Our Board

WORLD is a proud affiliate of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). Their Board of Directors also functions as our governing body.

AHF Board of Directors:

Michael Weinstein, President. AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Los Angeles, California

Steve L. Carlton, Esq., Treasurer. Steve Carlton is Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary for the insurance subsidiaries of Universal American Corp. He also serves as Chief Privacy Officer for all of Universal American Corp.’s business units. Prior to his current position, he was Senior Regulatory Counsel for the Georgia Department of Insurance. He received his J.D. from the University of Georgia and his B.A. in Economics from Emory University, magna cum laude. Steve currently resides in Orlando, Florida.

Cynthia Davis, Board Chair. Cynthia Davis has a Master’s degree in public health from the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is an Assistant Professor and Program Director in the College of Medicine and College of Science and Health at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Davis was instrumental in the development of the first dedicated mobile HIV testing project in Los Angeles County in 1991.

She joined AHF’s board of directors in 1988, served as an advocate for the development of the first women’s HIV treatment clinic in South Los Angeles, and helped develop and operate Agape House, a residential care facility for HIV positive women and their dependent children. She also initiated the nationally and internationally recognized Dolls of Hope Project, which makes and distributes handmade cloth dolls for HIV/AIDS orphans. She is passionate about her work and has been tireless in her efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS on a local, national and international level.

Curley Bonds, Board Vice Chair, Domestic. Dr. Curley Bonds is an associate professor and chair of psychiatry at the Charles Drew University School of Medicine and Science. He holds a dual appointment as a health sciences clinical professor in psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

He is the medical director for Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. He is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a fellow of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Diana Hoorzuk, Vice Chair, Global. Diana Hoorzuk is a councilor in the local government structure of eThekwini Municipality based in Durban, South Africa. She is also employed as an admin manageress in a company dealing with people search and as a council member of Mangosuthu University of Technology

Rodney L. Wright, MD, Vice Chair, Domestic. Rodney L. Wright, MD, MS has been actively involved in research, treatment and education aimed at combating HIV/AIDS since the 1980s. Dr. Wright is currently the Director of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Montefiore Medical Center – Wakefield Campus and an Associate Professor of Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women’s Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, NY. Dr. Wright received his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and is a maternal fetal medicine specialist focusing on the needs of HIV+ women. He has conducted research as an investigator with the Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG).

Dr. Wright was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to the NY State AIDS Advisory Council and was co-chair of the Care Committee for the Governors Task Force to End the AIDS Epidemic in NY State. He is also co-chair of the New York State Perinatal HIV Guidelines Committee. In addition to his work domestically, Dr. Wright frequently works in Sub-Saharan Africa and is actively involved with the Human Resources for Health Program, which provides medical education and training in Rwanda.

 

WORLD Advisory Board

 

WORLD is seeking candidates for our Advisory Board. We are interested in community members who bring expertise and life experience in a broad range of areas including fund development, marketing, financial management, life with HIV, media work, and community organizing. If you have interest in discussing Board membership, please email Carla Dillard Smith, Interim Executive Director.

WORLD Advisory Board:

Susan Erb, CPA, specialized in non-profit accounting, audit and management services as a sole proprietor for over two decades before transitioning to employment as a finance director. She recently retired from Building Futures with Women and Children, an agency dedicated to building communities with women and children where they are safely and supportively housed, free from homelessness and domestic violence.

Susan Henderson, MBA, joined Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) in 1997. In addition to her executive director responsibilities, she directs DREDF’s Parent Training & Information Center, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education. In 2004, she started DREDF’s Foster Youth Resources for Education (FYRE) project to heighten awareness and protect the rights of children with disabilities in the child welfare system. In 2007, she established DREDF’s Disability & Media Alliance Project (D-MAP) to address the misinformed disability coverage that undermines public policy and legal advances to coverage that raises public awareness and helps to end disability discrimination. She has led workshops on inclusion, disability and human rights in Bahrain, Columbia, Guam, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam.

Catherine Lyons, NP, MPH retired in 2013 after 25 years with the HIV/AIDS program at San Francisco General Hospital. While there, she saw patients on Ward 86 (the outpatient HIV clinic), worked on research studies, including early research on HIV and women with Project AWARE, helped to start community based collaborative programs, and led the international clinical effort. She does miss the clinical challenges, as well as her patients and colleagues. She now spends much of her time doing yoga, meditation, exercise, dance, writing, traveling, mentoring elementary school kids in East Oakland on mindfulness, as well as continuing some work in Kenya with a research study on patients who are lost to follow up. She has known WORLD since its inception and is happy to have the opportunity to be part of the next phase of its life.

Jane Maxwell, MPH is recently retired as a senior women’s health editor at Hesperian Health Guides, a non-profit publisher of self-help health care materials for communities around the world where there is little or no access to medical services. Hesperian titles include Where There Is No Doctor, and Where Women Have No Doctor. Jane holds a Masters degree in public health, and has additional graduate training in medical anthropology and journalism. She has worked in community-based health care settings in Mexico, Nepal, in several countries in Africa, and has volunteered for many years at the Berkeley Free Clinic’s HIV testing site.

Nilda Rodriguez has been engaged in the field of HIV and AIDS since 1987. She sits on the Alameda County Transitional Grant Area’s Collaborative Community Planning Council (CCPC) as a Planning Member and has done so since 2000. Prior to serving in Alameda County, she served in a similar capacity on the San Francisco County CCPC. For her work, Nilda was one of three individuals on the CCPC recognized with an award as a change agent by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2000. Nilda is a committed activist who supports specific efforts with women and the Latino communities.

Deborah Royal, MSN, NP is recently retired as Director of Women’s Services at the East Bay AIDS Center in Oakland and Assistant Clinical Professor with the UCSF Adult Nurse Practitioner Program, HIV Specialty Focus.  She holds a Health Education Degree from San Francisco State University and a Community Mental Health & Administration Master’s Degree from UCSF.  She has over 30 years’ experience providing hospital-based critical care and community-based mental health services to persons living with HIV. She is an advocate for women-centered services for positive women and enthusiastically supports WORLD’s mission.

Alisson Sombredero, MD is originally from Bogota, Colombia where she experienced the heartbreaking non-ARV/HIV era in her country. She came to the Bay Area to specialize in Internal Medicine at Highland Hospital in Oakland where she became aware of the struggle many minority groups experience when living with HIV. She was awarded the HIVMA minority fellowship at SFGH /UCSF where she helped develop the Salud Clinic, a specialty clinic for Latinos living with HIV. Currently she is the Chief of the HIV Division at Highland Hospital and Medical Director of the Adult Immunology Clinic, as well as working as an HIV specialist at EBAC.

Yomi S. Wrong is Disability Access Compliance Manager for Sutter Health and is the former Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living, Inc, a leading disability rights organization headquartered in Berkeley. She joined WORLD’s Board of Directors in 2010, bringing a strong background in social justice organizing and community services to support and advance WORLD’s mission. She currently serves as co-chair of WORLD’s new Advisory Council. Yomi lives in Oakland and also serves on the board of the ACLU of Northern California and Homebridge, a SF-based provider of in-home support services to seniors and people with disabilities.