Conference Speakers
Eileen Wolfington
Eileen recruits and coaches minority women, immigrants and refugees to live in harmony with their mind, body and spirit. She has a passion for holistic wellness as evidenced by becoming a Yoga Instructor, a grief movement guide and an End of Life Planning Educator. Known as La Morena, Eileen is a presenter of traditional Mexican dance and culture. Eileen has a BA in General Business from the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater and a Master of Education in Adult Education from the University of Missouri – St. Louis.
Hasmik Chakaryan
Hasmik has obtained her PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from the University of Toledo in 2013. Throughout her career, she has been actively involved in social justice and human rights activism and advocacy. She specializes in working with immigrant and refugee populations and also training mental health professionals in providing culturally competent services.
Geoffrey Soyiantet
Geoffrey Soyiantet is the founder, President and Executive director. He is a Kenyan native and has served as a community organizer in African immigrant community in St . Louis since 2007. He also served as a commissioner in Environment Quality Commission in the city of Florissant for a period of six years. As a committee member of St. Louis Mosaic Project, Geoffrey has worked tirelessly to promote immigrant entrepreneurs and community integration in St. Louis. He has background in Economics and holds a masters in MBA from Lindenwood University.
Angeles Ochoa-Raya
Angeles Ochoa-Raya graduated with Master of Social Work in 2020 from Washington University in Saint Louis. She is a child of Mexican immigrants. She focuses her work within mental health in immigrant communities. Angeles focuses on accompanying Youth and their families in their mental health journey through care coordination, therapy, and access to knowledge. In her current role she hopes to integrate clinical treatment approaches with culturally responsive and wellness-centered practices of healing.
Esma Karakas
Esma Karakas from Turkey and moved to the States 6 years ago. She has got her BA in International Human Rights and Gender Studies from Webster University. Most of her work in the community focuses on refugee and asylum seeker students' access to higher education, domestic violence in immigrant communities, and community building with first and second-generation Turkish-Americans. She provides a wide variety of services and advocacy to elderly immigrants.
Fahima Band Ali
Fahima Band Ali is a second-year student at Webster University majoring in Political Science and International Relations. She was born and raised in Kabul Afghanistan and moved to St. Louis MO in 2017. She is also active in advocating for the Afghan refugees arriving in St. Louis where she had multiple local news coverage and was awarded the Mary T Hall Honoree, Emerging Changemaker from the United Nations Association of St. Louis. She is deeply passionate about activism, law, human rights, and advocacy.
Luka Cai
Luka (they/them) is a trans-masculine, pansexual, Singaporean immigrant who co-founded SQSH to create a resource they wish they had. With 12+ years of background in community organizing, 5,000+ hours of experience in organizational management, and a BA in Political Science and Sociology, they effectively provide leadership and facilitation for SQSH’s operations.
Sindy Ivaturi
Speaker description coming soon.
Brian Barlay
Brian Barlay is a native from Sierra Leone, West Africa and an alumni from Saint Louis Community College- Meramec. At Meramec, he was the president of the International Club, cofounder/President Black Student in Education and Empowerment Club, Archer Peer Leader Dan was actively involved with TRIO Student Support Services and Student Activity Council. Brian is the founder and former president of Missouri Young African Professionals; Brian is a former strategic consultant for Vitendo4Africa; Community Research Consultant for Washington University; and an Engagement Manager for Claim Academy.
He is passionate about the African community in St. Louis and he hope for St. Louis to have a unique African presence through inclusion in art, music, food, and community involvement. Furthermore, he is passionate about creating new ways and being part of unconventional projects that seeks to elevate the African immigrants’ community for success and upward mobility. He draws his leadership styles and ideologies from the doctrines of Black consciousness, tenets from the late President Thomas Sanka, and the belief system of transformative leadership and compassionate leadership.
Elsie Despeignes
Speaker description coming soon.
Michael Kodjo Anani
Speaker description coming soon.
Muthoni Musangali
Dr. Muthoni Musangali is a member of the American Counseling Association (ACA), the Association for Counselor Educators and Supervisors (ACES), and the Association for Assessment in Counseling (AACE). She is a National Certified Counselor and a Licensed Professional Counselor. Dr. Musangali is the Principal Investigator for the Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Grant that was awarded to Webster's Department of Professional Counseling by the US Department of Health and Human Services (2021-2025). She has co-authored book chapters and articles related to counseling on an international level. She earned her Ph.D. in Counselor Education from the University of Central Florida. She holds a MA in Counseling from Heidelberg College and a B.Ed. (Arts) from Kenyatta University, Kenya.
Dr. Ricardy Pierre
Dr. Ricardy Pierre is the president of Acclimate International. He is a charismatic business leader who enjoys working with leaders and organizations providing coaching to help them reach their next level. Dr. Pierre holds his real estate license in the state of Missouri, he loves assisting his real estate clients and investors.
Dr. Pierre holds a doctorate degree in management and a master’s degree in information technology management. Dr. Pierre also enjoys teaching business courses and coaching doctoral students working on their dissertations.
Min Liu
Dr. Liu’s pronouns are she/her/hers. She is a faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her service work in the St. Louis Asian/Chinese American community has often centered around youth. She is the founder and advisor of a St. Louis AAPI youth initiative, called Asian American Civic Scholars. AAPI youth and mental health is an area of priority for AACS in 2021-2023.
Yuhan Sun
Yuhan is currently working with Dr. Liu on a series of AAPI focused mental health projects sponsored by STL based youth organization named Asian American Civic Scholars. She is also the president of Chinese Psychelogos(CP) at UW-Madison, an academic oriented student organization that promotes mental health awareness and student peer counseling.
Neha Navsaria
As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Navsaria has expertise in ethnic minority and immigrant mental health, cultural competency, and ethnic and racial socialization in families. She was the co-recipient of the 2011 Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) /American Psychological Foundation Okura Grant to fund a national parenting initiative that culminated in the creation of a resource book for South Asian parents of which she is co-editor. She believes that parents are the greatest social and emotional architects of childhood and enjoys helping parents navigate this role with their children.
Kris Walentik
Kristine Walentik is the Immigration Managing Attorney at St. Francis Community Services, Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry. She joined St. Francis in September 2011 after completing her Juris Doctorate and Masters in Public Policy from the University of Denver. Her focus is primarily on representing Latino clients in removal proceedings, specifically unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers, as well as assisting applicants of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. In addition to practicing law, Ms. Walentik is an adjunct professor at St. Louis University School of Law teaching a course on Removal Defense. She frequently speaks to immigrant and community groups and provides Know Your Rights presentations. Ms. Walentik is a member of the St. Louis Immigrant Service Providers Network, the Archdiocese of St. Louis Immigration Task Force, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Sara John
After serving as IFCLA's Board President, Sara John (she/her) transitioned into her current role as Executive Director (formerly titled Program Coordinator) in the summer of 2016. Sara has been with IFCLA for nearly 15 years, since she was a student at Saint Louis University, where she received a Bachelor's degree in Spanish and International Studies. She also studied at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in Latin American Studies with an emphasis on the US-Mexico Border. Sara's graduate research centered on migrants that disappear on their journey to the US. She has lived in and traveled throughout Southern Mexico. Sara has extensive professional background working for migration justice and speaks fluent Spanish. Frequently, her 6-year-old son, Alexander, participates in IFCLA's activities as one of our youngest activists!
Nicole Cortes
Nicole T.S. Cortés is a Co-Director and attorney at the Migrant and Immigrant Community Action (MICA) Project. She founded the organization with a law school classmate, Jessica Mayo. Nicole is fluent in Spanish and works with clients on a wide variety of immigration law matters including deportation defense, asylum, and other humanitarian relief. She heads the MICA Project’s outreach efforts to the Latino community in the form of educational presentations and workshops.
Nicole graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in May 2012 with a Masters of Social Work and her J.D. She has experience working with community partners, coalition building, community outreach, and program coordination and evaluation. She is experienced at addressing the non-legal needs of her clients in the context of immigration law. Nicole is passionate about challenging and dismantling systems of oppression and working alongside her clients in their journeys towards justice.
Julia Macias
Dr. Julia Macias serves as Associate Dean of the Office of Scholar Programs, home of the university’s signature merit scholars programs: the Danforth Scholars Program, the Ervin Scholars Program and the Rodriguez Program. Her area of focus within Student Affairs is diversity, inclusion, equity and student support. Julia served as the Vice Chair for the Chancellor’s Commission on Diversity and Inclusion, leading to several large-scale changes including the creation of the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Equity, and the Academy for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. During her time at the university, Julia co-founded the Campus Diversity Collaborative, Latino Link, the Latino Staff Affinity group.
Alisson Morales
Speaker description coming soon.
Ivonne Ramirez
Speaker description coming soon.
Belem Gomez Cruz
Speaker description coming soon.
Nancy Spargo
Ms. Spargo’s commitment to mitigating the impact of trauma and working to strengthen families as well as their communities has led her to serve a variety of clients, including immigrants and refugees, foster and adoptive families, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations, and the homeless. Fluent in Spanish, Ms. Spargo currently provides psychosocial evaluations and expert testimony within the federal court system for Latinx individuals and families involved with the immigration system with the goal of supporting family permanency.
Enisa Pehlic Schink
Enisa Schink was born in Bosnia and immigrated to the US 24 years ago. She has been working at Nurses for Newborns for 12 years. She has served in the field as a Community Health Worker, in the office as an intake coordinator and now as the Community Health Worker Supervisor. She is driven by both her passion for helping others and by the impact her team makes in the communities they serve. Enisa holds Community Health Worker credentials through the State of Missouri and is a certified medical interpreter. Enisa is married and has 3 children. In her free time, she enjoys baking and spending time with her family and friends.
Kim Thuy Seelinger
Kim Thuy Seelinger directs the Center for Human Rights, Gender and Migration ad Washington University, where she is also a Research Associate Professor at the Brown School and a Visiting Professor at the School of Law. She is an international expert on refugee rights and protection from gender-based violence in forced displacement and armed conflict. Seelinger was an advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and currently serves as the Special Adviser to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor in the Hague. She started her legal career working in New York City, defending low-income immigrants from deportation in the immediate wake of 9/11 and then specialized in gender asylum at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies in San Francisco. Seelinger taught at UC Berkeley for nearly a decade before moving to WashU in 2019. She is a graduate of NYU School of Law and an active member of the NY bar.
Chris Prater
Chris Prater is a primary care physician with a focus on refugee and immigrant health, and currently sees patients at Affinia Healthcare. Since completing his training, he has worked in community health centers, delivering primary care to a largely foreign-born population. He also serves as the tuberculosis physician for the City of St. Louis Department of Health. His research interest includes community-engaged research and health disparities in maternal and child health.
Anne Trolard
Anne Trolard is a staff scientist at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. She has an undergraduate degree in English Literature, and a Master’s Degree in Public Health. Her work centers on regional data sharing initiatives, public health surveillance, and community-academic research partnerships across a number of issues including sexual health and violence prevention.
Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis, MD, MPH
Dr. Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis, MD, MPH, is the Director of Health for the City of St. Louis. Dr. Hlatshwayo Davis received her medical degree from Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and a Master’s in Public Health Degree from Case Western Reserve University. She completed her internal medicine residency at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. She went on to complete her Infectious Diseases fellowship at the Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM), also completing a one year dedicated non-ACGME HIV fellowship and a two-year dedicated Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) fellowship.
Dr. Hlatshwayo Davis’s career passions include community engagement, the care of people living with HIV and the impact of COVID-19 infection in marginalized populations. She was the co-PI (principal investigator) for a study comparing the impacts of COVID-19 on HIV between St. Louis, Missouri and Sao, Paulo, Brazil. She was also the clinical co-lead for a regional COVID-19 Population Prevalence grant where she brought her expertise in Infectious Diseases and roots in the community to write protocols for the management of COVID-19 positive individuals, design a program to provide wrap-around services to those in need and manage a workforce around this clinical response effort.
Rita Chang
Rita Chang is a first-generation Taiwanese-American from St. Louis, MO. Rita graduated from Beloit College in 2018 with a B.A. in sociology. She has participated in research about community-based learning practices in higher education and meaningful and memorable learning experiences of first-year college students. Her academic and professional interests are in social movements, human rights, immigration, and education. Rita has studied at US/Mexico border, learning about bi-national organizations that serve groups on both sides of the border, an experience that has been funded by the Weissberg Foundation Program in Human Rights and Social Justice. Rita is passionate about challenging systems of oppression and changing the narrative about immigrants and refugees in Missouri.
Poli Rijos
Poli Rijos, MSW, LCSW, is the Co-Director of Community Activation at Alive and Well Communities. Poli moved from Puerto Rico to St. Louis in 1999 to attend Washington University in St. Louis where she received both her undergraduate and master’s degrees. Her experience as a Behavioral Health Consultant, Medical Social Worker, and Health Educator has provided her with a solid background in the development of community engagement strategies as well as health and wellness programming. Recently, she worked at Washington University as the Center Manager for the Center for Community Health Partnership and Research and the lead for the Gun Violence Initiative at their Institute for Public Health. Poli is a proud member of St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission, the Immigrant Service Providers Network, and the St. Louis Regional Suicide Prevention Coalition.
Julia Uyttewaal
Ms. Julia Uyttewaal is the lead researcher and Center Manager for the Center for Human Rights, Gender and Migration at Washington University in St. Louis. Her current research centers on refugee and migrant protection from sexual and gender-based violence in the Americas region. For that work, she has co-authored several UNHCR research publications and supported national policy-makers’ and civil society organizations’ efforts to implement recommendations related to gender-based violence disclosure barriers among migrants and refugees in Mexico. She has also conducted qualitative research for recent studies led by the Center for Human Rights, Gender and Migration, including one on the impacts of COVID-19 on immigrant communities and service providers in St. Louis and a second on access to refugee protection in North Africa's mixed movement context. Previous work has focused more broadly on questions of gender and racial equity, refugee rights, and international development. Uyttewaal was previously a researcher for the Sexual Violence Program at UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center (2017-2019) and earned a Master’s degree in International Development from Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs.