Staff
Denise Hyater-Lindenmuth
Executive Director
Denise Hyater-Lindenmuth has worked in the Washington DC area in both nonprofit and for-profit industries for nearly 30 years. Her nonprofit leadership roles included creating ground-breaking community-based programs where her efforts were recognized internationally and led organizations such as Brain Injury Services and the American Cancer Society for the National Capital Region. She also served in leadership roles for national/international public relations firms representing healthcare clients and health interests. She has extensive experience serving as spokesperson in many of her leadership roles.
Denise’s leadership style is based on the philosophy of community service and is firmly driven by data and results. She has proven successes with leading boards and people through change and overcoming challenges while remaining mission focused. Critical areas of importance include mission and strategy, governance, financial management and development, operations, and marketing.
She earned her MBA at George Washington University in Washington D.C., a master’s degree in Community Health Education at Trinity Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and a bachelor’s in Public Relations/Marketing at Howard University, in Washington, D.C. Denise also received a certificate in strategic nonprofit management from Harvard University. As a fifth-generation Washingtonian, she lives with her husband, Philip, in the District of Columbia. They have three children who are successfully “adulting”.
Denys Symonette Mitchell
Director of Policy & Partnerships
Denys Symonette Mitchell is the newly appointed Director of Policy & Partnerships at the National Women’s Health Network. In this role, she will lead the Network by advancing its mission on Capitol Hill and across Federal agencies while strategically positioning the organization as a trusted voice for all women. She will identify and cultivate new alliances, and will lead the Network in developing effective, intersectional, and equitable policy campaigns.
A preeminent thought-leader and strategist, Denys has a successful record translating asks into action for national nonprofits. Most recently, she served as the Senior Policy Analyst for the National Birth Equity Collaborative. Prior to that role, Denys led a health policy consultancy where she developed innovative strategies utilizing an anti-racist approach. As a former Congressional staffer and registered lobbyist at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, she brings over a decade of combined experience in government and nonprofit operations, in addition to a strong working knowledge of Washington and deeply cultivated relationships with key players in the Beltway. Most recently, Denys was spotlighted as an Emerging Leader by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for her transformative work as a member of The Black Maternal Health Federal Policy Collective – a group of Black women policy leaders working to develop strategy and policy solutions to address America’s Black maternal health crisis.
Denys completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at Howard University. She resides in Prince George’s County, Maryland with her husband and their infant and toddler sons.
Adele Costa
Director of Communications
Adele Costa graduated from the State University of New York at Geneseo in 2011 with degrees in English and History, and when she realized that wasn't going to feed her in the middle of a recession, she joined the U.S. Peace Corps. There she spent 2 years as a youth development coordinator in a small mountain village in Morocco, where she worked with young women on life skills and self-expression. She came back to the US in 2015, got her Masters in Public Administration, and spent five years working in NYS government in various policy and program positions in the human services sector. In 2020, she decided to stop dating writing and to marry it, which she did by starting her own copywriting business. She started consulting for the National Women's Health Network in September of 2020, and accepted the offer of Director of Communications in October 2021. Adele is honored to be able to get reliable, compelling health information into the hands of the people who need it most.
Carter Ringo
Multimedia Communications Lead
cringo@nwhn.org
Carter Ringo (he/they) graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2022 with their Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Interactive, Game, and Sound Arts. Their expertise ranges in the multimedia field and have additional interests in Disability rights and accessibility advocacy. Prior to working for the Network, they completed two years of experience as a NASA 3D design intern at the Goddard Space Flight Center.
They currently serve as the Network’s Multimedia Communications Lead, and their work includes digital design, web and social media support, and audio-visual editing.
Erin Evans
Director of Operations
Erin is the Director of Operations, responsible for managing the office’s daily functions and ensuring that everything runs smoothly. She is the main point of contact for vendors and also reaches out to them if anything goes wrong. She joins the NWHN after spending the last 10 years working in residential property management and commercial real estate, where she managed research teams and coordinated large projects. Erin attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she focused on History and Art History.
Carli De La Cruz
Social Media Manager
cdelacruz@nwhn.org
Carli is a copywriter and social media maven in Denver, CO. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Legal Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) in 2011. She is passionate about women’s health and social justice issues. Through her work for the Network, she leverages various social media platforms to educate women of all ages on important health issues so they feel empowered to advocate for their health in medical settings.
Laura Tucker
Director of Development
ltucker@nwhn.org
Laura Tucker has more than 25 years of nonprofit and for-profit experience working with national and international organizations to raise brand awareness and fundraising revenue. Laura’s expertise focuses on donor cultivation, building Fortune 500 public/private partnerships, and major gift development. Laura is a highly creative results-driven development strategist with entrepreneurial passion, drive, and vision. Laura has many years of professional experience generating revenue and increasing support bases for expanding national nonprofit organizations. Her experience includes executive and volunteer leadership roles particularly in the sciences and public safety sectors. Laura has spent the better part of her career focusing on creating innovative programs and disrupting how non-profit organizations and corporations engage in fundraising to drive meaningful change. Laura previously served as the Director of Development for the Weizmann Institute of Science in the San Francisco Bay Area and most recently served as the Head of Strategic Alliances for the National Emergency Number Association where she grew internal revenue streams by more than 50%. Laura is on the Board of 911derWomen and serves on the Steering Committee of the Washington D.C chapter of the Human Rights Campaign.
Hannah Hall
Development Associate
hhall@nwhn.org
Hannah Graduated from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA in 2019 with a Bachelors of Arts Degree in History, duel minoring in Communications and Nonprofit Studies. She was able to partake in a Nonprofit Studies Fellowship program through the school of integrative studies at GMU, sparking her passion for the industry and a career focused on making an impact. Since then, she has cultivated experiences and foundational knowledge through several opportunities within the nonprofit industry in order to best understand what it means to be a development/ nonprofit professional.
Hannah is a passionate team member for the National Women’s Health Network. Having started with the Network in the spring of 2022, she is invested in supporting its development efforts to promote the work of the NWHN, while also promoting the right of every individual to accessible health services and educational resources across the nation.
Board of Directors
Abigail Arons
Abigail Arons, MPH, is a project director at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Since 2001, she has led research and evaluation projects at UCSF focusing on reproductive and sexual health, including long-acting contraception, sexual health education, adolescent pregnancy prevention, cancer prevention and HIV. Currently, she leads an NIH-funded randomized controlled trial on the impact of guaranteed income for low-income Black youth.
In addition to her professional expertise in reproductive health, Abigail took a crash course in breast cancer when she was diagnosed at age 31. After completing active treatment, she joined the Board of Breast Cancer Action, a national watchdog organization for the breast cancer movement, to advocate for more effective, less toxic treatments, and for a greater focus on the root causes of cancer, including environmental factors. Abigail is thrilled to serve as the Chair of the Board of the National Women’s Health Network.
Carrie Kaya
Treasurer
Carrie is a Senior Associate at Susan Matlack Jones & Associates supporting nonprofits with specialized accounting and bookkeeping. She prides herself on providing useful, accurate financials that allow management and Boards to make decisions about their organization’s financial health. After a decade living outside the US, she is excited to bring her enthusiasm to work for women’s healthcare. Carrie’s focus on women’s healthcare was reinforced while dealing with a healthcare challenge in Morocco and Turkey and seeing the differences in care and treatment. She is excited to join the Board of the Network!
Yamini Oseguera-Bhatnagar
Yamini is a convener, strategist, and facilitator who has been working in HIV for over a decade. Yamini’s background ranges from youth development to women’s health, reproductive justice advocacy, health equity, racial & gender justice. She is passionate about supporting the resiliency of communities locally and worldwide. She is a UC Berkeley alum with an undergraduate degree in Ethnic Studies and is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Health at San Francisco State University with an emphasis in Health Education. She’s a first-generation immigrant and is raising her children in San Francisco, California
Carmita Padilla
Carmita Padilla is a health equity champion and an accomplished non-profit executive with 30+ years of experience building partnerships that innovate shared mission-oriented solutions.
She is currently the Chief Program & Sites Officer at the nonprofit Health Leads. She has also served as its Vice President of Partnerships and Initiatives, Executive Director for New York Operations, and National Director of Program Expansion, among other roles. Carmita started her career at AT&T and Deloitte Consulting before shifting her relationship, operations and business management expertise to the non-profit sector, as the Executive Director of Women’s Health & Counseling Center. She has also held Development roles at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Hunter College. Carmita holds a BA from Rutgers College and an MBA from Lehigh University. She lives in New York City and is fluent in Spanish.
Bindiya Patel, MPP
Managing Director, Programs and Innovation Division at PATH
Bindiya Patel oversees strategy, operations and integration for the Programs and Innovation division at PATH. She also leads the implementation of an innovative approach to equity in programming across the organization.
Ms. Patel first joined PATH in 2004, and during her tenure has advocated for new HIV prevention options for women in the Global Campaign for Microbicides, managed US government funded projects on tuberculosis in Tanzania, served on PATH’s strategy team, and launched the PATH Center for Malaria Control and Elimination. In her most recent roles with PATH’s strategy team and Global Health Programs division, Ms. Patel designed and led organization-wide change initiatives to enable structured collaboration across countries and programs to strengthen PATH’s impact.
She has more than 19 years of experience managing projects and initiatives in the global health sector. Prior to PATH, she oversaw child health and nutrition programming in multiple South African townships and managed grants to local organizations in the UK.
Ms. Patel earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from Cornell University and a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University. She serves on the board of directors for the National Women’s Health Network and the Civic Council for the Master of Arts in Applied International Studies at the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. She is also proud to serve as faculty of the Global Leadership Forum.
Hillary M Stemple Esq.
Hillary M Stemple grew up in a rural town in West Virginia. She saw firsthand the impact the lack of access to health care resources could have, particularly on girls and women in her community. Through her work as a lawyer specializing in issues related to health care provision, she works with clients to address information gaps and access barriers to reproductive care. This work has also developed her understanding of how social disparities impact health care, particularly women's health care, and she takes every opportunity she can to counsel the government, providers, and advocacy organizations about the steps they can take to address such disparities. As a new NWHN Board member, she hopes to provide insights into the regulatory and legal issues that create barriers to care that must be addressed to help ensure women in all communities have the access to health care and health information that they need
Christie Vanhorne, M.Ed., MPH
Christie is the founder and president of CVH Consulting, LLC, a public health consulting firm focused on health education and instructional design. From her first foray as an HIV health educator in rural South Africa with the Peace Corps in 2004, Christie has been devoted to improving the lives of the most marginalized. She has dedicated her life to improving health outcomes through advocacy, education, and uplifting the voices of those with lived experiences. Throughout her career, she’s directed health education programs at a Planned Parenthood affiliate, designed reproductive health curricula for women with rare bleeding disorders for national health organizations, and advocated for reproductive health issues on the local, state, and national levels. Most recently, she was a co-host of a podcast about extreme periods and started teaching two public health courses at Vassar College. She holds two Master’s Degrees, one in Education and one in Public Health.
Kimberly Robinson
Kimberly Robinson is an independent consultant on reproductive justice issues, including the health of Black women. Kimberly has worked in direct services at a variety of settings, including for many years as the Director of Health Services at Women’s Health Specialists, an independent feminist health center. While at Women’s Health Specialists, she oversaw the operations for multiple clinics and satellite services and was responsible for the training and recruitment of all clinical staff including residents and medical students, helping to train the next generation of abortion providers. As a women’s health activist, Kimberly works with colleagues, communities and allies to build constituencies that demand reproductive justice for all women. She is the northern California liaison for Black Women for Wellness.
Meredith Field
Meredith P. Field, MSEd, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Alfred University. Meredith’s research interests focus on bodies, reproduction, health, medicine, and development as they intersect with social movements, science, technology, and society. Her recent research projects explored topics related to reusable menstrual products and access to maternal health care in rural areas of Pennsylvania. She previously worked with the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network and studied how policy changes regarding access to contraceptives and abortion in rural parts of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia affect people’s lives. Meredith has been an activist since she was a child, beginning with local environmental issues and expanding to issues of women’s health, prisoners’ civil rights, and other human rights and social justice topics. She has worked in higher education for more than fourteen years. She earned her dual title PhD in Rural Sociology and Women’s Studies from The Pennsylvania State University.
Lacey Alexander
Lacey Alexander, PhD, RN, GERO-BC, is a clinical assistant professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research is focused on how bias and discrimination impact the clinician-patient relationship. Most recently, she is exploring how negative interactions between patients and clinicians about weight can create barriers to quality and timely care delivery. She also completed an Advanced Fellowship in Women’s Health at the VA Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Lacey continues to moonlight at the VA in hospice, serves as her hospital’s LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator, and intermittently teaches a large undergraduate course about gender and health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is excited to serve on the Board of Directors because she is passionate about creating resources to guide consumers in making safe decision about their health.
Marci Harris
Marci Harris, MPP, MPH, is currently working on her PHD in Public Health at the University of Utah. Her research is focused on hereditary genetic syndromes and the comorbidities that occur after cancer diagnosis. She previously worked with Planned Parenthood Action Council of Utah working towards better reproductive rights policy in Utah. She has helped advocate for policies that protect the quality of women’s health. She is passionate about public health and the value of complete and accurate health information for women.
Monica Skoko Rodriguez, MPH, RN
Monica Skoko Rodriguez (she/they) is a nurse, advocate, and Director of Medical Standards at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In this position, she uses evidence-based practice to update guidelines to help ensure patients at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide receive the highest quality, equitable care. Prior to this role, she worked as the Executive Director of the Commission for Women in Miami-Dade County. During that time, she worked on policies that would improve the status of women and honed her skills in board governance. She has also worked as a nurse at a Florida Planned Parenthood clinic and as a Senior Health Educator with the Florida Department of Health.
Monica is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Nursing Practice from Duke University and earned her Master in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from University of Miami. Monica is active in advocacy and policy work at local, state, and national levels, with experience lobbying and advocating directly to elected officials, speaking at rallies and protests, and participating in media and writing op-eds. They are a past president of the Miami-Dade League of Women Voters (LWV) and currently sit on the LWVUS board. She also serves on the board of a South Florida abortion fund, Women’s Emergency Network.
Her life passion is improving access to quality health care in sexual and reproductive health and reducing the equity gap for women through research, policy changes, and health systems change. Monica is a proud first-gen Latina based in Miami, FL with her partner, their dog, and lots of houseplants.
Julie Thai, M.D.
Dr. Thai is a geriatric medicine physician based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She completed her medical school and residency training in family medicine at Michigan State University and her fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She also holds a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University and is currently a diplomat of the American Board of Family Medicine.
Dr. Thai has worked extensively in clinical research and has co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles in the areas of rapidly progressive dementia, end-of-life care preferences, public health policy, and more.
She is passionate about promoting health education, patient advocacy, and diagnostic excellence in the aging adult population.