Food Security

Dr. Raman Verma has a private practice in Tulare County and is double board certified in Internal Medicine and Obesity Medicine. For many years his passion has been providing weight loss management and supporting overall healthy living for his patients. In addition to his clinical duties, he is a member and past-president of the Tulare County Medical Society. Prior to his private practice, he worked at a federally qualified health center in Tulare County.

Dr. Salvador Sandoval is a semi-retired family medicine physician who continues to precept for the local family medicine residency program in Merced. He also continues to provide visits to homebound patients and soon will be assuming the role of medical director for the respite clinic that serves recently discharged patients experiencing homelessness. Dr. Sandoval is a member of the California Physicians Alliance (CaPa) and Physician for a National Health Program.

Dr. Soe Maw is a pediatrician practicing at both a community hospital and Medi-Cal clinic. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Fresno, serving as chief resident and staying on as a community medicine fellow. Recently, she completed her master’s in public health (MPH) in epidemiology at UC Berkeley. While pursuing her MPH she interned with the Fresno County Department of Public Health where she worked on a project to inform a study on the county’s food deserts.

Dr. Pedro Moreno is a family medicine physician at the Alisal Health Center, a clinic of the Monterey County Health Department located in East Salinas. For over twenty years, he has served a predominately Latinx patient population, many of whom are farm workers from rural communities in Mexico and who speak only native dialects. He has developed relationships with many community organizations and initiated countless partnerships over the past two decades.

As a primary care pediatrician, Dr. DiPierro is devoted to community health and addressing the upstream causes of childhood obesity, prediabetes, and dyslipidemia. Since 2013 she has worked at Ravenswood Family Health Center (RFHC), an FQHC that serves mostly Latino and Tongan immigrants in East Palo Alto. Dr. DiPierro is eager to connect with the community in the same way she had during medical school at Brown University, and subsequent residency training at UC Davis. Time and again, the parents of Dr.

Dr. Afflalo was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She completed medical school at George Washington University in Washington, DC, followed by family medicine residency at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles. During her career Dr. Afflalo held several leadership positions, including Professional Staff President at Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) and Chief of the Family Medicine department at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego.

Dr. Shaw was born and raised in Calistoga (Napa County), where the local economy is based largely on agriculture and hospitality. Many of Dr. Shaw’s lifelong friends and neighbors were Latino immigrants. After receiving her medical degree at UC San Diego and doing residency in Ventura County, she returned to the Napa Valley to work at a community health center. Dr. Shaw continues to practice in the North Bay; her career is motivated by social justice and “small town values,” which include staying engaged and accountable to the community in which she lives. Since 2012, Dr.