May Lynn Tan, MHS, Executive Director
As Executive Director, May Lynn works with GPA staff, board members, and donors to implement GPA's long-term strategies for outreach and expansion, while supporting the day-to-day administration of programs in Latin America. May Lynn has over 9 years of professional experience in international public health and community nutrition. Before joining GPA she was a project coordinator for the California Department of Public Health, conducting training, research, and evaluation for an environmental health program. Previously, she managed food assistance programs in San Francisco serving low-income families and seniors. She has also worked as a nutritionist for Second Harvest Food Bank of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties and a nutrition consultant to the City of Daly City. May Lynn has a master’s degree in health science from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2007 she served as a volunteer health educator in Huancayo, Perú, providing training to orphanage caregivers on child nutrition and sanitation.
Alejandra Álvarez, Chiapas Program Director
Alejandra is a Mexican native and has worked in community development in Chiapas for over thirty years. Her role as a social worker in Chiapas has included management of preventive health education for the State Health Ministry of Chiapas, organizing women's cooperatives, guiding development of several community organizations, and other grassroots community projects. She established and ran a non-governmental organization that provided health care and other relief to Guatemalan refugee camps in Chiapas during the Guatemalan civil war, and supported the repatriation process for these refugee communities. She worked for many years as consultant and later as staff at Seva Foundation, where she served as Director of the Community Self-Development Program for Chiapas and Guatemala – a program she started and developed over many years. In this capacity, with support from Seva, she continued expanding and strengthening the community development and health work with numerous communities and non-governmental organizations in Chiapas and in Guatemala, including establishment of midwifery training programs for indigenous communities.
Scott Cohen, MD, DTM, Founder and Medical Director
Scott has been practicing pediatric medicine since 1989, serving primarily high-risk, low income patients in the U.S. and Latin America. In 1988, as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow, he served pediatric patients in Gabon, West Africa, and he has delivered pre- and post-operative care to surgical patients in Cuba and El Salvador. In eastern Guatemala, he provided primary care for indigenous villagers of all ages and taught basic Western medicine to local health promoters. He received his M.D. from Tufts University in Boston in 1989 and his Diploma in Tropical Medicine from Royal College of Surgery in Ireland in 2000. He completed his pediatric residency at Oakland Children’s Hospital in 1992. He was attending nursery physician at Alameda County Medical Center and assistant director of an inpatient unit at Oakland Children’s Hospital. He is a lead editor for the American Academy of Pediatrics' newsletter on international child health and wrote several chapters on pediatric medicine for Updates in Emergency Medicine and Handbook of Bioterrorism and Disaster Medicine. He is fluent in Spanish. Currently, Scott is a pediatrician at Kaiser Permanente, San Rafael, California.
Volunteers
Hallie Brewster, communications volunteer
Jayanthi Nathan, writer
Joaquin Newman, graphic designer
Isabel Oh, translator
Leticia Rubalcava, field volunteer