THE UPSWING FUND - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center
- Member of the National Academy of Medicine
- White House Fellow
Angela Diaz, MD, PhD, MPH, is Dean of Global Health, Social Justice, and Human Rights, the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and a Professor in the Department of Global Health and Health Systems Design at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. After earning her medical degree at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, she completed a Master of Public Health from Harvard University and a PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University.
Dr. Diaz is the Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, a unique program that provides comprehensive, interdisciplinary, integrated primary care, sexual and reproductive health, mental health, optical and legal services to young people. Under her leadership, the Center has become one of the largest adolescent-specific health centers in the U.S., serving more than 12,000 young people every year - all at no cost to patients. The Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center is a major training site in the field of adolescent health and medicine, with research funded by NIH.
Dr. Diaz is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, where she has sat on its governing council, been a member of the Health and Medicine Division, and served as Chair of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, of which she is still a member. She is currently also Co-Chair of the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability and a member of the Policy and Global Affairs Division.
Dr. Diaz has been a White House Fellow, a member of the Food and Drug Administration Pediatric Advisory Committee, and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In 2003, Dr. Diaz chaired the National Advisory Committee on Children and Terrorism for the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Diaz is active in public policy and advocacy in the U.S. and has conducted many international health projects in Asia, Central and South America, Europe, and Africa. She is a frequent speaker at conferences throughout the country and around the world.
Anne Marie Albano (she/her/hers) is an author, cognitive-behavioral therapist, and full-time academic psychologist. Anne Marie Albano's research focuses on the development and testing of psychosocial treatments for anxiety and mood disorders and understanding the impact of these disorders on developing youth. As a professor of Medical Psychology in Psychiatry at Columbia University, founding director of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders and clinical site director of New York Presbyterian Hospital's Youth Anxiety Center, her work has influenced a myriad of cognitive behavioral treatment manuals.
Albano has also contributed to the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). She has served as principal investigator for multiple NIH funded studies examining the relative efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, medication, combination treatment and pill placebo in youth. Her book with Leslie Pepper, You and Your Anxious Child: Free Your Child from Fears and Worries and Create a Joyful Family Life, was a 2014 ABCT Self-Help Book Award winner and 2014 Self-Help Book Award winner from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Atlas Alvarez (they/he) is a 25-year-old non binary and transmasculine person. Atlas was born in El Centro, California and lived in their hometown, a border town known as Calexico, for 22 years until they moved away to North County San Diego to study Psychology as a transfer student. He lived, worked, and studied in North County San Diego for about a year and a half until the COVID-19 pandemic began to worsen and it became apparent that school would be online for some time. Atlas moved back to their hometown in the summer of 2020, where he finished his last three semesters of school through Zoom. Atlas graduated with a Bachelor's in Psychology in May 2021 and they are now looking forward to starting a two year MSW program in the upcoming fall at CSU Long Beach.
Dr. Benjamin F. Miller (he/him/his), PsyD is the former President of Well Being Trust who oversaw the implementation of the foundation's strategies, full portfolio of investments, and partnerships. Dr. Miller's previous role as Chief Strategy Officer of Well Being Trust ensured alignment across the foundation's grants, research, partnerships and policy recommendations.
A clinical psychologist by training, Dr. Miller is a nationally recognized mental health and policy expert who has worked to advance mental health throughout his career. He oversees the foundation's portfolio alignment across grantees, overall strategy and direction, and connection of the work to advance policy. Previous roles include being the founding director of the Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center in the Department of Family Medicine and the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Dr. Miller is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Stanford School of Medicine. He has published prolifically on the topic of mental health integration and public policy. He has been featured in CNN, NBC News, USA Today, NPR, PBS News Hour and many more.
Dr. Mark Long served as Director of The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health from May 2022 to May 2023. In this role, he oversaw efforts and endeavors to bring visibility to the mental health and well-being of youth of color and/or LGBTQ+ youth and address national gaps in adolescent mental health care and access.
Dr. Long's career to date has focused on work in social justice, social services, student affairs, and advocacy. He most recently served as Program Director at a South-Central Wisconsin community-based organization committed to equity and quality of life for LGBTQ+ people. Such focuses included community building, mental health, peer support, racial justice, and community events. In his role, he oversaw core programmatic activities and managed crisis management, peer counseling, homelessness prevention, financial assistance, and much more. Such programs included AODA, older adults, transgender support and LGBTQ+ homelessness prevention. His work is informed by firsthand lived experience of surviving trauma/abuse, his facilitation of cultural competency training, his work as a family case manager, a trauma-informed therapist, and as a student affairs professional in Milwaukee.
Dr. Long received his Doctorate in Social Work from Capella University in 2022. His capstone focused on developing an LGBTQ+ cultural resource guide for social workers and mental health professionals that practice in rural communities. The goal was to find better ways to assist social workers in practice with LGBTQ+ youth and adults due to the lack of mental health professionals and resources in rural communities of the Midwest.
Dr. Long received his Bachelor of Social Work/Human Services from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 2014 and a Master of Social Work, with a specialization in Leadership and Development Social Services, from Loyola University Chicago in 2017.
Dr. Long's pronouns are he/him/they/them. He resides in Wisconsin with his husband and three pets
As Founder and CEO of Panorama, Gabrielle Fitzgerald (she/her/hers) is responsible for oversight of The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health and provides strategic counsel on vision, strategy, communications, and stakeholder engagement. She also oversees the grantmaking process, from review of applications to the award of funds. Gabrielle has more than a decade of experience building high-impact grantmaking programs.
A global leader who believes innovative approaches and catalytic coalitions can solve the most challenging issues, Gabrielle leads dynamic teams and collaborates with partners to spark global change. Prior to founding Panorama, she directed the $100 million Ebola Program at the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, investing in creative approaches to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Gabrielle previously served as the director of Global Program Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading the team that advanced policy and advocacy agendas for the organization's global issues. In 2014, she won the Gold Medallion award from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs for her leadership on malaria. Gabrielle is the chair of American Friends of United for Global Mental Health and serves on numerous advisory committees and panels.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Partnerships
As Vice President, Partnerships, Jennifer (she/her/hers) leads Panorama's collaboration with philanthropists, philanthropic organizations, and strategic partners on diverse opportunities for impact.
Jennifer has more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit development with dynamic, high-impact organizations. Prior to joining Panorama, she served as director of development for two successive startup divisions of New York University, where over 9 years, she facilitated a number of complex fundraising projects to secure collaborative philanthropic and sponsored research commitments. Jennifer was previously part of the startup teams for Malaria No More and Millennium Promise/the Millennium Villages Project, where she managed multimillion-dollar fundraising campaigns and high-profile events for programs in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Her past experience includes leadership fundraising and management positions with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The CityKids Foundation, New York Cares, and Jersey Cares.
She is a graduate of Princeton University.
When she is not planning her next trip, Jennifer likes to take advantage of arts and culture offerings in and around New York City, where she lives.
Joseph (Joey) Martinez (he/they) is a clinical research assistant at the Center for Gender Surgery in the Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery at Boston Children's Hospital, working with Drs. Oren Ganor and Elizabeth Boskey. They received their B.S in Biology and Society, and Nutritional Sciences from Cornell University in 2021. He is interested in pursuing an MD/PhD, with his research interests being rooted in Social Epidemiology. He aims to push forward the current knowledge regarding how various systems inform health disparities afflicting gender and racial minorities.
Karissa Smith (they/them) is a recent graduate from Western Oregon University with a passion for conducting mix-method research on race-related and sexuality-related health disparities. They are also a violence prevention professional that specializes in supporting survivors of interpersonal violence. They plan to pursue an MPH and a Ph.D. in Psychology in the future, so they can help advance mental health care for diverse youth!
Ken Zimmerman (he/him/his), a noted policy maker, civil rights attorney, and philanthropist, is the co-founder of S2i, a mental health strategic initiative housed at the Jed Foundation, and Jared's Fund, a fellowship program for young people seeking end the stigma around mental illness created in memory of his son Jared. S2i is designed to strengthen promising collaboratives that contribute to the transformation of the mental health system and build on Ken's experience as a leader in government, philanthropy, and the non-profit sector.
Ken has a lengthy career in using different approaches to change systems to promote equity and inclusion. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow with NYU's Furman Center, a joint project of NYU's Law School and Wagner School of Public Service, where he is teaching and examining new forms of social advocacy and policy development in the urban environment. For the prior six years, Ken directed the Open Society Foundations' U.S. Programs and served as a co-director of the Open Society Policy Center, the foundations' advocacy arm, where he was responsible for over $100m a year in grant-making. In the course of his work at OSF, he built the foundation's core commitments related to democratic practice, criminal justice reform, full civic participation for immigrants and communities of color, and equitable economic growth.
Prior to joining Open Society, he was a litigation partner heading the pro bono practice group at Lowenstein Sandler PC, served on the presidential transition team for the Obama Administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development, and was chief counsel to New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine (2006-2008) when the state legislatively abolished the death penalty.
Madison McCall (she/her) is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar. Her research focuses on the design, dissemination, and evaluation of digital tools that advance mental health care delivery for underserved youth and their families. As an advocate for youth mental health equity, her work considers the structural and systemic barriers in research, practice, and policy that underlie mental health disparities. Madison earned her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia.
Job Titles:
- Board Director
- Founder
- Founding Director
- Health Strategist and Consultant
As Founding Director of The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health, Solomé (she/her/hers) was responsible for the overall vision and strategy and was the primary collaborator and liaison with the Fund's Advisors. She also served as a spokesperson and represented the Fund in engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders, including grantees, thought leaders, partners, and influencers.
Solomé Tibebu is a behavioral health strategist and consultant passionate about frontier technologies and solutions transforming mental health, equity and access. She works with PE funds, foundations, chronic disease companies, mental health startups, pharma, health plans and systems as a behavioral health technology subject matter expert.
Solomé's work has spanned behavioral health and human service consulting, venture capital, corporate development and various operating roles at behavioral health software companies large and small. Solome founded and ran a mental health tech startup and, as a former anxious teen, founded and ran the non-profit AnxietyInTeens.org for ten years. She is a board director or advisor to various adolescent and adult mental health organizations and for-profit companies, including CaringBridge, Columbia University Mind Ventures, Equip, Headstream, Hopelab, Made of Millions, the Telosity Fund and Violet.
Solomé is the founder and host of the Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech summit, the largest conference focused on virtual behavioral health. She is also the co-author of ReThink Behavioral Health Innovation, the source for digital behavioral health technology and startups. Solome's work as an investor, entrepreneur, non-profit consultant and behavioral health technology expert has been featured as a Harvard Business Review case study, TEDx Talk, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Inc Magazine, Upworthy, Psychology Today and more.
Solomé is a behavioral health strategist passionate about frontier technologies and solutions transforming mental health, equity and access. Previously, Solomé worked in behavioral health and human service consulting, venture capital, corporate development and various operating roles at behavioral health software companies large and small. Solomé founded and ran a mental health tech startup and, as a former anxious teen, founded and ran the non-profit AnxietyInTeens.org for ten years.
Solomé is a board director or advisor to various adolescent and adult mental health organizations and for-profit companies, including the Telosity adolescent mental wellbeing venture fund, Headstream youth mental health incubator, Hopelab, Made of Millions and CaringBridge. Solomé is the co-author of ReThink Behavioral Health Innovation, the source for digital behavioral health technology and startups.
Teresa Halliday (she/her/hers), MA serves as senior director of practice improvement at the National Council for Behavioral Health. Teresa possesses more than a decade of experience that spans community-based practice, academic research and nationally-focused settings, with particular interest in youth mental health and substance use issues. Her broad portfolio has included efforts in substance use prevention, HIV, health literacy and workforce research and implementation projects, and evidence-based and community defined practices in support of underserved and vulnerable populations. Teresa has also managed clinical behavioral research studies investigating contextual factors of addiction and withdrawal, including genetic, emotional, hormonal and pharmacological elements that may impact recovery. She currently directs the CONNECTED youth mental health initiative which, through the National Council and partner organizations, supports novel community-based approaches to increase access to mental health supports for diverse, underserved youth populations, with meaningful youth involvement at every stage. With a passion for combining research and practice, Teresa emphasizes cultural awareness and coalition building while working across barriers to achieve sustainable programs and understanding of interactions between mental, behavioral and physical health.