team

Support Team
Creative Manager
University of Wisconsin—Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)

As part of the UW Population Health Institute’s Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH) Group, Ashley helps develop Envision’s online resources and creates materials for Community of Transformation participants. Exploring new storytelling methods and finding ways to connect with audiences have long been her passions. Ashley is excited to support the CHW community as an ally and brings more than a decade of experience this role, including writing and editing, graphic design, event planning, web content development, and social media management.

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Support Team
Operations Coordinator University of Wisconsin
Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)

Caitlyn Klostermann is the Operations Coordinator for the Envision team at the Mobilizing Action Towards Community Health (MATCH) Group. They graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BS in Statistics and Gender and Women’s Studies, where they focused on integrating intersectional feminist theory and storytelling with data science.

Prior to joining the Envision team, Caitlyn worked as a Technical Solutions Engineer at Epic, supporting the implementation and technical maintenance of the Epic system for healthcare organizations across the US. Previously, they interned at the Wisconsin Women’s Council, where they used their knowledge of statistical analysis and visualization to create factsheets about women’s and infant health in Wisconsin, with an emphasis on health equity. At UW, Caitlyn was part of Slow Food UW—a branch of the international Slow Food NGO—which amplified their interest in community organizing and food justice.

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Training Team
CHW Training Coordinator
University of Wisconsin—Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)

Hmongshee was born and raised in central WI, which she is still located. She attended University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and earned a Bachelors Degree in Healthcare Administration, but always had a passion in community health. Since graduating her focus has been on health equity such as advocating and uplifting marginalized populations in rural communities to improve health.

Recognizing that health disparities widened during the pandemic, Hmongshee began working with immigrant communities in central WI to assist in bettering access to health services. While advocating for the community, she also noticed a lack of diversity and sustainability in the Community Health workforce

Partnering with other Community Health Workers (CHWs) has motivated Hmongshee to empower rural CHWs and support them by having conversations with leadership about improving workforce development in Community Health. Hmongshee hopes to provide more support for CHWs through her role with Envision and MATCH. She is also proud to be a part of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Advisory Committee, where she can be a voice for CHWs and rural marginalized communities.

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Leadership & Training Teams
Envision Co-Director, Equity and Training
University of Wisconsin—Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)
Lesley is the Envision Community Health Worker (CHW) Training and Technical Assistance Center Co-Director. Lesley is based at the University of Wisconsin Madison Population Health Institute MATCH group. Lesley has over 15 years of experience working with communities and coalitions, building leadership capacity to advance health equity through policy and structural changes. Lesley has been providing program leadership, coaching, training and technical assistance through the Population Health Institute since 2008. Her background and practice focus on the social determinants of health and health equity, community organizing, coalition building and deep community engagement. A longtime CHW ally, Lesley is committed to supporting the national CHW movement to achieve workforce equity.

Areas of expertise: SDOH, grassroots community organizing; strategic planning and implementation of public health policy

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Training Team
Envision Community Health Worker Community of Practice Lead
University of Wisconsin—Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)

Monique is a community health worker with 20 years of experience working with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and 10 years of experience teaching American Sign Language at the local Community College. She also has a background working with children with special needs, including being a supervised visitation monitor. Monique has had major involvement with local chambers, Rotary clubs, community coalition meetings, and foster youth programs.

She is an active supporter in the community and an advocate for equity and inclusion, standing up for those who feel they don’t have a voice.

Learning the needs of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, Monique opened a gym and created a nonprofit for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and underserved populations.

Monique completed her CCHW training at Loma Linda University and was hired there as a community health worker and peer support specialist. She plans to continue in the community health worker profession and assist in furthering this career path for others.

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Training Team
Envision CHW Sustainability Lead
University of Wisconsin—Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)

Sara Elise (Essie) is the Community Health Worker (CHW) Sustainability Lead on the ENVISION team at the University of Wisconsin Madison Population Health Institute MATCH group. As the CHW Sustainability Lead, Essie provides technical assistance and capacity building training to CHWs to center health equity within their communities and create sustainability for the CHW profession both locally and nationally.

Essie graduated in 2015 from Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, with a BA in criminology and a minor in psychology, focusing on social determinants of health and restorative justice.

Prior to joining the Envision team, Essie worked as a CHW, care coordinator, and a community organizer in rural Colorado. Essie connected, educated, and mobilized the local community to address specific community-identified issues via coalition building, leadership development, and policy change. A highlight of Essie’s experience is living and working in rural Alaska Native Yup’ik communities and working with the local Tribal councils to facilitate daily programming on wellness, cold water safety, emotional intelligence, and outdoor education.

Essie is passionate about building bridges across racial and cultural differences in communities. She emphasizes trust building and finding common ground through relationship building and fostering a space to work toward meaningful change together.

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Leadership Team
Envision Co-Director, Development
University of Wisconsin—Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)

Sherri brings professional and personal lived experience to advancing an equitable public health approach. Having worked on the streets, in communities, health and wellness centers, a health care technology company, and state health departments, Sherri brings a comprehensive view of public health and the essential community components that make it possible for everyone to have what they need to live their most fulfilled lives.

Sherri started her career working with teen moms as a teen mom. She partnered with community health workers (CHWs) to define what health means to them and implemented those solutions.  She has a long history of managing and supervising CHW programs, as well as providing training and technical assistance to health departments, CHW organizations, and CHWs. Partnering with CHWs and CHW Allies in government, health care, business, and community-based organizations, she co-directs and sustains the Envision CHW Training and Technical Center, providing structural support, systems change, and advancing policies that create an environment for CHWs and CHW programs to thrive.   

Areas of expertise: CHW reimbursement and sustainability, partnership development, policy and systems work, documentation and data collection technology, CHW training and support

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Training Team
Envision Outreach Coordinator
University of Wisconsin—Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH)

Throughout her career, Yasamin has combined her love of language and her passion for equity to bring a human lens to her work in public health. She has worked with a range of organizations on initiatives connected to health equity. As the child of Iranian immigrants, she has a passion for making the world a better place for people from all walks of life, while learning about how different communities experience the social determinants of health in markedly different ways in the United States.

Yasamin holds an undergraduate degree in English and earned a Master’s in International Affairs from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the UC San Diego. Currently she is the outreach coordinator for the Envision project, to provide technical assistance for CHWs connected to the COVID-19 pandemic response.

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Director, Population Health Institute; Co-Director, County Health Rankings and Roadmaps; Associate Professor (CHS), Department of Population Health Sciences; University of Wisconsin Madison School of Medicine and Public Health

Dr. Johnson is a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Roundtable on Population Health Improvement and a board member of Frameworks Institute. Her career has been dedicated to partnering with children, families, community organizations and systems to advance health and well-being. Dr. Johnson provided training for Milwaukee Area Health Education Center CHW program participants and has written about the value of CHW’s in primary healthcare. She was previously Director of Behavioral Health at Milwaukee Health Services, Inc., a federally qualified health center and served as the Administrator and State Health Officer for the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. She is a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee.

Areas of expertise: community engagement, health equity, children’s health, SDOH