Staff

Caitlin Gerdts, Program Officer for Latin America, spent the last three years working for the Peace Corps in Ecuador where she served as president of the Gender and Development (GAD) Committee, and also as trainer and coordinator for the Rural Public Health & Urban Youth and Families Program. While in Ecuador, Caitlin developed a girls-leadership/scholarship program, and designed and implemented a training program focusing on positive community development for Rural Public Health Volunteers in Peace Corps Ecuador. Caitlin also participated in the research and writing of the Population Council publication Quality/Calidad/Qualité #12, "Universal Sexuality Education in Mongolia: Educating Today to Protect Tomorrow." Caitlin has a BA in Human Biology from Stanford University, and will be attending the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in September 2006.

Andrea Irvin, MPH, Associate Program Director, , has worked as Resident Technical Advisor in Mongolia for the Margaret Sanger Center International, and with UNFPA's Adolescent Reproductive Health Projects implemented by the Mongolia Ministries of Health and Education. Prior to her experience in Mongolia, Andrea was Senior Program Officer at the International Women's Health Coalition, where she worked for over eight years. Her areas of expertise include reproductive health and rights, sexuality, gender, and adolescent empowerment and development. Andrea graduated from Berkeley and received an MPH from Columbia University.

Magaly de Oliveira Marques, MA, Executive Director, has over fifteen years of experience as a women's rights advocate and sexual and reproductive rights professional. Ms. Marques joined the Pacific Institute for Women's Health as Executive Director in 2003. Before joining the Pacific Institute, she served four years as the Country Director for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Brazil, where she was responsible for the foundation's Population and Reproductive Health grant-making portfolio. From 1989 to 1998, Ms. Marques worked for the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region, Inc. as a program advisor for IPPF affiliates in Latin America and the Caribbean, and later became the IPPF Country Representative in Bolivia. In the various positions she has held in the last fifteen years, Ms. Marques has developed and directed programs to advance reproductive rights, women's empowerment, gender equality, institutional development, and youth advocacy in reproductive rights. Prior to her work in population and international development, she served as Assistant Professor in Philosophy, at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she completed her master's degree in Philosophy.

Emelina Quintillan, Senior Program Officer, Asia, is a lawyer, educator, human rights activist and social development advocate. Her experiences in the past 20 years include serving as director for a global human rights advocacy training program and as consultant for various programs in Asia, Europe, and the United States. She has provided technical assistance to various women's groups in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union. Ms. Quintillan drafted the first bill addressing the problem of rape in the Philippines. She has extensive experience developing and implementing legal literacy and training programs from the grassroots to international levels. She was the first Regional Coordinator of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and served as Consultant for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Genevieve Sarita, Operations Officer. Ms. Sarita's initial exposure to social consciousness was at Silliman University, Philippines where she completed a BS in General Science. As a student she was exposed to research on the adverse effects of radiation and chemical components of insecticides on the human body, particularly the reproductive system. She has been greatly influenced by the University's mission to instill in every student a profound sense of community involvement and a genuine compassion for every person. (Silliman University is now a partner of United Nations in the movement for a Rights-Based Approach to Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and the fight for Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women). Ms. Sarita obtained her BS in Accounting from the University of San Carlos, Philippines and her Masters in Management, major in Public Administration from the University of the Philippines. While in the Philippines, she served as an Accountant, Interim School Administrator and Instructor in Biology, Physics and Basic Principles of Economics at Agusan Business and Arts Foundation Inc. (ABAFI), a non-profit business educational institution focused on the development of self-reliance among children from financially handicapped families in the local and neighboring communities. Subsequently, she joined her husband in Papua New Guinea, serving as missionaries in the province of West Sepik. In the United States, she worked as an Accountant and Office Manager for the corporate industry for a number of years before going back to the non-profit world. Prior to joining the Pacific Institute, she served as an Accountant for the Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA), a non-profit organization, an advocate of Filipino-American health, welfare and political and cultural empowerment.

Angela Martinez, Consultant Ð Trainer, Guatemala and California, has 15 years of experience working in sexual and reproductive health programs. She was program officer for Latin America at the Pacific Institute until 2003, and has since served as a trainer for several projects. For ten years, she worked as Training Director at the Instituto Mexicano de Investigacion de Familia y Poblacion, (IMIFAP), where she designed, developed, implemented, provided and evaluated education and training programs in sexuality, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention in Latin American. Previously she worked with MEXFAM in Mexico.

Monica Torres, PhD, Senior Consultant, California, has been consulting for over 15 years working with government and non-profit organizations to strategically implement social marketing campaigns for health, reproductive health, social issues and prevention of tobacco as well as substance use of minors and adults. She is CEO of SocialQuest, Inc. and a passionate spokesperson for the importance of understanding cultural dynamics in designing and implementing innovative research. She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Boston University with an emphasis on research methods, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School where she concentrated on ethnic minority studies and acculturation.

Laura Vargas Díaz, Program Officer, has worked with non-profit organizations in Mexico and California since 1988 in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, and adult literacy. In Mexico, she worked as a facilitator and trainer in sexuality education with urban and indigenous populations. She also designed and implemented a cultural journalism project with indigenous teenagers in Oaxaca, Mexico. In California, Laura brought her experiences with oral history and literacy empowerment to immigrant adult education through creating the Family Album Writing Workshop for Urban Education Partnership. While working for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles as a health educator and trainer, she designed and implemented curriculum on gender and sexuality for the Promotoras Program. She also co-authored the Promotoras en Acción contra el SIDA curriculum for East Los Angeles Women's Center. Laura graduated in Social Psychology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and obtained her M.A. in Latin American Studies from UCLA.