Board of Directors, Staff & Consultants

Amy Pease, RN

Alliance Board Chair
Amy Pease is the Owner of A.G. Pease, RN Consulting PLLC. She spent over 15 years working in an Article 28 Diagnostic and Treatment Center, mostly within the Primary Care Clinic. She spent almost 7 of these years on the business side of the operations working with dental, pharmacy, behavioral health and medical lines of business. She was instrumental in getting one of the organization’s school-based health centers opened and assisted with sustainability of the other SBHC site.

Amy received her Associates of Applied Science in Nursing in 1998 from Jamestown Community College and went on to pursue her Masters of Arts in Social Policy with a concentration in Healthcare Administration from Empire State College in 2008.

Karla Powers, MBA

Alliance Board Chair-Elect
Karla joined Albany Medical Center in October 2016. Prior to AMC, she worked at Whitney Young Health, an Article 28 Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Albany, NY. For nearly 10 years she oversaw the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program; she ran the center’s three School Based Health Centers and provided administrative support to two dental programs. Karla also purchased and operationalized a mobile health unit that was utilized in the area’s schools and community based organizations.

Karla received her Bachelor’s in Nutrition Science from Russell Sage College and her Master’s in Business Administration from the College of Saint Rose.

Stephen Marshall, DDS

Alliance Board Secretary
Dr. Stephen Marshall is currently working with Smile New York LLC advising them on matters associated with operating school based dental programs including clinical policies and procedures, quality assurance/ quality improvement, and program operations and logistics. Before this, he worked for the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine from 1988-2015 in a variety of leadership positions including: Senior Associate Dean, Vice President Columbia University HealthCare Inc., Chief Operating Officer Thelma Adair Medical/Dental Center, Chairman Ethics Committee, Chairman Quality Assurance Committee, Chairman Continuing Education Committee, Chairman Managed Care Committee. He was responsible for leading Community DentCare which included a network of school-based dental practices and a mobile dental van. His academic accomplishments as an Associate Professor of Dentistry include over 40 peer reviewed publications, Fellowship and grant support from multiple governmental and philanthropic entities, and teaching multiple courses. Dr. Marshall earned a B.A. from Case Western Reserve University, a D.D.S. from SUNY/Buffalo School of Dental and Oral Medicine, and an M.P.H. from Columbia University School of Public Health. He is licensed to practice dentistry in New York State. He is married and has two grown children.

Viju Jacob, MD, FAAP

Alliance Board Past Chair 
Dr. Viju Jacob currently serves as the Assistant Vice President for Medical Regulatory, Policy and External Affairs and is responsible for 9 School Based Health Practices, 2 Family Practice sites and shares responsibilities in managing 6 School Based Dental Practices for Urban Health Plan, Inc. Dr. Jacob joined UHP in 2003 as a pediatrician and the supervising physician for the school health practices. Interestingly, as a new immigrant to the Bronx, Dr. Jacob was a user of a School Based Health Center; he received some of his earliest dental care and most of his booster doses of immunizations at clinics in the Bronx. He completed his Bachelor’s from the Sophie Davis School for Biomedical Education at The City University of New York. He received his MD from State University of New York-Health Science Center Brooklyn. He completed his Pediatric Residency and Chief Residency from the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at The Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York. Dr. Jacob has extensive experience in analyzing data and developing practice flows in electronic health records (EHR) to document high quality care and to help capture data to continue to improve the care provided to patients. He serves on various citywide and state-wide committees related to health, technology and community-based research. 

Janet Garth, MPH

Janet Garth is the Manager of the Center for Community Health and Education (CCHE), a department of the New York Presbyterian Hospital Ambulatory Care Network, which delivers a continuum of care in collaboration with the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Ms. Garth oversees a team of 100 employees serving approximately 25,000 individuals annually in nine locations in northern Manhattan including seven school-based health centers serving 23 NYC public schools, a Title X family planning practice and model young men’s clinic. Ms. Garth’s considerable experience includes positions with the ACLU’s Children’s Rights Project, Community HealthCare Network and fifteen years in NYPH division of community health and education. Ms. Garth holds a Master of Public Health from Hunter College and has extensive experience in clinical practice management, performance improvement, ambulatory billing, program and strategic planning, regulatory compliance, and fiscal management. Ms. Garth is a Board Member of the Family Planning Advocates of New York and a member of the New York City Family Planning Providers Workgroup, New York City Adolescent Health Committee.

Linda Carmine, MD 

Dr. Linda Carmine joined the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Cohen Children’s Medical Center as an Attending Physician and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Hofstra Northwell Health School of Medicine in 2008. She is the Director of 4 multi-disciplinary full-time School-based Health Centers and a co-located Pregnancy Prevention Program, as well as a provider in both the Division of Adolescent Medicine and the Adolescent HIV Clinic. Dr. Carmine is currently the Chapter 2 Chair of the Committee on Youth and Adolescence for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Prior to 2008, Dr. Carmine was the Director of the Adolescent HIV Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Adolescent Health Center, responsible for the interdisciplinary program of care for HIV infected adolescents and, as Principal Investigator, for that site’s participation in the National Institutes of Health sponsored Adolescent Medicine HIV/AIDS Research Network.

Luis E. Torres, MA, SDA, SAS

Luis E. Torres currently serves as Principal of public school (PS) 55 in the Bronx. After serving in the U.S. Navy including during “Operation Desert Storm/Shield,” Torres completed an A.S. (Biology) degree from Hostos Community College, a B.S. (Psychology) from City College, MA in teaching from Mercy College, and an MA in administration from Hunter College. Mr. Torres entered and completed the New York City Leadership Academy, upon which he was given the responsibility of leading PS 55. He is now in his 16th year, turning PS 55, once the lowest performing school in New York City located in District 9 in the center of the Morrisania housing projects in the Bronx, into a model school. Torres has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the school, added a new indoor Aeroponic Garden funded through a grant from the Bronx Green Machine, a “Caferary” (cafeteria combined with a library), and Hip Hop studio. The Puerto Rican has a unique connection with this community because he is a product of the NYC public school system as well as the Bronx. He has three children and is married to Joan Torres. 

Kerri LeBlanc, MD, FAAP

Kerri LeBlanc, M.D., F.A.A.P joined the Bassett Healthcare Network as the Co-Director of the School-Based Health Program in 2014. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD; attended medical school and the Northwestern Feinberg University School of Medicine in Chicago, IL; and completed her pediatrics training at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI. Prior to joining Bassett, she was Clinical Associate with the University of Chicago, providing patient care and resident education as a Pediatric Hospitalist in 3 different Chicago-land hospitals as well as the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital Emergency Room. As Co-Director of the Bassett School-Based Health Program, she has endeavored to standardize care while striving to foster an environment of evidence-based practice across the 20 Bassett SBHC sites. She has also been deeply involved in the program’s application to the NCQA for Patient Centered Medical Home accreditation, and received training as an NCQA Certified Content Expert as part of that goal.

Kelly Kirby, LCSWR

Kelly Kirby is a Mental Health Program Manager at NY Presbyterian Hospital. She is responsible for managing the daily operations and clinical oversight of a team of licensed clinical psychologists and social workers located in seven primary care School-Based Health Centers and a Family Planning Clinic. Kirby provides individual and group clinical supervision, clinical documentation review, billing and utilization review for the mental health program. Prior to NYP, Kelly was the Family Planning Program Director at the Children’s Aid Society, where she supervised the implementation and on-going management of a federal Title X Reproductive Health Grant focusing on adolescent health services at two medical clinics located in Harlem and The Bronx. She also served as a Senior Social Worker there in an Article 31 mental health clinic operated in a school based clinic in a CAS Community School – I.S. 218. Kirby received her Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Communications from Ripon College and her MSW from New York University. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers.

Keyla Espinal Antigua, MS

Keyla Espinal Antigua serves as the Vice President of Government Affairs at Bolton St. John’s. Keyla was formerly the Assistant Director of Public Policy at Children’s Aid, one of New York City’s largest and oldest nonprofit. As a member of the office of public policy at Children’s Aid, Keyla’s primary focus was to develop, lead and implement Children’s Aid’s legislative and policy agenda. Through her tenure at Children’s Aid, Keyla has over a decade of experience in the grassroots advocacy, government relations and public policy fields.

Additionally, Keyla was an active steering committee member of the Campaign for Children, a city-wide coalition that successfully advocates for equitable funding for early childhood education and after-school programs. She also brings direct service experience through her co-founding and development of the Community Building Summer Internship.

Kim Utech, MSN, FNP-C, AE-C

Kim Utech, family nurse practitioner, with 18 years of SBHC experience working in WNY’s Kaleida Health SBHCs. She is a union nurse practitioner chair for 1199SEIU, and has a passion for advancing SBHC in WNY through political advocacy.

Ben Anderson, J.D.

Ben Anderson is the Director of Health Policy at Children’s Defense Fund – New York (CDF-NY). There, he develops and manages CDF-NY’s poverty and health policy portfolio, analyzing poverty and health data. Anderson also chairs the Public Programs Group, a joint workgroup comprised of consumer health advocates and senior management from the NYS Office of Health Insurance Programs and focused on publicly-funded health coverage programs, and serves on NYS school-based health center Medicaid managed care carve-in workgroups. Prior to CDF-NY, Ben did policy work for Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and First Five Nebraska. He has served as an attorney for several organizations, including the Georgia Department of Community Health.

April Lee, MD

April C. Lee, M.D. is Director, Division of Adolescent Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Staten Island University Hospital. She is a dedicated clinician, educator, and researcher in the field of Adolescent Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), involved in the Section of Adolescent Health, Council on School Health and New York Committee of Adolescence. She is also a Fellow of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM). She is the medical director for both the School Health Center at New Dorp High School and the School Health & Wellness Center at Port Richmond High School. Under her leadership, there has been expansive growth within the Division of Adolescent Medicine which coordinates several grant funded programs including the Family Grant Program and Comprehensive Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program. These programs provide opportunities to increase existing clinical services to underserved populations.

Staff:

Sarah Murphy 

Sarah currently serves as the Executive Director for the New York School-Based Health Alliance and as the Manager for the New York School-Based Health Foundation, a newly developed research and education nonprofit. Previously, she was vice president of the Empire State Society of Association Executives, a statewide trade membership organization, as well as an organizational consultant for several associations and societies. She is principal of a management and consulting company, SeventhSister, LLC.

NYSBHA’s Consultants

Shauneen McNally, Partner
Reid, McNally & Savage LLC
www.lobbywr.com

Steven Ellwanger, CPA
Steven Ellwanger, CPA, PLLC
ellwanger.us

Josh Crystal
Crystal J Design
crystaljdesign.com

Lisa Perry, Principal
Morningside Health Strategies
morningsidehealthstrategies.com