Our Team

Executive Co-Director, Operations 

Monica (she/her/hers) is a Latina that believes that it is critical to work across issues to create change in our communities. Monica’s passions include environmental, women’s, people of color, and LGBTQ issues. She feels extremely fortunate to pursue her passions for both people and the birds.  Monica believes in the power of of community and comes to Voices with years of experience in development and with deep commitments to uplifting the leadership and voices of Indigenous and communities of Color.  Before joining the team at Voices, Monica was at Headwaters Foundation for Justice for over 16 years where she oversaw grantmaking that supports organizations working for social, economic and racial justice issues.

Executive Co-Director, Communications

Gabriella Anaïs (she/her/hers) is an artist and cultural organizer, raised by mountains and ocean in Veracruz, México and later Milwaukee, WI. Her organizing is grounded in cultural strategy drawn from the healing circles of her childhood where she learned what it looks like to root community power in care, storytelling and food. Anaïs is also a writer who creates around the theme of ancestry, memory and home. In 2014 she started Border Voices to create space for performance poets of immigrant and refugee diasporas to use their art as an anchor for our collective healing. She loves spending time near the water, laughing with family and tending to her plants and garden.

Director of Research and Policy

Originally from San Francisco, Brett (he/him/his) graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science – International Relations. Following graduation, he spent nearly a decade working as an academic outreach coordinator for UCLA and UC Berkeley’s Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) before going back to school to earn a masters and a doctorate degree in education policy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Brett’s research focuses on holistic education in K-12 schools. He is interested in the education of the whole child and in how students define and practice their own learning. Brett loves to read, write, make music, study languages, travel, swim and ride his bicycle.

Director of Community Engagement

Julia (she/her/hers)  has led the Education Equity work at Voices since 2007, using a healing and racial justice lens. She has helped Districts and Schools use co-created tools that put students and parents in the center of equity solutions. The narratives that come out of this work are very powerful. She is a racial justice trainer and coach. Julia is a grandmother of ten and education is her passion, which she brings to her work coordinating shared learning opportunities for the Education Equity Parent Fellowship.

Racial Justice and Health Equity Organizer

Mónica (she/her/hers) grew up in Colombia, where she trained as a doctor of family medicine. From 2002-2013, she worked with Aqui Para Ti/ Here For You, a program funded by Eliminating Health Disparities Initiative. Since 2009, she has been one of the community members participating of efforts around health care data for equity in Minnesota. She is a 2011 graduate of the Voices for Racial Justice community organizing cohort. Mónica brings skills in policy, public health and community organizing to her work at Voices for Racial Justice.

 “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” (Lila Watson and her group)

Melissa (she/her/hers) brings her passion for social justice, economic empowerment, and climate equity to helping Voices increase our organizational capacity. Her communications and technical background paired with her in-depth experience in project management and operations have afforded her a well-rounded skill set. Her life approach is rooted in systems thinking, honoring the interconnection of all things. Raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Melissa is a proud Vietnamese-American with deep family values.

heather (she/her/hers) is from the Torrance and Gardena, California area, the home of the Kizh (keech) peoples. She spent her childhood with her Taishanese grandmother eating persimmons and learning about community through food, storytelling, and a good game of mahjong with the aunties. Heather‘s more recent work focuses on Asian and Black solidarity and coalition building movements, dismantling anti-Blackness within Asian communities, addressing hxstorical trauma and continued violence against Asian womxn/femmes/elders/youth throughout the COVID pandemic and beyond, and utilizing art as a method of continued intergenerational healing for queer and trans Black, Indigienous, People of Color. Heather finds joy in birdwatching, snuggling sprout and loon (her pups),  hiking for self-care, playing her ukulele, and spending time with her sister, and chosen family.