About Us
Leadership
o Staff Members
o Board of Directors
o Interns & Volunteers
As a peer-based organization, Access understands what lack of access to reproductive options and quality health care really means for women's lives. Our board, staff and interns include women with first-hand experience seeking birth control as low-income women without insurance; navigating the health care system as immigrants with limited English skills; raising children as single mothers; and having legal and illegal abortions. Access direct services and campaigns grow out of our collective experiences and are designed by and for women just like us.
Staff Members
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Erika Scott, Executive Director
Erika joined ACCESS in April 2010 and is responsible for the organizations’ management, fundraising, administration and strategic visioning. Erika comes to ACCESS from a career as an attorney in civil rights law and has a long-standing dedication to reproductive justice. Erika has served as a legal advocate on behalf of women and low-income individuals in the area of workers’ civil rights, including sexual harassment and wrongful termination actions. Erika previously served on the Board of ACCESS and is the Internal Chair on the Executive Board of the Good Ol’ Girls, an organization of politically active and progressive women. Erika founded and chaired the Golden Gate University School of Law chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Justice and has served in various volunteer capacities for Planned Parenthood Golden Gate and NARAL Pro-Choice California. She received a B.A. in Women’s Studies from UC Santa Cruz and a J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law. Lisa Banh, Program Manager
Lisa manages the Reproductive Healthline, and is responsible for developing the Reproductive Justice in Action Program and coordinating ACCESS’s volunteer efforts. Lisa first joined ACCESS in October 2006 as an Intern when she was inspired by her immigrant mother, who has faced much adversity - hardships such as limited education and English skills, dependency on the welfare system to support her family of seven, as well as the loss of her son in Vietnam due to limited access to transportation for proper hospital care. Committed to social justice and youth empowerment, Lisa has volunteered to help provide low-income families with affordable housing, and has mentored youth in underserved communities. She received her B.S. in Nutritional Sciences with a concentration in Toxicology from UC Berkeley.-
Guadalupe M. Rodriguez, Program and Public Policy Director
Lupe oversees ACCESS's direct services, including the Reproductive Healthline and Community Action program, and develops ACCESS's policy advocacy campaigns. Lupe joined ACCESS in July 2006 after spending time abroad working for Salud Integral Para la Mujer, an organization dedicated to promoting and defending women's sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico City. She participated in the Latinas Empowered for Action advocacy leadership training, through California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, and is now a member of a statewide Latina leadership network. She is also a recent graduate of the Women's Policy Institute (2007-2008), a policy advocacy training fellowship program sponsored by the Women's Foundation of California. She most recently completed the SPIN Academy, a communications training retreat, created by the Communications Leadership Institute. Lupe received a B.A in biology from Harvard University.
Board Of Directors
Reichi Lee, Chair
Reichi Lee joined the Board of ACCESS in 2005 and served as Secretary for several years before assuming the position of Board Chair in 2009. Reichi is a Staff Attorney at East Bay Children’s Law Offices, a nonprofit law firm where she represents children in the foster care system in Alameda County. Reichi has taught various legal skills courses at Golden Gate University School of Law, Hastings College of Law, and San Francisco State University, Paralegal Studies Program. She served on the Board of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area from 2006 – 2009. In her free time, she enjoys teaching spinning and kickboxing and exploring new hikes in the East Bay with her husband, Dan, and her Border Collie mutt, Cody.-
Sara Mann, Secretary
Sara Mann is a licensed attorney in California. Currently she is Of Counsel at Hinman & Carmichael, a law firm in San Francisco that specializes in alcoholic beverage law. As a law student she was an editor of the UCLA Women's Law Journal and studied womens' legal issues, including reproductive rights jurisprudence. She has worked the front lines on a suicide prevention hotline, as an intern at the ACLU, and tutoring in inner city public schools. -
Sheila Bapat
Sheila Bapat is an attorney with extensive background in reproductive justice and women's rights work. As a law student at the University of Pennsylvania, she served as president of the board of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. Bapat also wrote about the effects of publicly financed campaigns on women’s elections, and her piece was published in PolicyMatters, a journal of the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. Bapat is currently working on a national gender parity in politics campaign, and in her spare time enjoys reading Vanity Fair and attempting to play her six-string acoustic. -
Zoe Harte
Zoe serves as the chief of staff for Global Customer Care at Yahoo! Inc. She has her MA in Feminist Philosophy and has worked as a clinic escort in Indianapolis; a hotline counselor for battered and substance-abusing women; and, a sexual assault survivor's advocate. Kim Irish
Kim Irish works as the Program Manager of Breast Cancer Action, where she oversees the organization’s programs and program-based campaigns, and fosters and builds BCA’s grassroots activities and national presence. Kim earned a J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law and Bachelor of Arts degrees in comparative literature and Spanish from the University of California, Davis. She was a 2008-2009 fellow with the Women’s Policy Institute of California, and is a 2010-2011 fellow with the Reach the Decision Makers Training Program, which is a project of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment. Kim also serves on the board of directors of Human Rights Advocates and the Good Ol' Girls.Jerrie Meadows
Now "retired", Jerrie worked for trade unions most of her life, as well as the Johnson poverty program and various civil rights and anti-war organizations. She has also worked as staff and more recently as a volunteer in local and national political campaigns. Jerrie also served on the board of CARAL for more than 20 years and the board of the National Women's Political Caucus-Alameda North for 25 years. She participated in clinic escorting for many years and now helps to coordinate a group of clinic escorts in the East Bay.-
Silvia Estrada Murillo
Silvia graduated with a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 2008 with a major in Gender & Women's Studies and a minor in Education. Her focus was on public health and reproductive technologies. Silvia was an intern with ACCESS for 2 years during school and absolutely loved that it allowed her to see theory in action. She is now working with Planned Parenthood on the clinic floor. She continues working around reproductive health issues and health issues in general. -
Shailushi Baxi Ritchie
Shailushi is founder and lead consultant of Nonprofit Writing Solutions, a firm dedicated to meeting the written communications needs of public benefit agencies. She has more than a decade of experience on women.s issues including domestic violence, reproductive health, and other health and human service issues.
Interns & Volunteers
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Sierra Harris
Sierra Harris joined ACCESS in June 2010 as a Policy Advocacy Intern. After graduating with her BA in English and Women’s Studies at the University of Connecticut, Sierra moved to Boston to complete her MA in Women’s Health from Suffolk University. After graduating in December 2009, Sierra returned to the Bay Area to apply her expertise in women’s health in the social and reproductive justice movement. She has interned and worked at several other non-profit organizations including the Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention at the University of Connecticut, the Windham AIDS Program, and the local, environmental justice organization Breast Cancer Action. She is particularly interested in eliminating health inequities due to social injustices. She hopes to continue her career and policy work at women’s health non- profits that have a social justice perspective and work to empower communities of color, young women, immigrant women, and queer women. -
Annie Rigelhaupt
Annie Rigelhaupt, an Oakland native, is an intern looking to empower women and immigrants in their struggle for reproductive justice. She graduated from University of California San Diego with a Bachelor’s degree in Ethnic Studies. She has worked and volunteered with various local organizations promoting social justice, and reproductive health rights and education. In addition, she worked volunteering in Brazil to service and support people living with HIV and AIDS. Outside of ACCESS, she works as a bartender and is studying at U.C. Berkeley Extension towards a credential to teach English to speakers of other languages. Julia Reynolds
Julia Reynolds joined ACCESS in June 2010 as a Healthline intern. She has volunteered for various organizations invested in reproductive justice and health, including Planned Parenthood Golden Gate and NARAL Pro-Choice California, along with interning as a research assistant on an HIV project at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. Julia is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in anthropology at University of California Santa Cruz and will be graduating in June 2011 with the hopes of working with international NGO's focused on reproductive and sexual health education. She is interested in pursuing a career in the fields of reproductive rights and sexual health education in the United States and overseas.-
Mandy Smith
Mandy joined ACCESS in October 2009 as a Healthline Intern. A recent graduate from San Francisco State University's Women and Gender Studies department, she has worked with a number of organizations promoting reproductive rights. She is particularly interested in working to ensure economic, political, and social empowerment for all people through the advancement of reproductive justice. Among other things, she hopes to one day work with youth as a reproductive health educator.