Staff

Margaret Lynn Yonekura, MD, is Executive Director of LA Best Babies Network, an organization dedicated to improving pregnancy and birth outcomes in Los Angeles County. As a strategic partner of First 5 LA, the Network oversees the design and coordination of the Healthy Births Initiative, a $28 million effort of First 5 L.A. In addition to leading LA Best Babies Network, Dr. Yonekura is Director of Community Benefits for California Hospital Medical Center, and Executive Director of Hope Street Family Center. HSFC’s innovative programs optimize and enhance child development, and strengthen family stability and economic self-sufficiency. Dr. Yonekura is an Associate Professor of Clinical Ob-Gyn of both USC and UCLA Schools of Medicine, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, with a research focus in infectious diseases in Ob-Gyn and perinatal substance abuse. She continues to oversee Options for Recovery: Harbor-South Bay, the comprehensive perinatal substance abuse treatment program she established over 20 years ago at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She also teaches Ob-Gyn residents and Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellows at Harbor-UCLA. Over the course of her career, Dr. Yonekura has received numerous awards for teaching excellence and has been recognized at the local, state and national levels for her service to the community and for the programs that she directs. Dr. Yonekura serves on the Los Angeles County Women’s Health Policy Council, the Board of Trustees of Pomona College, and the Good Hope Medical Foundation.

Carolina Reyes, MD, the Principal Investigator for LA Best Babies Network, is a perinatologist, educator, and advocate for maternal and child heath. As executive director of LA Best Babies Network, from 2005 to 2009, Dr. Reyes led the development and implementation of the First 5 LA Healthy Births Initiative, designed to improve pregnancy and birth outcomes in Los Angeles County. She also led the design of a universal perinatal home visitation pilot for First 5 LA. Dr. Reyes is Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. She was appointed as a Senior Scholar with the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and received an AHRQ Director’s Team Award for developing a health services research agenda on intimate partner violence. She has been appointed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Select Committee on Preconception Care and the California Pregnancy Associated Maternal Mortality Review Committee. Her past appointments include the U.S. Secretary of Health’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality. Dr. Reyes served on the Institute of Medicine Committee studying “Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethic Disparities in Health Care.” Most recently, Dr. Reyes was a member of the California Community Foundation Board of Directors and the California Hospital Medical Center Community Board. She has earned numerous awards in recognition of her professional and community service, including the Los Angeles Medical Women’s Association, LA County Board of Supervisors, California/Latino Medical Association, National Medical Fellowship Distinguished Alumni Award, and the National Hispanic Scholarship Leadership Award.

Janice French, CNM, MS, is the Director of Programs for LA Best Babies Network. Ms. French has a long history of working clinically as a nurse-midwife and as a researcher in the areas of women's health and preterm birth prevention. She is a nationally recognized speaker in the area of prevention of preterm birth. Ms. French is a past faculty member at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center School of Nursing, Nurse Midwifery faculty and School of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Her passion is to translate information from research into practice in order to help more women have healthy pregnancies, and have more babies be born healthy.

Robin E. Johnson, MD, MPH, FACOG, is the Family Engagement Program Director at LA Best Babies Network. A board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist, Dr. Johnson recently earned a MPH from UCLA. As a women’s healthcare consultant, Dr. Johnson developed women’s health programs, as well as managed care utilization review and quality of care issues. Dr. Johnson has more than 30 years of experience in the healthcare arena, including a career as a registered nurse. As a physician, she served as the co-director in several women’s health centers in the greater Los Angeles area, including Daniel Freeman Maternity Center and T.H.E. Clinic, Inc. Additionally, she served as an assistant professor and as an associate clinical professor at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Currently, she is a clinical associate professor at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

Deborah Munoz, MA, MBA, is the Director of Administration for LA Best Babies Network. Since joining the Network in 2005, Ms. Munoz has been responsible for ensuring that the organization operates at optimum levels, and is in compliance with all state and federal regulations, as they relate to the workplace. Ms. Munoz has committed the last 17 years of her professional career to working with several local agencies to ensure that disadvantaged families have a fighting chance at living the American Dream. Ms. Munoz has pursued academia in order to strengthen this voice, and is currently completing her doctoral dissertation on leadership development at DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of Management.

Lorena Wagner, BS, MBA is the Executive Coordinator to Dr. Lynn Yonekura and assists in the logistics and planning for all training and learning sessions held by LA Best Babies Network for the Healthy Births Care Quality Collaborative, Best Babies Collaboratives and Healthy Births Learning Collaboratives. She has been part of CHW-California Hospital Medical Center for the last 17 years, holding various positions at the Women’s Health Center, where among other achievements she designed, developed and implemented an electronic scheduling system. In 1996, she became the Administrative Assistant for the Midwifery Service, and in 2006 joined LA Best Babies Network. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Loyola Marymount University and her Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. She has dedicated her career to healthy families and babies, completing training in the Lamaze International Childbirth Program and initiating Doula training under DONA International.

Norfina C. Joves, BS,is the Family Engagement Program Administrative Assistant at LA Best Babies Network. She assists with coordinating the activities of the Family Engagement Program and the Welcome, Baby! pilot. She oversees dissemination of materials to trainers and recruiting speakers for events. Ms. Joves received her BS degree in biological sciences with a minor in psychology from Mount Saint Mary’s College. She has extensive administrative experience in a variety of organizations, including those that provide human resources consulting, early education, small business advocacy, outreach, civil rights legal services, and public health research programs. Ms. Joves has longstanding experience supporting top executive management. For six years, she was an analyst at the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also worked for LA Universal Preschool. As a professional tutor, Ms. Joves is also a member of the National Tutoring Association (NTA) and the California Mathematics Council (CMC).

Tonya Gorham, MSW, is Director of Policy for LA Best Babies Network. In this position, she coordinates all of the Network's policy and advocacy activities. Prior to joining the Network, Ms. Gorham worked in Government Affairs for a regional planning organization focused on transportation, housing, and environmental legislation. She has a Master's degree in social work, with a health concentration, from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor's degree in psychology from Stanford University. Having worked for many years providing direct service as a medical social worker and as a psychiatric social worker, with an emphasis on children and families, Ms. Gorham is thrilled to return her true passion, health and social service-related policy work. With a strong desire to impact the clients she served on a macro level, Ms. Gorham left direct service to pursue her interest in public policy. This interest led her to Sacramento where she worked as an executive fellow through the governor's office, for his Secretary of Health and Human Services, then to Washington, D.C., as a State Federal Relations Fellow with the California Institute for Federal Policy Research.

Monica Ochoa, MPH, is the Policy Research Associate for LA Best Babies Network. As part of a five-year project made possible by the First 5 LA Community Opportunities Fund, Ms. Ochoa is researching all aspects of perinatal depression in L.A. County, with the goal of increasing screening for perinatal depression through changes in policy and advocacy. Ms. Ochoa grew up in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, and later taught elementary school there. This inspires her personal commitment to this project, as she has witnessed firsthand how maternal depression affects mothers, families and children. At the Network, Ms. Ochoa oversaw the development and publication of the 2009 Landscape Report on Maternal Depression in Los Angeles County, and assisted in the planning of the first Los Angeles County Perinatal Depression Policy Roundtable, in November 2009. She holds a MPH in community health sciences from California State University, Long Beach. In addition to her work as an elementary school teacher for the LA Unified School District; Ms. Ochoa has been an evaluation associate for the health and wellness initiative at Los Angeles Universal Preschool; a health specialist at Lennox Middle School; and a program assistant with the COACH for Kids program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Mia Taylor is the Communications Specialist II for LA Best Babies Network, where she provides communications strategy and helps oversee creative services.

Susan Lindheim, MPP, is Communication Specialist I for LA Best Babies Network.  Her focus is on Web site and social media content and strategy as well as other integrated communications efforts. Ms. Lindheim holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.  Prior to joining the Network, she spent eight years as a consultant specializing in developing interactive training programs for high tech companies.  She also has experience in the non-profit sector, having worked as a Program Manager at a federally funded international non-profit organization, as well as in private sector, having spent five years in the entertainment industry doing research and business development for a variety of new media projects.  Additionally, Ms. Lindheim has edited several professional publications and has won awards for her own writing, including the UCLA Extension’s 2007 Kirkwood prize.

Namtasha Bunting, MA Ed., is the Family Engagement Technical Assistance and Research Associate for LA Best Babies Network. Ms. Bunting’s wide-ranging knowledge, skills, and experience include social advocacy, cross-cultural communication, and training in gender equality and social transformation. Prior to joining the Network, Ms. Bunting worked as a consultant for various local, national and international organizations in the areas of social advocacy and cross-cultural communication. She has developed key health messages for campaign strategies in areas such as education and women’s rights. Her most recent assignment, prior to joining the Network, was with the United Nations Women’s Fund to develop campaign messaging for women’s social and economic rights within the context of HIV/AIDS. Ms. Bunting has also worked as a special education educator with the Long Beach Unified School District.

Donna Ayala, EdD, MS Ed, is the Family Engagement Senior Research Analyst for LA Best Babies Network. Prior to joining the Network, Dr. Ayala worked at the University of Southern California (USC) where she researched the effects of cognitive readiness in a simulation, and the effects of learning strategies embedded within a traditional college math class. Dr. Ayala’s experience also involves many years of teaching students in kindergarten, high school and college. She is a lecturer at California State University, Los Angeles, under the Division of Child and Family Studies. Dr. Ayala received her Doctorate of Education in educational psychology and a Master of Science in education policy from USC.

Beiney Nercissian, BS, is the Care Quality Project Coordinator for LA Best Babies Network. She is committed to helping clinics belonging to the Healthy Births Care Quality Collaborative decrease their infant mortality rate, promote education, breastfeeding, and prevent alcohol and substance abuse. She is proud of the fact that the project has been successful in increasing maternal depression screening rates. Ms. Nercissian also works as the general manager for Dental Hygiene, Inc., serving long-term care facilities, and has worked with the Pacific West Health Disparities Collaborative for Diabetes and Hypertension programs, as a patient electronic care system coordinator, and as a case manager assistant for Queens Care Family Clinics. She developed and implemented the Electronic Medical Record system and worked closely as a team member of the Childhood Obesity pilot program, ENERGY, for Queens Care Family Clinics. She received her BS in health care administration from West Coast University.

Kenya Jordan is the LA Best Babies Network Operations Manager. Mrs. Jordan assists with maintaining financial records, planning events, and also provides administrative and technical support to the Network. Mrs. Jordan has more than 15 years of office experience, including managing a trucking company and owning a transportation brokerage company.  Mrs. Jordan also has extensive experience in facilitating collaboration in a corporate setting.