working on a nationwide longitudinal prospective study of the health and well-being of women who seek abortion. Dr. Biggs holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston University. Phone: 510-986-8961, 415-476-9813.

Karuna S. Chibber, DrPH, MS, ANSIRH Research Fellow Karuna S. Chibber, DrPH, MS, Research Fellow. Karuna Chibber is a public health social scientist at ANSIRH. Her research interests include gender inequalities and women’s health, particularly intimate partner violence and its impact on women’s reproductive, sexual, and maternal health; and developing innovations to improve health care access, quality of care, and service delivery by improving health systems. For the past ten years, she has conducted community-based research in India examining the links between gender inequalities and women’s reproductive and sexual health. Dr. Chibber’s current research focuses on the status and quality of relationships in the United States between pregnant and parenting women and their intimate partners and on the impact that being denied an abortion has on women’s experience of intimate partner violence. Dr. Chibber received her undergraduate degree in Economics from Delhi University, India; an MA in Economics from Tufts University; a Masters in Health Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health; and a Doctor of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Phone: 510-986-8963.

Lori Freedman, PhD, Bixby Visiting Scholar Lori Freedman, PhD, Medical Sociologist. For the past decade, Lori Freedman, PhD has researched the ways in which reproductive health care is shaped by our social structure and medical culture. Her recent book, Willing and Unable: Doctors’ Constraints in Abortion Care,is based upon 40 in-depth physician interviews and examines how abortion politics affect medical practice, focusing on the challenges to integrating abortion into physician practice. Unexpected findings from the interviews led her to research and write about the intersection of religion and health care, especially in the case of Catholic-owned hospitals. This research experience has spawned her interest in how physician employers use conscience clauses in medical practice at individual and institutional levels. Dr. Freedman’s interest in reproductive health care research was born at San Francisco General Hospital (1998) when she worked as a research assistant for several contraception-related studies. Dr. Freedman is currently embarking on a two new studies: The first focused on the bedside bioethics of religiously affiliated health care institutions and their employees and a second focused on the experiences of newly abortion trained nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants. Dr. Freedman received her BA at the University of Oregon and her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. Phone: 510-986-8948.

E. Angel James, CNM, WHNP-BC, Research Resident, ANSIRH. Angel James is a predoctoral student in the UCSF School of Nursing, Family Health Care Department. She is a recipient of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences IMSD fellowship. In addition, Ms. James is currently a volunteer clinician at the Women's Community Clinic. Her research interests include unintended pregnancy and the nursing role in unintended pregnancy prevention and abortion care. Ms. James has many years of experience as a nurse in women's health both in the hospital and clinic settings. Prior to returning to school, she worked as a certified nurse midwife and nurse practitioner for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest. She received her BSN and MS from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Carole Joffe, PhD, Professor emeritus of sociology at UC Davis; professor of obstetrics and gynecology at ANSIRH. Carole Joffe is a professor at ANSIRH and a professor of sociology emerita at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the social dimensions of reproductive health, with a particular interest in abortion provision. In January 2010, Dr. Joffe’s book, Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients and the Rest of Us, was published by Beacon Press. Besides writing for an academic audience, she also writes frequently for the general public on the topics of reproductive health and reproductive politics. In 2006, Dr. Joffe was awarded the Public Service Award by the Academic Senate of the University of California, Davis. Some recent publications are “Abortion and Medicine: A Sociopolitical History,” in M. Paul, ed., The Management of Abnormal and Unintended Pregnancy and “The Religious Right and the Reshaping of Sexual Policy: An Examination of Reproductive Rights and Sexuality Education,” in Sexual Research and Social Policy, Winter 2007 (with Diane di Mauro). She is the author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and after Roe v. Wade (Beacon Press) and The Regulation of Sexuality: Experiences of Family Planning Workers (Temple University Press 1986). Dr. Joffe received her BA from Brandeis University and her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Phone: 510-986-8938.

Katrina Kimport, PhD, Qualitative Sociologist. Katrina Kimport is a qualitative sociologist whose research focuses on gender, sexuality, and social movements. Dr. Kimport's current research engages two central themes: an examination and critique of heteronormativity, including analysis of its effect in the social experience of abortion; and an investigation of claims-making around abortion. Other recent work by Dr. Kimport has examined the relationship between heteronormativity and same-sex marriage, aiming to understand why same-sex couples choose to marry and to analyze the impact of their marriages both for participants and for broader social processes, and has investigated the use of the internet for protest. Dr. Kimport's work has been published in the American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, and Mobilization, and she is the author, with Dr. Jennifer Earl, of Digitally Enabled Social Change, published by MIT Press. Dr. Kimport received her BA from Yale University and her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Phone: 510-986-8947.

Amy Levi, CNM, WHNP-BC, PhD, FACNM, Clinical Education Consultant, HWPP. Amy Levi is the clinical education consultant for the HWPP project. In addition, she is an Associate Clinical Professor and Co-director of the INMEP Nurse-Midwifery Program at UCSF. Her research and professional interests encompass safe motherhood, clinical data sets, antenatal care, and midwifery education. Dr. Levi has extensive experience with Distance Education modalities, and launched the Distance Education option in the fall of 2005. She also works with students in the antepartum and intrapartum clinical areas, and collaborates with other researchers at UCSF. Her current research focus is on women’s decision making in perinatal care. Dr. Levi received her undergraduate degree in Nursing from Widener University in Pennsylvania and completed her MS and PhD in Nursing and Certificate in Nurse-Midwifery at the University of Pennsylvania. Phone: 510-986-8944.

Sarah Roberts, DrPH, Public Health Social Scientist. Sarah Roberts, DrPH, is a public health social scientist at ANSIRH. Her research interests include gender equality and women’s health, alcohol and drug use during pregnancy, and assumptions underlying policymaking relating to alcohol and drug use among women of childbearing age. Dr. Roberts’ current research focuses on the impact of being denied an abortion on women’s alcohol and drug use and social determinants of alcohol use among pregnant and parenting women. Dr. Roberts’ work has been published in Women’s Health Issues, Maternal and Child Health Journal, and Alcohol and Alcoholism. Dr. Roberts received her undergraduate degree in history from Columbia University, her MPH and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan, and her DrPH from the University of California, Berkeley. Phone: 510-986-8962.

Corinne Rocca, PhD, MPH, Epidemiologist. Corinne Rocca is an Epidemiologist at UCSF's Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Her research interests include prevention of unintended pregnancy, adolescent sexual behavior, contraceptive use, pregnancy intentions, and latent variable measurement. Dr. Rocca's research has focused on the measurement and significance of pregnancy intentions, including what influences young women's attitudes towards pregnancy and the role of intentions and ambivalence in shaping contraceptive behavior. She is particularly interested in using quantitative psychometric techniques, such as Item Response Theory, to improve measurement of latent variables, including attitudes and social norms. Her current work includes creating a valid measure of childbearing attitudes for use among diverse populations of adolescents and young women; using data from a nationally representative sample of unmarried young people to examine the roles of pregnancy ambivalence and fatalism on use of effective contraception; and examining barriers to safe abortion in Nepal. Dr. Rocca received her undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Stanford University; an MPH in Population and Family Health from Columbia University School of Public Health; and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Diana Taylor, RN, MS, PhD, Director of Research and Evaluation, Primary Care Initiative. Diana Taylor is a nurse practitioner, educator and researcher, and is Professor Emerita at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing. She has served as Director of UCSF’s Women’s Health NP Program, as well as the co-Director of the UCSF Center for Collaborative Primary Care to advance interprofessional collaboration and innovation related to primary care education, practice and research. Dr. Taylor has been a leader in policy-shaping activities for multiple professional groups on regional, national level and international levels. She has participated in the development of innovative women’s health care delivery models, interdisciplinary education programs, practice standards, and evidence-based practice guidelines. She has served on national boards and committees of the Health Professions Division of the US Public Health Service, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Nurses Association, the National Organization of NP Faculties, the Association of Women’s Health Nurses, as well as state and local nursing practice and education committees. Dr. Taylor has more than 100 scientific articles, books and publications in the area of women’s health. Some recent publications include “When politics trumps evidence: Legislative or regulatory exclusion of abortion from advanced practice clinician scope of practice” published with Barbara Safriet and Tracy Weitz in the Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health (2009; 54: 4-7) and Providing Abortion Care: A professional toolkit for nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants (UCSF ANSIRH, 2009). Currently, Dr. Taylor is also an active board member of the Reproductive Options Education Consortium in Nursing (Abortion Access Project); a board member of Clinicians for Choice (NAF); and Board chair (as well as a practicing clinician) of the San Francisco Women’s Community Clinic. Dr. Taylor received her BSN from the University of Oregon, her MS from UCSF and PhD from the University of Washington. Phone: 510-986-8950.

Ushma Upadhyay, MPH, PhD, Research Specialist Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH. Ushma Upadhyay is a Public Health Social Scientist at ANSIRH. Her research interests include unintended pregnancy, gender-based relationship power, and access to contraception and abortion. Her current research focuses on measures of women’s empowerment and assessing its influence on contraceptive use, abortion decisions, and fertility in the US and sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Upadhyay developing a theory-based, validated scale to quantitatively measure women’s empowerment that reproductive health researchers can incorporate into interview assessments in a variety of research contexts. She is co-author of Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers, a Johns Hopkins/WHO publication providing evidence-based guidance on the provision of contraceptive methods. Dr. Upadhyay has a BA in Communications and International Studies from American University, an MPH from Columbia School of Public Health, and a PhD from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Phone: 510-986-8946.

Staff

Roula AbiSamra, MPH, Project Coordinator, Health Workforce Pilot Project. Roula AbiSamra is the Project Coordinator for ANSIRH's Health Workforce Pilot Project. Her experiences prior to joining ANSIRH have driven her desire to see reproductive health improved based on high-quality evidence. She has been involved in reproductive health work in multiple capacities, which included providing patient care and case management in several languages, coordinating data collection and analysis for clinical and social-science research, and assisting in the development of the graduate Seminar on the Global Elimination of Maternal Mortality from Abortion at Emory University in Atlanta. Ms. AbiSamra received her BA from Emory University and an MPH from Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. Phone: 510-986-8930.

Patricia Anderson, Administrative and HWPP Director. Pat Anderson works both as ANSIRH’s Administrative Director and as Director of the Health Workforce Pilot Project (HWPP). She has spent most of her career in various positions within the field of reproductive health and rights. Most recently, she served as the Director of the Society of Family Planning and before that as the Program Manager for the California Program on Access to Care with the University of California, Office of the President. She was the founding director of Medical Students for Choice and served as Membership Director and Interim Executive Director at the National Abortion Federation, while spearheading a special initiative on the shortage of abortion providers. Ms. Anderson received her BA and MPH from the University of California, Berkeley. Phone: 510-986-8929.

Rana E. Barar, MPH, Project Director, Turnaway Study. Rana E. Barar, MPH, is Project Director for the Turnaway Study. Prior to joining ANSIRH, Rana managed the Teen-to-Teen Sexuality Education Project and served as Interim Director at Answer, a leading national organization dedicated to providing and promoting comprehensive sexuality education based at Rutgers University. In that capacity, Rana oversaw publication of Answer's teen publications - Sex, Etc. magazine and Sexetc.org. Rana began her public health career working in several health and human rights projects at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and received her MPH in population and family health in 2006. She was Senior Program Officer for the Averting Maternal Death and Disability (AMDD) Program, charged with overall administrative management of the AMDD Program, including strategic planning and launching AMDD's new look and Web site. She has a strong background in international relations as well, which has been enhanced by her substantial experience in Europe, Russia and Africa. Phone: 510-986-8937.

Molly Battistelli, Director, Health Workforce Pilot Project (HWPP) Molly Battistelli, Research Analyst, Health Workforce Pilot Project (HWPP). Molly Battistelli is working as a research analyst with the HWPP Project, a core component of ANSIRH’s Primary Care Initiative, which aims to demonstrate and evaluate the role of advanced practice clinicians in providing first-trimester aspiration abortions as part of comprehensive early pregnancy care. Ms. Battistelli is responsible for analyzing research data from this multi-year statewide project with the overarching focus of improving access to heath care. She is a graduate student in the public health program at UCLA and has a range of experience centered on strengthening care delivery and best practices, clinic systems improvement, and reproductive health research and analysis. Prior to joining ANSIRH, she worked as a Program Manager for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America focused on operations research and clinic innovation. Phone: 510-986-8954.

Megan Burgoyne, Program Specialist. Megan Burgoyne is a Program Specialist at ANSIRH. A passionate advocate and active member of the reproductive justice community, Ms. Burgoyne thrives on working to ensure women have an equal place at life's table. Prior to joining ANSIRH, she was a Public Affairs Manager and Community Organizer for two Planned Parenthood affiliates—Planned Parenthood Southeast in Georgia and Planned Parenthood Northern New England in New Hampshire. During her six years at Planned Parenthood, she acquired an extensive knowledge about reproductive health and rights and gained in-depth experience in community organizing, public policy, and volunteer program management. Ms. Burgoyne is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego with a degree in Communications as a Social Force and a minor in Law in Society. Phone: 510-986-8945.

Janine Carpenter, Research Analyst, Turnaway Study. Janine Carpenter, Research Analyst, Turnaway Study. Janine Carpenter is an Interviewer for the Turnaway Study. Prior to joining ANSIRH, she worked as a Research Assistant on Project Viva, a maternal/child public health study cosponsored by Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. She has experience coordinating, monitoring, and evaluating student-run volunteer service programs. She has also done outreach to disadvantaged women about the availability of health insurance and provided eligibility screenings. Ms. Carpenter received her B.A. in Sociology and Latin American Studies from Columbia University. Phone: 510-986-8959.

Kate Cosby, MPH Kate Cosby Cockrill, MPH, Research Analyst and Project Manager. Kate Cosby Cockrill is currently directing the Social and Emotional Aspects of Abortion Program. She is leading the Measuring Abortion Stigma team, which is developing and testing an abortion stigma scale to measure stigma experienced by women who have abortions. She is also developing a framework for understanding abortion stigma that connects lived experiences of abortion to stigma theory. Ms. Cockrill has a MPH from UC Berkeley and has 10 years of experience in the field of abortion care and women’s health. Prior to graduate school she worked at the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, Georgia, the Fayetteville Women’s Clinic in Fayetteville, Arkansas and the National Abortion Federation in Washington, DC. Phone: 510-986-8935.

Sheila Desai, MPH, Research and Evaluation Manager, HWPP Project. Sheila Desai is Research and Evaluation Manager for ANSIRH's HWPP Project. Her work and research to date have focused on improving access to reproductive and maternal health care through community-based and community-run interventions. She is particularly interested in the social determinants of women's health, with a focus on gender inequities. Prior to joining ANSIRH, Ms. Desai worked in Boston with John Snow, Inc. (JSI)—a global health organization—managing public health programs in parts of East and West Africa, South Asia, and Eastern Europe. Before this, she spent three years in western India working with a rural women's collective and the local government to strengthen national and community-level maternal and reproductive health programs. Ms. Desai received her BA from Brown University and her MPH from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Loren Dobkin, RN, MPH, Research Analyst, Turnaway Study. Loren Dobkin is a Research Analyst for the Turnaway Study and graduate student in the Family Nurse Practitioner Program at UCSF. She began as a ‘summer’ intern analyzing recruitment data and happily discovered it was a more compelling, complex and extended project than anyone had anticipated. At ANSIRH, Ms. Dobkin enjoys integrating her clinical training in adolescent and women’s reproductive health with her MPH in Biostatistics and Epidemiology, which she received from UC Berkeley in 2007. Like many, her journey into reproductive health began as one in sexual health: previously, she helped to conduct HIV and STI research at UCSF, and provided related counseling services at community clinics. She received her BA in International Development Studies and Biology from McGill University. Phone: 510-986-8966.

Michaela Ferrari, Project Coordinator, ANSIRH Michaela Ferrari, BA, Project Coordinator. Michaela Ferrari has recently returned to serve as Project Coordinator for ANSIRH. She worked as the Project Coordinator of the Turnaway Study for two years before receiving a Fulbright Fellowship to do research in the Republic of Georgia. During her year there, she designed and conducted an interview-based study on women's and clinicians' attitudes toward family planning. Her research interests include perceptions of stigma in regard to abortion and family planning, especially in relation to religious discourse. As an undergraduate at Oberlin College, she majored in Religion and Gender & Women's Studies, and her Honors Thesis explored HIV/AIDS stigma in evangelical health and biology educational materials. Ms. Ferrari intends to continue working in the field of reproductive health research and development, and hopes to pursue this on both a domestic and international level.

Heather Gould, MPH, Research Coordinator, Turnaway Study. Heather Gould currently serves as the research coordinator for the Turnaway Study. Ms. Gould has been involved with the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health since it was founded and has worked on many center research and policy projects over the years. She has extensive experience designing and implementing qualitative and quantitative research studies, managing reproductive health programs, and writing grants. Ms. Gould has worked in several reproductive health clinics as a manager or health specialist, including New Generation Health Center, Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, and the Marin County Women’s Health Services. In addition, she has served as a consultant to several organizations, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America-International (PPFA-I), the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP), and Population Services International (PSI). Her particular areas of interest include access to abortion and family planning, quality of reproductive health care, social determinants of health, and policies that support reproductive justice more broadly. Ms. Gould received her MPH from the University of California, Berkeley. Phone: 510-986-8936.

Deb Karasek, MPH, Research Analyst. Deb Karasek is a Research Analyst working with the Turnaway Study and on several studies on women's attitudes toward contraceptive methods. Until she began work on her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2011, Ms. Karasek was the Data Manager for the HWPP Project. Prior to that, she managed several other ANSIRH mixed methods studies investigating the impact of regulation and policy on abortion providers and patients. Her graduate research focused on international family planning service delivery and the social determinants of health behavior. Prior to graduate school, she worked for the Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology at San Francisco General Hospital. Ms. Karasek received her BA at Stanford in Human Biology and her MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley. Phone: 510-986-8931.

Shayna Lewis, JD, Research Analyst. Shayna Lewis is a Research Analyst at ANSIRH and is particularly interested in the intersection between the law and sexual and reproductive health. Prior to joining ANSIRH, she worked with the UCSF Safe Motherhood Program in Kitwe, Zambia and was a Senior Fellow at the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science and Health Policy and the Elections & Campaign Coordinator for NARAL Pro-Choice California. She has a long history of loving, supporting and advocating for reproductive justice and women’s rights and is excited to continue this work at ANSIRH. Ms. Lewis received her BA from the University of Arizona in Sociology and Political Science and focused on health policy and employment law while in Washington, DC, earning her JD from Catholic University of America. Phone: 510-986-8951.

Aura Orozco-Fuentes, Office Manager. Aura Orozco-Fuentes began her employment with the University of California in 1992. She currently serves as the Office Manager for ANSIRH. Prior to joining ANSIRH, Ms. Orozco-Fuentes worked at the Center for the Health Professions with the School of Dentistry as a Program Coordinator for the Pew Programs in the Biomedical Sciences where she provided administrative and grant management support to over 120 grantees established at various academic institutions in the continental United States, in addition to organizing the group’s annual scientific conference. Ms. Orozco-Fuentes also worked for the Medical Center’s Department of General Internal Medicine at Mt. Zion and Parnassus as a Supervisor and Program Coordinator for the residency program. Ms. Orozco-Fuentes received a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Communication with an emphasis in Design from San Francisco State University. Phone: 510-986-8923.

Selena Phipps, Research Analyst, Turnaway Study. Selena Phipps is a Research Analyst for the Turnaway Study. Ms. Phipps has a history of work in public health, specifically HIV counseling and testing, adolescent pregnancy prevention, and working with communities of color. Prior to joining ANSIRH, she worked as a bilingual counselor at the Women's Option Center. Ms. Phipps grew up in North Carolina and earned a Bachelor's degree in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Phone: 510-986-8970.

Danielle Sinkford, Research Analyst, Turnaway Study. Danielle Sinkford is an Interviewer for the Turnaway Study. She recently returned from the Peace Corps in Nicaragua where she worked as Community Health Educator. She worked with adolescents, women's groups and men on all facets of sexual and reproductive health. She has experience in project development, grant writing and monitoring and evaluation of reproductive health programs in Latin America. Ms. Sinkford received her B.A. in International Development and Spanish/Latin American Area Studies from American University. Phone: 510-986-8971.

Elisette Weiss, BA, Project Assistant, Turnaway Study Elisette Weiss, BA, Project Coordinator, Turnaway Study. Elisette Weiss is the Project Coordinator for ANSIRH’s Turnaway Study. Prior to joining the ANSIRH research team, Ms. Weiss graduated from Brandeis University with a BA in Health: Science, Society, and Policy; Sociology; and Women’s and Gender Studies. At Brandeis, she led an award-winning sexual health counseling organization, Student Sexuality Information Service, as Group Coordinator. Ms. Weiss further explored her research interests in women’s reproductive health and safer sex initiatives while studying abroad in Nairobi, Kenya. There, she conducted an independent research project investigating community programs fighting HIV through sport and peer-led education. Ms. Weiss is thrilled to be working on the Turnaway Study, and intends to pursue a lifelong career in sexual and reproductive health research and education. Phone: 510-986-8952.

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