HOP Staff
Executive and Administrative Staff
Cynthia (Cindy) Selmi
Executive Director
Cindy joined Health Outreach Partners as Executive Director in November 2019, bringing over 30 years of health center and non-profit leadership experience. Prior to joining the HOP team, Cindy worked for Planned Parenthood Northern California, most recently as Senior Regional Director for Contra Costa and San Francisco health centers. Cindy is a recent graduate of the Clinic Leadership Institute, a joint venture of the Healthforce Center at the University of California at San Francisco and the Blue Shield Foundation of California. Cindy is a native to the Bay Area, originally from San Francisco. Cindy has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Biology. She started her health center career volunteering for the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, which fueled her dedication to health equity and assuring access to health care for all. Cindy’s other passions, are her two boys Justin and William, listening to live music, and the San Francisco Giants baseball club.
Christina Mestas
Manager of Executive and Board Affairs
Christina joined Health Outreach Partners in the Fall of 2014 with over 15 years of administrative experience. Christina earned her BA in Liberal Studies from California State University, Sacramento with an emphasis in early child development. In 2012, Christina relocated to the Bay Area to pursue her desire to do service and give back to her community. Christina worked for a local non-profit in Berkeley helping to empower local Bay Area residents through education and outreach in energy conservation; as well as, aiding and training local disadvantaged youth through developing green job skills. Before joining Health Outreach Partners, Christina volunteered at Berkeley Acupuncture Project educating clients on acupuncture and orienting clients to the community acupuncture model. In her free time, Christina enjoys riding her bike, practicing yoga, cooking, and spending as much time as possible soaking up the joys of parenthood with her family and pets.
Program Staff
Aba Anison-Amoo, MPHc
Project Manager
Meghan Erkel, MPH
Senior Project Manager
Meghan Erkel joined Health Outreach Partners as a Project Manager in June 2022 and brings over 8 years of Public Health experience using project management, data, and research to drive health equity and systemic change to under-served, marginalized populations. In this role, she will manage projects that expand and improve access to care at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and other community-based organizations nationally. Prior to HOP, Meghan’s experience was primarily internationally based in Latin America, the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa working on various health projects with both bilateral and multilateral agencies. After graduating with an MPH in Global Health from the University of Washington, Meghan spent two years in Peru as a Fulbright-Fogarty KUSKAYA Fellow conducting research on early childhood development. She’s particularly passionate about improving the health and wellness of families and children. Meghan has a BA in English from Rice University. She’s a Sacramento native who in her spare time enjoys weekend trips to Tahoe, soccer, pretending she’s on the Great British Bake Off, and pilates.
Smruti Shah, MPH
Deputy Director
Smruti joined Health Outreach Partners as a Program Director in August 2023 and mainly works on supporting HOP’s HRSA funded programs and organizational evaluation strategy. Prior to joining HOP, her work with Coaction Institute focused on capacity building for organizations focused on improving population health, including community health centers. As a consultant with Biel Consulting she worked with hospital stakeholders to identify gaps in community benefit programs across a large Texas health system. From 2012-21, Smruti lived in India where she co founded Lighthouse Health Solutions, a public health consulting company that provided technical support to foundations, NGOs, and health research organizations focused on maternal child health in and around Delhi. Prior to moving to India, Smruti worked at Public Health Institute where she was part of the Advancing the State of the Art in Community Benefit (ASACB) demonstration project which was aimed at developing best practices in tax exempt hospital community benefit programs. Her international experience includes stints in El Salvador and Gujarat, India as a qualitative researcher addressing inequities in maternal/child health service delivery. Smruti earned her MPH in International Health and Development from Tulane University School of Public Health. In her free time, Smruti enjoys listening to pop music, adding to her cookbook collection (already at 75!) and travelling with her family to beautiful destinations, both local and far-flung.
Sonia Lee, MPH
Program Director, Client Services and Grants
Sonia is the Program Director of Client Services and Grants at HOP, where she provides support to health centers and other community-based organizations on strengthening their capacity to deliver care and other services using a health equity lens. She has spearheaded the organization’s work on structural competency and continues to work to expand HOP’s efforts to advance social justice in health. As part of HOP’s leadership team, Sonia also manages client services and provides strategic direction to the organization’s health equity efforts. Prior to joining HOP, Sonia was a 2010 Leland International Hunger Fellow at the Congressional Hunger Center. Through the two-year fellowship, she spent a field year in Uganda working with a local human rights group and a policy year in Washington, DC as a technical advisor in health and human development for a Haitian NGO. From 1997-2004, Sonia served as the Director of Programs for Fonkoze, a grassroots microfinance institution in Haiti, where she was responsible for implementing various social and economic initiatives for rural women and their families. Previously, Sonia was a Program Coordinator for violence prevention at Prevention Institute and a Reality Tours Coordinator at Global Exchange. Born and raised in San Francisco, Sonia holds an MPH in Global Health from Yale University and a BA in Politics from Mount Holyoke College, and is fluent in Haitian Creole. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and dance classes, watching videos of baby donkeys, trying to meditate, and listening to way too much K-pop.
Nadeen Mekhael, RDN, MPH
Program Manager
Interns
For current internship opportunities and a feature on past interns, check out our Internships page!
Christabel Akwetey
Associate Project Manager Intern
Christabel Akwetey is a highly motivated person hailing from the vibrant and culturally rich nation of Ghana. She is a Student at San Jose State University majoring in Public Health with a concentration in Population Data Science. From her early years in Ghana, she has displayed an unwavering commitment to academic excellence and a desire to contribute positively to society. These qualities have only intensified as she embarked on her journey at San Jose State University. Her passion for public health issues and data-driven insights has been evident in her coursework, research, and extracurricular activities so far. She is open to learning new things and improving herself in order to have a positive impact anywhere she goes.