Staff
Meet the staff of CPEHN.
Ellen Wu, MPH, Executive Director
Ellen Wu has been the Executive Director of CPEHN since 2001. She received her Masters in Public Health from UCLA and serves on numerous boards and advisory committees including the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board and the Board of the California Budget Project. She also teaches health policy and public health at San Francisco State University.
Prior to joining CPEHN she consulted with the Community Health Center Network, was a program officer at the Tides Foundation for the Community Clinics Initiative, and served as the Director of Health Education and Cultural/Linguistic Services at the Alameda Alliance for Health.
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Ruben Cantu, Program Director
Ruben Cantu is a graduate of the University of Houston, earning a BA in English. He has over 15 years of non-profit experience in program management, technical assistance and capacity building, and HIV prevention and care. Before joining CPEHN, Ruben worked for the Human Rights Campaign and the National Minority AIDS Council, both in Washington, DC. Before joining CPEHN, he was Senior Program Specialist and Project Director at Mosaica: The Center for Nonprofit Development and Pluralism and Senior Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator at the National Minority AIDS Council, both in Washington, DC. He is a member of the California Safe Routes to School Advisory Committee and Regional Asthma Management and Prevention's Advisory Committee. Ruben has extensive experience in organizational development, including resource development, strategic planning, and Board development.
David Dexter, Communications Coordinator
David Dexter is a graduate of the University of Virginia, with a B.A. in History, concentrating on the Civil Rights Era in the South. Prior to joining CPEHN, David served as Communications Marketing Specialist for Safer Foundation, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to providing employment, educational, and supportive services to people with criminal records as they return to the community. David is also trained in journalism, having spent two years as a sports writer in Petersburg, VA.
Pam Flood, Director of Operations
Pam Flood is a graduate of Amherst College, earning a B.A. in Sociology and Black Studies. She has over 20 years of non-profit fundraising and operations experience. Over the years Pam has worked for such organizations as Haymarket People's Fund, the Black Coalition on AIDS, Women's Educational Media, Lyon-Martin Women's Health Services, and the Tides Foundation. Her experience includes fundraising, grantmaking, human resources, operations, event management, and film distribution.
Sarah Olivia Mercer, JD, Director of Government Affairs
Sarah Mercer is a recent graduate of Santa Clara University School of Law, where she was awarded the 2011 Student Award for Social Justice and was the 2010 recipient of the Herman Wildman Social Justice Writing Award. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley in Ethnic Studies and Public Policy in 1999.
Sarah previously worked with CPEHN in 2008 as Project Manager for the Having Our Say Coalition, where she organized the statewide coalition to advocate on behalf of communities of color for health care reform. Sarah has also served as the Health Program Manager for Latino Issues Forum and as Legislative Analyst for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Sarah has advocated on women's health and reproductive justice, language access, immigrants' rights, and expanding health care to communities of color through legislative, budgetary and regulatory processes.
Cary Sanders, MPP, Director of Policy Analysis and the Having Our Say Coalition
Cary Sanders earned a Master of Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to joining HOS/CPEHN, Cary worked as a policy analyst for the California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC) promoting pro-immigrant policies that address and respect the needs and contributions of California's diverse immigrant communities and their families. She has also worked as Assistant Policy Director for SEIU United Health Care Workers-West representing over 150,000 health care workers in California and as Policy Director for Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) in San Jose. Cary is proficient in Spanish after having lived and worked in Guatemala.