WORLD Board of Directors
Current Board Members:
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Gandhi attended Harvard Medical School and then came to UCSF in 1996 for residency training in Internal Medicine. After her residency, Dr. Gandhi completed a clinical fellowship in Infectious Diseases and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), both at UCSF. She also obtained a Masters in Public Health from Berkeley in 2001 with a focus on Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Her research efforts have focused on HIV/AIDS in U.S. women through the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS). The WIHS is a large multisite, prospective cohort study established in 1994 to study the natural history, clinical and laboratory findings of HIV in women. Dr. Gandhi has also participated in research efforts involving the impact of HIV/AIDS in women in India. She works in a specialty clinic at the UCSF Parnassus campus that exclusively serves HIV-infected women, mostly of poor socioeconomic status, and has a number of patients who have benefitted from the services at WORLD. Her main interests are reading classical and contemporary fiction and independent film. She also has a husband, two dogs, and lives in San Francisco.
Laura Thomas is a health policy consultant and grant writer in San Francisco. She has been advocating on HIV/AIDS issues for nearly twenty years, since she first became involved in AIDS activism through ACT UP. Over the years she has worked for Tenderloin Health, Continuum HIV Day Services, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Laura is a proud recipient of the AIDS Hero Award from the 2000 AIDS Candlelight Memorial. In her free time, she is a volunteer with the HIV Prevention Project needle exchange and the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, and serve on the Boards of Directors for the CAEAR Coalition and the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center. Laura lives in San Francisco with her wonderful partner and thier three elderly cats.
Gail Silverstein is currently an attorney and clinical law professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law. She specializes in lawyering for low-income people in the areas of disability, housing and employment. Prior to becoming a clinical professor, Gail was a lawyer in the HIV/AIDS Legal project of the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) for six years. While at EBCLC, she was the chair of the Executive Committee of the Family Care Network, a holistic group of medical, social and legal providers for women and families infected and affected by HIV of which WORLD is a part. Gail has also worked with people with HIV on their legal issues at The Hawkins Center in Richmond, California and at AIDS Legal Council of Chicago. Besides lawyering, Gail enjoys yoga, cooking and travelling.
Jane Maxwell, MPH, is a researcher/writer/editor at Hesperian, publishers of self-help, health-care books including Where There Is No Doctor, Where Women Have No Doctor, A Book for Midwives, A Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities, and HIV, Health and Your Community. Jane has international experience in women's health and health education in Ghana, the Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, China, India, Nepal and Uganda. She has also volunteered for many years at the Berkeley Free Clinic as a phlebotomist in the Clinic's anonymous HIV testing site.
Nancy Stoller, PhD, teaches Women's Health Activism at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A co-founder of the Women's AIDS Network in the 1980s, she is also the author of Lessons from the Damned: Queers, Whores, and Junkies Respond to AIDS and co-editor of the anthology Women Resisting AIDS. She lives in San Francisco with a yardful of her companions: bees, bugs, butterflies, flowers, and vegetables.
Moher Downing, MA, is a national and international curriculum development specialist, public health researcher and cultural anthropologist with over twenty years experience in designing health education programs, research studies, and curricula for a broad spectrum of clinical and health issues. She has developed and conducted program evaluations for universities, public health agencies and community-based organizations. Moher has worked extensively over the past 25 years as a volunteer and community activist in the areas of HIV and needle exchange.
Cheri Pies, MSW DrPH, is the Director of the Family, Maternal and Child Health Programs for Contra Costa Health Services. In this capacity, she is responsible for the management, coordination and oversight of a range of programs designed to address and meet the needs of the families, pregnant and parenting women, children, and adolescents in this large, mixed urban-rural county.
Cheri has worked in the field of family health, with an emphasis on maternal, child and adolescent health for close to 30 years. She is currently a Lecturer at the School of Public Health at U.C. Berkeley where she teaches the MCH Core Course and a Doctoral Seminar on Leadership in Public Health.
