From Forecast to Frontline:

Dr. Susan Hook, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC

Dr. Susan Hook is a passionate health care professional dedicated to serving underserved communities and promoting holistic well-being. With a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Loyola University and board certification as a family nurse practitioner, Dr. Hook brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her role as the founder and executive director of Samaritan Health and Wellness Center, Inc. located in Cape Coral, Florida.

Driven by her faith and commitment to compassionate care, Dr. Hook established Samaritan Health and Wellness Center with the vision of providing comprehensive medical services and mental health support to uninsured and underinsured individuals in need. Under her leadership, the clinic has become a beacon of hope and healing in Southwest Florida, offering accessible and affordable health care to men, women and children from all walks of life.

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Hook is a tireless advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in health care. She believes in the power of health care to bridge gaps and break down barriers, and she is deeply committed to creating a clinic environment that is welcoming, respectful and culturally sensitive to all individuals.

Suzanne Roberts, M.Ed.

Over the past 15 years, Suzanne Roberts, M.Ed., has served as the chief executive officer for the Virginia B. Andes Volunteer Community Clinic, a nonprofit community organization that provides no cost medical, pharmacy and wellness services to the underserved in Charlotte County, Florida.

Prior to being named CEO of the Virginia B. Andes Volunteer Community Clinic, Roberts held a number of senior leadership roles with VisionQuest, including national director of evidence-based services and state director of behavioral health services, which included the programmatic administration of the Department of Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Programs.

Roberts’ professional experience also includes serving as the chief administrator for a 42-bed child welfare group home program, regional program director for North Florida Mental Health Center, executive director for Bridges of America in St. Petersburg, Fla., and as assistant director of residential programs for Eckerd Youth Alternatives.

Roberts received a Master of Education degree from the University of North Florida and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Palm Beach Atlantic College.

Dr. Jeremy Hess, MD, MPH

Dr. Jeremy Hess is a residency-trained, board-certified emergency medicine physician trained in global environmental health. He practices medicine, conducts research and teaches at the University of Washington, where he also co-directs the university’s Center for Health and the Global Environment.

Dr. Hess served as an advisor to the Climate and Health Program in the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2006 to 2015. He has been awarded a range of federal and foundation grants and is currently the principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health grant supporting the development of the first heat early warning system in India as well as a NASA grant supporting a deep investigation of associations between climate, weather, pollen and allergic disease. He served as a lead author on the last U.S. National Climate Assessment and on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation.

Dr. Hess earned his medical degree and Master of Public Health from Emory University.

Lily Kelly

Lily Kelly (they/them) has over 15 years of experience as a nonprofit program manager and administrator. They currently provide analytical and administrative support to La Clínica de La Raza, based in Oakland, Calif., which provides affordable, high quality, culturally appropriate health care for all. Since 2021, Kelly has served as founding co-chair of La Clínica’s Climate Change Working Group and as of 2024 is also co-chair of the California Primary Care Association’s Climate Change and Health Working Group.

Kelly earned bachelor’s degrees in environmental studies and economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 2010 they earned a Master of Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Dr. Eric Sergienko, MD

Dr. Eric Sergienko currently serves as a health officer and lead for the Director’s Action Working Group at the Mariposa County Health and Human Services Agency.

As a health officer, Dr. Sergienko provides expertise in all areas of public health for Mariposa County. As the Director’s Action Working Group lead, he coordinates across the Health and Human Services Agency’s programs and ensures data-driven decision making.

Dr. Sergienko also serves as the air pollution control officer for Mariposa County providing oversight of prescribed fire smoke management and monitoring of wildland fire smoke. He was the Disaster Recovery Coordinator after the 2022 Oak Fire, administering a $13 million debris removal program. Because of the 4.5 million visitors coming to Yosemite National Park within Mariposa County, he also ensures close working relations with state and federal health officials.

Dr. Sergienko retired from the U.S. Navy in 2016. He last served as the Department of Defense liaison to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this position, he coordinated DoD and CDC activities including responses to Ebola, MERS and Zika. He was also involved in the development of incident management training for CDC staff and DoD public health emergency management training.

Dr. Sergienko earned a bachelor’s degree with honors from Oregon State University and his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He has a Master of Public Health from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He completed a residency in emergency medicine at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth and the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service fellowship. He is board certified in emergency medicine.

Sheryl Magzamen, PhD

Sheryl Magzamen, PhD, currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University. She is an epidemiologist, with a focus on the relative contribution of social factors and environmental exposure on chronic disease, with specific attention to respiratory health.

Living and working in the Mountain West, Magzamen’s research program investigates the health effects of wildfire smoke exposure and has expanded to include quantification of smoke from landscape fires and health effects from agricultural fires. Through her collaborations, she has expanded her research on health effects of air quality to include cognitive impairments in older adults as well as adverse outcomes in pregnancy and early childhood.

Magzamen received her PhD in epidemiology from Berkeley and holds an undergraduate degree in biology from Cornell University.

Skye Wheeler

As an emergencies researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division, Skye Wheeler monitors and documents women’s rights abuses during human rights crises, including situations of armed conflict and attacks on civilians, mass displacement and crisis following disasters. Her areas of research also include ending obstructions to sexual and reproductive health care in conflicts and humanitarian settings.

Previously, Wheeler worked as a researcher for the Africa Division monitoring, investigating and documenting human rights in Sudan and South Sudan. Before joining Human Rights Watch in February 2013, Wheeler worked for OXFAM and as a journalist for a range of outlets including Thomson Reuters.

Wheeler is currently researching the impact of extreme weather events like hurricanes, flooding and forest fires—worsened by global warming—on women and girls, especially from poor and marginalized communities.

Dr. Gayle Kouklis, MD

Dr. Gayle Kouklis is an emergency medicine physician practicing in Southern Oregon and the California Central Valley. She is also a University of Colorado Climate Change and Health Science Policy Fellow.

Dr. Kouklis’ main climate interests include extreme heat in a multitude of environments, ranging from the agricultural California Central Valley and its urban centers to the Arctic and Subarctic regions of Alaska. She also has an interest in urban tree canopy and other nature-based solutions. She values community perspective and designs much of her work as community-based participatory research in an attempt to bring together health equity and environmental justice. She grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and has both lived personally with the threat of wildfire and cared for many patients who were victims of wildfires.

Dr. Kouklis earned a bachelor’s degree in health sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz and holds a medical degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Dr. Eric Henley, MD

Dr. Eric Henley is a family and public health physician and former chief medical officer of LifeLong Medical Care, a large urban FQHC in the East Bay. He helped start a teaching health center family medicine residency at LifeLong in 2019 and continues working part-time as the institutional official overseeing the residency.

During his tenure as chief medical officer at LifeLong Medical Care, he also helped develop a nurse practitioner residency program, which is now in its 8th year. Prior to his work at LifeLong, Dr. Henley served as chief medical officer of North Country HealthCare, a large rural network FQHC based in Flagstaff, Ariz. His previous experience also includes serving as a commissioned officer in the Indian Health Service on the Hopi and Navajo Reservations and in Albuquerque for nearly a decade. He also served as an academic family physician and as chair of the Family and Community Medicine Department at the University of Illinois’ regional campus in Rockford for over a decade.

Dr. Henley served on the board of the Western Clinicians Network for over 10 years, where he also served as president for two years. In 2022, he earned a certificate in climate change and health from Yale’s School of Public Health.

Dr. Andrew Schroeder, MD

Dr. Andrew Schroeder is the vice president of research and analysis for Direct Relief. He leads Direct Relief’s work in data science, GIS and humanitarian innovation. His work has been published or featured in outlets including Science, The Lancet, PLoS Digital Health, American Journal of Public Health, New York Times, Washington Post, Fast Company, Wired, The New Humanitarian, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine and the International Journal of Cancer. He has previously worked in a consulting and advisory capacity for the United Nations Development Program and the World Food Programme and as a member of the health data experts committee for Meta.

Dr. Schroeder is the co-founder, along with colleagues at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Data Science Initiative, of CrisisReady, a research and response platform which builds analytic capacity along with new digital tools for translating private data into public good for disasters and health emergencies. He is also the co-founder and former board president of the global nonprofit WeRobotics, which builds local capacity in robotics applications for humanitarian aid, development and global health in nearly 40 countries around the world.

Andrew earned his PhD in social and cultural analysis from New York University and his Master of Public Policy and certification in science, technology and public policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Hilary Ong, MD

Dr. Hilary Ong is a physician and assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at Benioff Children’s Hospital at University of California San Francisco.

Her research and academic interests are in waste reduction and decarbonization in the emergency department, and adaptation and climate disaster preparedness for pediatrics. She co-leads the Climate Task Force for the Pediatric Pandemic Network, as well as the Climate Hub, a quarterly climate and health webinar for the UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity.

Dr. Ong earned her medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco. She completed a residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, followed by a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Children’s National Hospital. Dr. Ong is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Zainab Jah, MPH

Zainab Jah, MPH is a senior research analyst on the research and strategy team at RH Impact.
At RH Impact she has worked on coalitions and projects focusing on foreign policy, family planning and sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice for Black women and birthing people transnationally. She is currently supporting the research team on projects related to respectful maternity care, the development of birth equity research measures and other projects that explore Black maternal health. She also supports projects that center birth equity in climate change solutions for Black birthing people. She has previously managed several research projects varying in topics from medication abortion, HIV and mental health and PrEP uptake among Black women. She also served as a Project Consultant for SisterLove Inc.’s Georgia Access to Medication Abortion Project. In addition to work, she loves traveling, going to concerts, and being outdoors!

She received her Master of Public Health with a background in behavioral science and health education from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She also completed a certificate in mental health at Emory.

Jane Gilbert

As Miami-Dade County’s first chief heat officer, Jane Gilbert works across departments and cross-sector partners to address the increasing health and economic risks associated with extreme heat.

Prior to joining the County, Gilbert served as the City of Miami’s first chief resilience officer for four years. In this role, she led the climate and urban resilience strategy development and implementation for the City of Miami, and in partnership with Miami-Dade County and City of Miami Beach, for the greater Miami region.

Prior to her public sector work, Gilbert managed The Miami Foundation’s civic leadership agenda on sea level rise, Wells Fargo’s philanthropy and community affairs in South Florida and served as the executive director for three nonprofits in Greater Miami.

Gilbert holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Barnard College and a master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Nieves McClellan

Nieves McClellan currently serves as the director of operations at San Jose Clinic, one of the leading providers of quality health care services for the underserved in the Greater Houston area. She brings over a decade of management experience in health care to this role, which she has held since December 2021. She oversees daily clinic operations, staff supervision and ensures efficient health care delivery for patients. McClellan has also served as a liaison with facility and building management and worked closely with the senior management team to create and implement plans for operational processes, internal infrastructures, reporting systems and clinic policies. She has also been involved in data analysis and reporting, presenting results of performance improvement efforts to management committees, donors, the Board of Directors and other partners.

Prior to being names San Jose Clinic’s director of operations, McClellan served as operations manager and as patient access manager for the clinic.

Dr. Adlia Ebeid

Dr. Adlia Ebeid has served as the Chief Clinical Officer at San José Clinic for the last 3 years and prior to that was the Director of Pharmacy Services for 5 years. As a volunteer and pharmacy professor, she spearheaded the pharmacist lead chronic disease management program and that was when she developed the passion to serve the undeserved. During her time at San José Clinic, she has overseen the creation and implementation of successful programs that prioritize equitable access to healthcare for uninsured patients.

With over 20 years of experience in healthcare, a registered pharmacist, residency trained in drug information and board certified in advanced diabetes management, Dr. Ebeid is passionate about developing strategic partnerships and programs that provide a direct impact on patient impact by focusing on preventative care, medication adherence, disease management, and empowering others to improve quality care and patient safety. San José Clinic, the original safety-net clinic in Houston, has steadfastly grown over the last 100 years into a leading provider of quality healthcare services for individuals and families in the Greater Houston and Fort Bend county areas who struggle the most with accessing care. With a mission to provide healing through quality healthcare and education with respect and compassion for those with limited access to care, Dr. Ebeid is proud to be part of the team that changes people’s lives on a daily basis.

Elena Ateva

Americares Director of Climate and Disaster Resilience Elena Ateva oversees a team that develops innovative global programming that prevents or addresses the health impacts of climate change.

She works closely with health providers and clinic staff serving low-income and uninsured patients, ensuring they have the resources to protect the most vulnerable patients from hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, extreme heat and other weather events intensified by climate change. Americares supports over 4,000 health centers worldwide with transformative health projects, medicine, and medical supplies, improving the health of millions of people affected by poverty or disaster every year. 

Ateva leads Americares growing portfolio of climate resilience and preparedness programs, including the Climate Resilience for Frontline Clinics Toolkit and the Climate Health Equity for Community Clinics Program—both collaborations with the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE).  

Prior to joining Americares, Ateva served as deputy director of heat, health and gender at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, which focuses on individual and community climate resilience. During her tenure, she successfully developed an organization-wide strategy integrating gender and health into the center’s climate adaptation work and oversaw its implementation globally.

Ateva also previously worked for the White Ribbon Alliance for seven years, where she held a number of leadership roles including senior advocacy and communications manager, and maternal health advisor for the USAID Health Policy Plus project, among others. During this time, Ateva developed a new portfolio for the organization focused on the impact of climate change on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. She also worked to position the impact of climate change on women’s health in influential global forums and fostered collaborative partnerships with diverse stakeholders in the nonprofit and humanitarian aid sector. Ateva also worked as an advocate for respectful maternity care and researched gender-based violence as a consultant for the American Refugee Committee.

Ateva earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and German from Luther College in Iowa and her juris doctor degree from Hamline University’s School of Law. She speaks English, German, Russian and French, in addition to her native Bulgarian.