Staff, Board Members, and Interns

Staff

Ana Rodriguez, Executive Director

Ms. Rodriguez has twenty years of experience advocating for sexual and reproductive justice in the U.S. and Latin America. Prior to joining ACCESS, Ana served as the Program Director at the Latino Community Foundation (LCF) in San Francisco. She directed all aspects of the Latino Community Foundation’s programs, including their initiative focused on improving the health of families in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

At Planned Parenthood of Connecticut (PPCT), she served as the Diversity Manager, leading a 15-member inter-departmental Diversity Guide Team in developing strategic plan for the agency’s diversity initiatives. Prior to working at PPCT, Ms. Rodriguez worked at Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles (PPLA). At PPLA, she was Director of the Promotoras Comunitarias Training Program, a multi-dimensional program that trains community health workers to provide reproductive health care and sexuality information to the Latino community in Los Angeles County.

At the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health, Ms. Rodriguez coordinated local and national conferences, formal community dialogues to advance sexual reproductive health rights, and regional youth meetings of the Youth Initiative of the Latin American Consortium for Emergency Contraception (LACEC) in Central and South America. She also participated in the revitalization and restructuring of the Reproductive Justice Coalition of Los Angeles.

Ana has a Masters of Arts from California State University with a focus in Health Science and Latin American Studies and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Louisiana Tech University.

Gabriela Castillo, Program Manager

Gabriela Castillo, originally from Southern California, is a first generation college graduate from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies Field with a minor in Portuguese language. Since then she has spent time working as an intern at ACCESS Women's Health Justice, an afterschool tutor for Bay Area Community Resources, as a youth advocate for the unincorporated areas of Alameda County as well as worked at Hayward Adult School in the Transition-to-Work Department assisting and guiding youth and young adults in attaining self-sufficiency. Gaby's passion in working towards social justice stems from her personal history and background culture. She is dedicated to seeing the world a more just place for ourselves and for our future generations.

Sierra Harris, Policy Associate

Sierra Harris joined ACCESS in May 2010 as a Policy Advocacy and Healthline intern. Sierra has been motivated to do social justice work since she was a teenager, when she began to realize first hand the economic and social barriers her single mother faced. After studying English and Women’s Studies at the University of Connecticut, Sierra was equipped with a justice framework, and became dedicated to eliminating oppression and empowering women in all communities. Sierra has worked at several health and justice organizations including Breast Cancer Action, and the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights in Boston. She recently completed her MA in Women’s Health at Suffolk University.

Board

Reichi Lee, Co-Board Chair

Reichi Lee joined the Board of ACCESS in 2005 and served as Secretary for several years before assuming the position of Board Chair in 2009. Reichi is a Staff Attorney at East Bay Children’s Law Offices, a nonprofit law firm where she represents children in the foster care system in Alameda County. Reichi has taught various legal skills courses at Golden Gate University School of Law, Hastings College of Law, and San Francisco State University, Paralegal Studies Program. She served on the Board of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area from 2006 – 2009. In her free time, she enjoys teaching spinning and kickboxing and exploring new hikes in the East Bay with her husband, Dan, and her Border Collie mutt, Cody.

Sheila Bapat, Co-Board Chair

Sheila Bapat is an attorney and nonprofit advocate with extensive background in reproductive justice and women's rights work. As a law student at the University of Pennsylvania, she served as president of the board of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. Bapat also writes about reproductive law and policy as well as gender parity in politics, having been published in Slate magazine's blog, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law, and PolicyMatters, a journal of the Goldman School of Public Policy. Most recently, Bapat's article about the Affordable Care Act's impact on contraceptive access will be included in the Center for Women Policy Studies's series, Reproductive Laws of the 21st Century. After briefly practicing law, Bapat now works to launch and build civic engagement efforts in the nonprofit sector.

Aimée Bruederle

Aimée Bruederle, ACCESS’s Secretary, is a long-time supporter of the Reproductive Justice movement especially interested in ensuring that all women have access to reproductive care and information related to choice. She is currently Grants Manager at Tides Foundation and supports donors that fund progressive social justice non-profits worldwide. She is Co-Chair of the Northern California region’s Grants Manager’s Network and provides local Grants Managers with resources and information. Prior to joining ACCESS, Aimée was Secretary for World Action for Humanity, a small non-profit dedicated to raising awareness and resources for grassroots projects focused on vulnerable children in developing countries.

Zoe Harte

Zoe recently served as the chief of staff for Global Customer Care at Yahoo! Inc. She has her MA in Feminist Philosophy and has worked as a clinic escort in Indianapolis; a hotline counselor for battered and substance-abusing women; and, a sexual assault survivor's advocate.

Kim Irish

Kim Irish works as the Program Manager of Breast Cancer Action, where she oversees the organization’s programs and program-based campaigns, and fosters and builds BCA’s grassroots activities and national presence. Kim earned a J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law and Bachelor of Arts degrees in comparative literature and Spanish from the University of California, Davis. She was a 2008-2009 fellow with the Women’s Policy Institute of California, and is a 2010-2011 fellow with the Reach the Decision Makers Training Program, which is a project of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment. Kim also serves on the board of directors of Human Rights Advocates and the Good Ol' Girls.

Jerrie Meadows

Now "retired", Jerrie worked for trade unions most of her life, as well as the Johnson poverty program and various civil rights and anti-war organizations. She has also worked in local and national political campaigns, both as a staff and as a volunteer. Jerrie also served on the board of CARAL for more than 20 years and the board of the National Women's Political Caucus-Alameda North for 25 years. She participated in clinic escorting for many years and now helps to coordinate a group of clinic escorts in the East Bay.

Jennifer Mraz

Jennifer Mraz, J.D., currently works as a Policy Manager in Government Affairs at Genentech, where her portfolio includes federal health care policy, coverage and reimbursement issues. She previously served as Legislative Counsel for the National Abortion Federation, an organization whose mission is to ensure safe, legal and accessible abortion care to promote health and justice for women.

Megan Swanson

Megan Swanson is a resident in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF. As a medial student, she was involved with Medical Students for Choice and the American Medical Student Association where she worked to frame reproductive health as a rights issue. She has studied disparities in access to abortion as a graduate student researcher at the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley and with the research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). As a young physician, she is thrilled to be at UCSF where she has excellent family planning training and mentorship. Her dream is to use her career as an abortion provider and public health researcher to advance justice in women’s health.

Interns

Ebony Hall

Ebony, a Bay Area native, is a psychology major at California State University East Bay where she also works as a administrative assistant for EXCEL- a federally funded program that offers first generation, low income and disabled students with academic support throughout their undergraduate education. Ebony and her daughter are foodie's in training. They enjoy watching "Chopped" and eating all things delicious. While interning at ACCESS Women's Health Justice she hopes to learn more about policies that affect women's reproductive choice and use that knowledge to advocate for reproductive justice

Ireri Lora

Ireri is a Bay Area native who recently graduated from UC San Diego and relocated back to Oakland one year ago. Ireri is currently a free-lance translator and volunteers her time at Bay Area Legal Aid, assisting women in domestic violence situations obtain their citizen status under the U-Visa. She is a native Spanish speaker and is super excited to be part of the team here at ACCESS as the voice of her community when it comes to knowledge and services regarding reproductive health and justice.

Karen Meryash

Karen, a Berkeley native, is a Biology graduate from UC Berkeley and has worked many years in the healthcare industry in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and women's healthcare. The past few years she has worked to establishing student academic support programs in various Berkeley public schools. As an Access intern, she hopes to help preserve and expand reproductive rights for all women and learn more about the legal and medical challenges in this area.

Annie Rigelhaupt

Annie, an Oakland native, is an intern looking to empower women and immigrants in their struggle for reproductive justice. She graduated from University of California San Diego with a Bachelor’s degree in Ethnic Studies. She has worked and volunteered with various local organizations promoting social justice, and reproductive health rights and education. In addition, she worked volunteering in Brazil to service and support people living with HIV and AIDS. Outside of ACCESS, she works as a bartender and is studying at U.C. Berkeley Extension towards a credential to teach English to speakers of other languages.