UCSF Health Equity Symposium

Dr. Bush is an international leader with clinical and research expertise in child and family health and well-being. Her work concentrates on children’s early-life psychological factors and social environment and the roles those play in health and disease throughout children’s lives. She examines women’s and children’s experiences with adversity, including stressful life circumstances such as poverty and exposure to violence, to see how they affect children’s developing biological stress-response systems and later mental and physical health. Dr. Bush strives to determine how to promote family and child resilience to stress and develop evidence that supports alleviating health inequity across generations. She earned her doctorate in child clinical psychology from the University of Washington and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in children’s physiologic stress reactivity and social epidemiology at UC Berkeley. Dr. Bush joined the UCSF faculty after completing a fellowship here as a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar.

Dr. Deutsch provides specialty consultation for and management of gender-affirming hormone therapy, as well as primary care services for trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive adults. She serves as the faculty lead for the implementation of sexual orientation and gender-identity data collection workflows at UCSF Health. As a member of the Data Equity Work Group, she aims to develop systemwide data governance practices for race, ethnicity, language, sexual-orientation, and gender-identity data. Dr. Deutsch’s work also focuses on employing telehealth technology to provide gender-affirming hormone therapy to patients located outside the Bay Area.

Dr. Fleming specializes in reproductive health, care across the gender spectrum, care for individuals experiencing homelessness, and addiction medicine. She focuses on advocacy around policies that improve reproductive health access, including expansion of medication abortion in primary care and on college campuses in California; fighting against misinformation campaigns by anti-choice groups and “crisis pregnancy centers”; and developing communications to promote inclusivity, especially among gender-expansive patient populations. She also is dedicated to caring for urban underserved populations and using the practice of medicine as a form of activism.

Dr. French has dedicated her career to improving family planning access for women in the Midwest. At the University of Kansas, she expanded family-planning services, including office management of miscarriage, dedicated complex contraception services, and the establishment of a Ryan Program, which is part of a national initiative to integrate and enhance family planning training for obstetrics and gynecology residents. Dr. French then became the generalist division director, allowing her to lead a team of reproductive justice-minded OB-GYNs. 

Ms. Gebre has developed several programs focused on Black Communities access to Midwifery Led Care. She is the co-director of the Black Midwifery Fellowship in CA, a comprehensive full scope midwifery fellowship with a focus on Abortion Training, didactic education, and community collaborations. Ms. Gebre founded Black Centering Midwifery Led Group care in SF to make Black Midwifery-led care accessible to Black people & their loved ones during pregnancy, postpartum, & beyond. She co-founder and co-leads the UCSF Midwifery Mentoring and Belonging (MMB) a mentoring program for midwifery students at UCSF & Cal State Fullerton in CA. Ms. Gebre founded BIPOC Aspiring Midwives, a Bay Area-initiative focused on supporting aspiring midwives through shadowing, mentorship, and community on their individual journeys to midwifery education and training.

A native of San Francisco, Ms. Harris-Taylor serves as a consultant on reproductive justice; maternal, paternal, and children’s health; health and wellness; childhood development; and parent resources in community development. She has dedicated her work to improving the disparities impacting melanated and marginalized communities. A mother of three children, Ms. Harris-Taylor has had women very close to her experience preterm births, which has made it a cause she holds close to the heart. As a board member of the UCSF California Preterm Birth Initiative, Ms. Harris-Taylor strives to increase awareness of preterm birth and knowledge of preconception health.

Dr. Hernández is a renowned public health advocate and champion who practiced at San Francisco General Hospital in the HIV/AIDS Clinic (1984-2016) and was an assistant clinical professor at the UCSF School of Medicine. Previously, she was appointed by former California Governor Jerry Brown to the Covered California Board of Directors. Later, California Governor Gavin Newsom selected her to serve on the state’s Health Care Affordability Board and the Healthy California for All Commission. At the San Francisco Foundation, she co-chaired San Francisco’s Universal Healthcare Council, which designed Healthy San Francisco – the first time a local government in the US attempted to provide health care for all of its constituents.

Dr. Jackson is an OB-GYN who specializes in providing Black-identifying patients with reproductive health care that meets the needs of the whole person. She focuses on complex contraception and abortion services for women with chronic illnesses. Dr. Jackson is co-director of both the UCSF Black Women’s Health and Livelihood Initiative and EMBRACE, UCSF's innovative perinatal care program for Black families.

Dr. Jeung’s research interests center around innovative programs that strengthen behavioral and developmental health care capacity in pediatric primary care. She specializes in ways that health care systems can better support early-childhood development to prevent future problems, especially in patients exposed to childhood trauma or other significant adversity. Dr. Jeung’s work also focuses on immigrant health, health equity, and trauma-informed care.

Dr. Long’s research and advocacy examines how to make communities healthier, and eliminate inequities that contribute to poor health outcomes for young children and families by focusing on prevention and reducing the negative social determinants to poor health outcomes. She is a pediatrician and co-founder of BLOOM: Black Baby Equity Clinic, which launched to address health disparities and improve the overall health outcomes for Black children and families. She also founded the Resilient Teens program, which focuses on aiding teens in overcoming adversity and trauma.

Dr. Mahoney is a nationally recognized leader in advancing health equity and social justice in academic medicine, and her career spans US and international health care institutions in senior-level positions. She has led the development of innovative and transformative approaches to proactive and personalized team-based primary care that empowers patients, health care providers, and communities. A passionate advocate for “techquity,” she testified before Congress while serving as chief of the medical staff at her previous institution and has championed policies that shape health care's digital landscape. Dr. Mahoney's influence extends to committees of national and international organizations, numerous conferences, and media engagements.

Dr. Martinez’s clinical work and research specialize in reducing behavioral health disparities among ethnic minority youths, with a specific focus on Latinx and immigrant populations. He also focuses on implementing and disseminating evidence-based prevention and intervention programming for traumatic stress, as well as policy and advocacy centered around improving conditions for juveniles in immigration court proceedings. Dr. Martinez also serves as principal investigator of the Fuerte program, a school-based group prevention program targeting newcomer immigrant youths at risk of behavioral health issues.

Dr. Mengesha’s work in medical education focuses on abortion and contraceptive training,  incorporating equity and inclusion into the learning environment, curricular development, and  trainee and program evaluation. She is a lead developer of an online, justice-informed  curriculum titled “Structures and Self: Advancing Equity and Justice in Sexual and Reproductive  Health Care with Innovating Education,” and she is developing a curriculum on racial literacy in family planning for family planning fellows and faculty. Dr. Mengesha directs Innovating Education in Reproductive Health, a free online hub that generates, curates, and disseminates curricula about sexual and reproductive health.

Trained as an anesthesiologist, Dr. Navarro now collaborates with faculty, staff, and students to develop and carry out strategic plans for diversity and inclusion – including recruitment and retention. She works to address issues of diversity that cut across faculty, student, staff, and operational lines. Dr. Navarro also worked with students to establish the UCSF Multicultural Resource Center, providing space and resources that support interprofessional collaboration among underrepresented faculty, staff, trainees, and students.

Dr. Steinauer specializes in family planning training, professional identity formation in medical learners, and the experiences of students and residents learning to provide patient-centered care. She trains learners worldwide and provides care at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and in the Midwest. As director of the Ryan Residency Training Program, Dr. Steinauer has led efforts to integrate abortion training for more than 110 OB-GYN residency programs.

Ms. Trotter is a healer and psychotherapist who brings over 20 years of experience providing trauma-informed and culturally responsive services to adolescents and families. She has experience practicing in school health centers, residential treatment facilities, in-patient, and psychiatric units, and her practice is rooted in youth development principles. Ms. Trotter has provided training and consultation for many child-serving organizations, including Alameda County, MISSEY, New York Department of Health, and Mental Hygiene and Huckleberry Youth Programs. She is committed to evidence-based practices that foster individual and collective health, wellbeing, and liberation.

Dr. Turban’s research focuses on the mental health of transgender and gender-diverse youths, with a focus on research relevant to public policy. His work includes the first study linking gender-identity conversion efforts to adverse mental health outcomes and the first study linking access to puberty suppression during adolescence to lower odds of suicide among transgender adults. Dr. Turban’s research also has been cited in major court cases regarding the civil rights of transgender people in the US, in state legislative debates around the country, and in the United Nations’ independent expert report on conversion therapy.

Over the past 20 years, Ms. Williams has served thousands of San Franciscans as an informed, passionate, and dedicated public advocate, nonprofit leader, and community organizer. From mentoring youth trapped in cycles of incarceration to saving City College from a near loss of accreditation and closure over the past eight years, she has worked tirelessly to improve the quality of life for all San Franciscans. Ms. Williams also has worked for numerous nonprofit agencies and labor organizations dedicated to serving marginalized, low-resourced communities.

Hope is a mother, a social justice advocate, and, since 2020, a community partnership consultant. Over the past 30 years, she has educated, advocated, and created spaces for family and community voices in California. She took life lessons and inspiration from the birth of her four children, two of whom were preterm due to birthing while being black. Hope has overcome homelessness and navigated the barriers of being a young black professional in the Bay Area. She launched the Residents Supporting Community Project on Treasure Island, to address living and health disparities in isolated and underserved communities. Driven to impact change, Hope currently serves on district and city forums that address housing, education, resources, policies, and programs in San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties.