Ashton Bierman, MS Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Leadership
Ashton Bierman currently serves as manager of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Care Initiatives, an Iowa-based long-term care company. In this role, Ashton oversees the DEI Council and partners with the vice president of the organization as well as human resources to develop and facilitate DEI training for their Senior Leadership team and the Company's 3000 employees. She also works with other organizational leadership to integrate DEI into the overall strategy and tie the initiatives to Care Initiatives’ core values.
“I look forward to furthering my work with Care Initiatives as well as branching out to provide consulting services to include internal surveys and analyses, one-on-one coaching, and education via workshops and immersive trainings.”
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Cynthia Gonzalez, MS Global Health
Cynthia Gonzalez currently works as a clinical trials specialist for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. After receiving her Master of Science in Global Health from UMB Graduate School, Cynthia has been working in Clinical Research for the past 14 years, first as a project manager for a veterinary health contract research organization and then as a lead clinical research coordinator for the Division of Oncology at Children's National Hospital.
“My hope was that by studying Global Health and Implementation and Dissemination Science, I would have the knowledge required to work on such large-scale health issues, ideally within a government agency. I am happy to say that I am now in a position with the National Institutes of Health that meets this goal.”
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Sophia Park, MS Health Science
CDR Sophia Park, PharmD, BCACP, RAC, is a board-certified pharmacist with over 12 years of clinical pharmacy and regulatory expertise. She currently serves as a program coordinator in the Division of User Fee Management in the Office of Management, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Sophia reviews requests for waivers, exemptions, and refunds of prescription drug user fees assessed under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Prior to the FDA, she spent six years as a clinical pharmacist in the Indian Health Service and as a retail pharmacist. Sophia is also a Commissioned Corps officer in the United States Public Health Service, where she has deployed multiple times in response to national public health emergencies, including hurricane Harvey/Irma/Florence responses in 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
“As the U.S. Public Health Service expanded to respond globally, such as to combat the Ebola virus in Africa and the coronavirus in Japan, I felt the need to expand my horizons. The courses such as "Perspectives on Global Health," "Health Responses to Mass Violence in Disaster," and "Communications and Leadership" were all perfect courses to help me achieve my goals.”
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