The Governing Board for the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program provides strategic advice and assistance to ensure the program’s mission is carried out. The Board is composed of individuals who are working on health and/or farmworker issues, particularly in the areas of research, healthcare service delivery, health promotion/disease prevention, and advocacy.
Board Members
Essie T. Torres, Ph.D., MPH (Chair) is the Director of Workforce Development and Community Partnerships in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is a health equity researcher with over 20 years of expertise in intervention and applied research, mixed methods design and analysis, community-based participatory research, culturally competent evaluation, and dissemination and implementation science, with content emphasis on rural health disparities, evidence-based health promotion, and cancer prevention and control research. She has extensive grant writing and project management experience (US and international), including budget development and oversight, training and supervising diverse research teams, developing and implementing project protocols, and effective research infrastructure for successful project implementation. Essie has served on the NCFHP Board since June 2018 and is the current Chair.
Trey Webster (Vice Chair) is currently an accountant for the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has over 15 years of experience in various areas of financial and managerial accounting, primarily related to the health care field. Originally from Guilford County, NC, he studied accounting at North Carolina State University. He is an active member on the FBO DEI committee for UNC Chapel Hill. He has served on the board since February 2020 and is the current Vice Chair.
Juan Allen (Secretary) has been serving growers and farmworkers from the beginning of his career. As a teen, he worked as part of a labor crew on a coffee and cotton family farm in Usulután, El Salvador, helping him to understand the agricultural culture from both the grower and farmworker perspectives. He served as a hospital administrator at the Centro Medico para la Mujer S.A. de C.V. for 12 years, overseeing the conversion of the hospital from a 12-bed center to a large trauma center. He has also worked as a mental health housing specialist with the Department of Mental Health in Los Angeles and currently serves as a Health Community Coordinator for Access East, where he is able to carry out his commitment to the North Carolina agricultural community by providing health services and referrals to community health centers, assisting rural communities in ACA enrollments, and coordinating mobile units. Juan has a BA in Business Administration from Dr. Matias Delgado University, San Salvador, and a Master of Hospital Administration from Universidad Ibero-Americana Santiago de Chile. He is the Board’s current Secretary.
Beatriz (Betty) Rodriguez, MS has been serving the needs of farmers, ranchers, and farmworkers with disabilities in North Carolina for the last seven years through the NC AgrAbility Partnership Project at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Before this role, she worked on economic development projects with farmers and rural entrepreneurs in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. She received an M.S. in Agribusiness Management at NCA&T and a B.S. in Agronomic Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Beatriz has many years of experience in various industries, nationally and internationally, including agriculture, education, and insurance. She has been certified in Mental Health First Aid USA, ergonomic principles, and industrial ergonomics process OSHA 2255. She has received training in extension leadership, addressing and preventing occupational illness and injury in the farm environment, and worksite and secondary injury assessments, among other training. Beatriz is fully committed to serving the agricultural community; she is an N.C. Volunteer Master Gardener for Guilford County, serves on the board of directors for the Farmer Veteran Coalition of N.C., and has been serving on the NCFHP Board since July 2018; she is one of the leaders of the Service Recognition/ Celebrations committee.
Chris van Hasselt is an IT Project Manager with FHI 360’s Information Technology team and is a founding member of the FHI 360 Analytics for Health work group, a team dedicated to employing technology best practices for public health programs. He is a PMP certified project manager with over 25 years of experience in the information technology field. He holds a degree in mathematics from the University of California Santa Cruz, and has a strong interest in both statistics and public health programs. He has completed a certification program in core public health concepts through the UNC Gillings School of Public Health.
Julia D. Welch, MS, JD worked for over twenty-five years in the field of public health research as a project manager, clinical site monitor, ethics board member, and trainer. She led clinical research studies and provided technical expertise to clinical sites in low-resourced countries, working within the local health care systems to implement the highest quality research. She has supported research in emerging infectious diseases, HIV prevention, and contraceptive technology. She currently educates community members in Medicare options and advocates for voting rights and healthcare access. Her master’s degree is in Natural Resources Management from the University of Arizona, and her law degree is from the University of North Carolina School of Law. She has served on the NCFHP Board since January 2019.
Shelley Summerlin-Long, MPH, MSW, RN, is a senior quality improvement leader in the Department of Hospital Epidemiology at the UNC Medical Center and an adjunct faculty member at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. She has more than two decades of experience working in the fields of health care, quality improvement, program evaluation, and project management. Her research interests include maternal and child health, infection prevention, and the use of quality improvement initiatives in health care settings. She volunteers as a nurse for a mobile clinic serving migrant farmworkers and has served on the NCFHP Board since July 2019.
Eve Portillo’s involvement with farmworkers began with her own experience doing seasonal work in potato grading in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. As a student at East Carolina University, she served as an Advisory Board member on a three-year National Library of Medicine grant “Addressing migrant and seasonal farmworker health disparities with information resources” and graduated with a Bachelors in Psychology and Anthropology. Eve is currently working as a Registered Behavior Technician in Elizabeth City. She has served on the NCFHP Board since February 2021, including one year on the Executive Committee.
Nicandro Mandujano Acevedo, MPH is the Research Manager at the National Center for Farmworker Health (NCFH). He leads the coordination of the Farmworker COVID-19 Community Assessments Project. Prior to joining NCFH, he was part of the COVID-19 Response Team with the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program. He holds an MPH in Global Health and Epidemiology & Statistics from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
Lisbeth Requena Gall, MA is the Population Health Training Manager at the National Center for Farmworker Health (NCFH). She is responsible for special populations training services on health education topics, including infectious and chronic disease, occupational health and safety, social determinants of health topics, and training for Indigenous farmworkers and the H-2A guest worker populations. She is a native of Guatemala and has nearly fifteen years of experience working internationally and in the U.S. on public health, education, and social programs with marginalized populations. She also has extensive experience in project management, training program design and evaluation, and adult education. Lisbeth holds a bachelor’s degree in social work with a focus in Development Management from Universidad Rafael Landivar and a Master’s Degree in International Training & Education from American University. She has served the NCFHP Board since January 2024.
Osiel (Ozzie) Gonzalez Alanis is a Safety Consultant with over 8 years’ experience in Occupational Safety and Health. He is a passionate public health advocate who strives to train and educate workers on hazards in the environment and the workplace. He received his degree in Environmental Health from Western Carolina University and has worked in different aspects of safety and health, such as a Lead Outreach Worker for Vecinos Inc. Farmworker Health Program, Behavioral Health Operations Assistant for the NC Office of Rural Health, Farmworker Health Program, and as a Registered Environmental Health Specialist for Mecklenburg County. Ozzie also draws upon experience from his time working with the NC Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health division (OSHA) as a Health Compliance Officer and the NC Agriculture Safety and Health division as a bilingual assistant. He has collaborated with multiple government agencies throughout his career, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS). Ozzie has served on the NCFHP Board since January 2024.