Advisory Board

Eleanor (Ellie) Angerame

Green Village Initiative

Ellie (she/her) is a young farmer, organizer, and tomato-pie baker. Raised in Bridgeport, her focus is to realize a more just and equitable food system in her home city through urban farming, creative policymaking, integrated youth leadership, and community and school gardens that root in outdoor learning and healing. Ellie is currently the executive director of Green Village Initiative in Bridgeport and also practices civic engagement and realizing a better food system with her neighbors through her work with Bridgeport Generation Now, Bridgeport's Food Policy Council, Bridgeport's Farmers Market Collaborative. She sits on the Working Lands Alliance as a representative of the New CT Farmer Alliance, a chapter of the National Young Farmer Coalition.

Beth Beckman, RN, D.N.Sc., FNP, NEA-BC

Yale New Haven Hospital System

Beth P. Beckman is the inaugural Chief Nursing Executive for Yale New Haven Health System. In this new role, Dr. Beckman is responsible for developing and overseeing the system-wide integration plan for key components of nursing, including nursing practice, staffing, education/development and communication. Under her leadership, Yale New Haven Health System is establishing a signature standard of nursing care focused on patient-centered clinical excellence. Dr. Beckman obtained her Doctor of Nursing Science degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Master of Science in Nursing - Family Nurse Practitioner track from Arizona State University and Bachelor of Science in Nursing from University of Arizona. Before coming to Yale New Haven, Dr. Beckman was Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.  Prior to joining Baylor, she held a number of leadership positions including Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine and System Director of Critical Care Services and Telemetry at Scottsdale Healthcare, among others.

Maritza Bond, MPH

Bridgeport Department of Health & Human Services

Maritza Bond, MPH, is a Public Health leader with over 18 years’ experience.  Bond currently serves as the Director of Health for the City of New Haven.  In this role, Director Bond leads efforts on creating a culture of health and wellness with a focus on addressing social determinants of health and health equity.  Prior to joining the City of New Haven, Bond served as the Director of Health and Social Services for the City of Bridgeport since 2016, where she led initiatives that aimed to promote, prevent, and protect City residents. Prior to her service in Bridgeport, Ms. Bond served as Executive Director of Eastern Area Health Education Center (EAHEC), Inc. In this role, Bond provided leadership to bring educators, health care professionals, and community leaders together regionally and statewide to ensure health care access and enhance the workforce in Connecticut. Prior to joining Eastern AHEC, Bond coordinated several grant project initiatives at the Naugatuck Valley Health District, including the Immunization Action Program (IAP). In 2015, Bond was awarded the Health Equity Super Star award from the Connecticut Health Foundation for efforts and contribution in Connecticut and was the 2015 Health Rural Health Leadership Fellow. Bond was a 2008 CT Health Foundation Leadership Fellow as well served on various boards and committees statewide. Bond holds a Masters in Public Health with an MPA certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Connecticut. She earned a B.S. in Public Health with a specialty in health promotion from Southern Connecticut.

Tekisha Dwan Everette, Ph.D.

Health Equity Solutions

Tekisha has built a successful career in public policy, particularly health care policy, and advocacy in the non-profit, state, and private sectors. Before taking the helm of Health Equity Solutions (HES), she served as the Managing Director of Federal Government Affairs with the American Diabetes Association where she provided strategic leadership on policy and advocacy initiatives with the White House, several federal agencies, and Congress, which led to important victories for people both with and at risk for diabetes. Everette earned her doctorate in Sociology from American University with a concentration in race, gender, and social justice as it relates to social policy. She received her Master’s of Public Administration (MPA) degree from the Center of Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (popularly known as Virginia Tech) and holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Interdisciplinary Studies from the same institution. Everette is an alumna of the Masters Series for Distinguished Leaders and the National Urban Fellows America’s Leaders of Change program. She is a lifetime member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Association of Black Sociologists.

Monette Ferguson, Ed.D.

Alliance for Community Empowerment

Dr. Monette Ferguson has worked in the non-profit sector for almost 17 years at Action for Bridgeport Community Development Inc.( an urban community action agency). Monette began her non-profit leadership career as a Head Start family case-worker at this agency. She quickly advanced to directing the Early Learning division here. In this role Dr. Ferguson oversaw more than 300 staff members who provide quality school readiness , SEL experiences and comprehensive family resources to over 1000 families in Bridgeport and the surrounding area. She had worked in this role for almost 9 years. Dr. Ferguson has grown her leadership development over the years in this position while writing grants, managing multi-million dollar budgets, and collaborating with community partners toward the common goal of ensuring quality early childhood experiences for all children while assisting families with breaking the cycle of poverty. She has participated in several State Department workgroups assisting in defining “school readiness”, and creating standards for the Connecticut Early Childhood Teaching Credential. She is a past Connecticut representative for the New England Head Start Association and has been honored and travels locally and nationally as a strong advocate who fights for quality education for all in the early childhood space. She Spearheads statewide work to end homelessness in early childhood populations and works tirelessly for equity in education. Dr. Ferguson is currently the Executive Director of Action for Bridgeport Community Development (ABCD Inc.) and holds Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Bridgeport.

Catalina Samper Horak

Building One Community

Catalina has worked in the nonprofit sector for nearly 20 years and brings a wealth of multicultural experience to her role as Executive Director for Building One Community. A native of Colombia, she has lived in several countries in North America, South America and Europe. Catalina has lived in Fairfield County since 1997. She has served as a board member and officer of several non-profit organizations in the USA as well as in her native Colombia. As former Board Chair on Neighbors Link Mount Kisco, she was a driving force behind the initiative to replicate Neighbors Link and bring it to Stamford. She has a MS in Nonprofit Management from New School University. Building One Community( B1C) , was founded in December 2010 as the result of the Stamford Partnership’s leadership in convening key community stakeholders to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing immigrant newcomers, and to identify best practice models for successfully integrating them into the economic and social fabric of their new community. As a result of this collaborative strategy, B1C opened its community center in June, 2011 offering program services which successfully link recent immigrants with the tools they need to adapt to their new environments. B1C model leverages existing services to improve outcomes for immigrant adults and children through a network of collaborating program partners and referrals. In addition, the center’s location, hours of operation, cost-free programs and on-site babysitting eliminate barriers which immigrants themselves identified as impediments to access. Ensuring that these newcomers can acquire the language skills and other tools to become full participants in their new communities is important not only for their own economic well-being, but also for that of the greater Stamford area and the surrounding region as well. To date, B1C has established itself as a thriving organization with a clear expertise on the immigrant community and has helped close to 10,000 immigrant adult individuals from 99 different countries —and their families—make measurable progress towards English language fluency, economic and family stability, working hard to achieve their American Dream.

Alison Logan

Bridgeport Prospers

Allison Logan holds a BS-ED in Music Education and an MS in Early Childhood Studies with an emphasis on early childhood neurobiology, both from Central Connecticut State University. She began her career as an elementary school music teacher in Middlefield, CT, where she received the IRA Reading Excellence Through the Arts (RETA) SIG Outstanding Program Award in 1999 for her Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Readers Program. Logan’s HOT Readers Program, “builds literacy skills through the infusion of music, movement, visual arts and language arts.” Ms. Logan has since dedicated the past eighteen years of her career to improving the lives of children and families in Bridgeport, and her experience is vast. Continuing in the arts education field, she worked for IDEAS LLC from 1999 through 2014 as a contributing writer and editor of books and manuals. She also co-developed the Total Literacy and Total Learning approaches. Moreover, Logan became a Total Learning Master Trainer for The Bridgeport Total Learning Institute and as such, provided professional development, coaching, and mentoring to countless Bridgeport teachers. In 2014, Logan was named Director of Educational Initiatives for Action for Bridgeport Community Development, Inc. (ABCD), where she created, managed, and implemented the Bridge Together Program, coordinated communications with the Bridgeport Board of Education, collaborated with the Bridgeport Family Resource Centers, and served as the liaison between ABCD and the Bridgeport Public Schools. It was in this capacity that Logan initially became involved with Bridgeport Prospers, initially as an active member of the Birth to Three and PK-3rd Grade Community Action Networks (CANs), and next as the Early Childhood Program Manager. In 2017, Allison was named at Executive Director of Bridgeport Prospers, where her mission is to work collectively as a community of stakeholders to have a positive, measurable and sustainable impact on outcomes for all Bridgeport children and families from cradle to career. Her advancement of the birth to age three “Baby Bundle” is receiving recognition across the state and nationally. The “Bundle” is designed to promote and support evidence-informed policy, practice and programs that promote healthy births, home-based early childhood support, and school readiness.

Gina Smith

Get Healthy Connecticut, Yale New Haven Hospital System

Gina Smith graduated from East Carolina University with both her BS and MA in Health Education and Promotion, with concentration in community health. She has been a Certified Health Education Specialists since 2004. From 2005-2010, she served as the Eastern Regional Coordinator for the North Carolina Folic Acid Campaign/March of Dimes, where she coordinated birth defects prevention education in a 29-county region. Since then she worked with for Yale University at the Center for Perinatal, Pediatric, and Environmental Epidemiology on the National Children’s Study and the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center as the coordinator for the Valley Initiative to Advance Health and Learning in Schools (VITAHLS). Gina is currently the Community Health Improvement Coordinator for Yale New Haven Health System, where she provides day-to-day leadership for Get Healthy CT, a website with educational resources to reduce obesity and chronic disease. Gina also provides facilitation and expertise in the areas of obesity and chronic disease to support health improvement initiatives, including the Know Your Numbers community screening program in the Greater Bridgeport and Greater New Haven regions.