People

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

Wagahta Semere, MD

Fellowship Director

Dr. Wagahta Semere is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCSF and Primary Care Physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. She trained in Internal Medicine and completed a Chief Residency year at Yale New-Haven Hospital. She stayed at Yale to complete her health services research training through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. Dr. Semere’s research is focused on developing strategies that include harnessing technology to better engage racial/ethnic minority patients and their families in diabetes management. She is a UCSF John A.

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Champion Provider Fellowship Role: Fellowship Director; provision of content expertise for trainings, webinars, and work-in-progress sessions; technical assistance and support to Champion Providers.

Nancy Ma

Project Manager

Nancy Ma, MSW, is the Project Manager for the Champion Provider Fellowship in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. She works closely with Dr. Wagahta Semere to oversee all operations of the Champion Provider Fellowship. Prior to this role, she was the Project Manager for the UCSF Office of Research collaborating with multiple cross-functional teams on the Children’s Hospital Research Institute at Oakland integration project.

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Champion Provider Fellowship Role: Project coordination; coordinated outreach to Champion Provider Fellows and local health departments; meeting and webinar coordination and logistics; partnership engagement

Brown Miller Communications (BMC)

Muriel Bañares

Account Manager

A veteran communications expert specializing in consumer health education and multicultural communications, Muriel develops and manages integrated communications campaigns aimed at educating consumers, and changing and improving behaviors. She directs audience research, discerns areas of opportunity and crafts unique strategies to influence and educate specific audience segments. In many cases, this means addressing varying language and cultural issues among key populations and sub-populations.

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Champion Provider Fellowship Role: Strategic communications development; media training; outreach and technical to local health departments

Michael J. Miller

President

As president and founder of Brown·Miller Communications, Michael has worked to address public health and agricultural issues for over three decades. Through ongoing involvement and relationships with nonprofit foundations, government agencies and private industry, he is uniquely versed in the issues affecting a wide range of public health fields. Michael draws on his 40 years of public relations experience to translate the needs and news of his clients into messages, campaigns and materials that reach and stimulate the media, public and policymakers.

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Champion Provider Fellowship Role: Strategic communications development; media training; outreach and technical assistance to Local Health Departments