Our Team

---

Karin (Board Treasurer) is a Senior Research Analyst in North Carolina, with professional experience in business, economic development, pharmaceutical, health, and agricultural information research. In her full-time role at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, she tracks the outcomes of grant programs and conducts market research and competitive intelligence for start-up entrepreneurs.  Karin has a dual M.S. in Crop Science and Botany from NC State University and a Masters in Library Science from North Carolina Central University. She serves on the Alumni and Friends Society Advisory Board at NC State and previously served in volunteer leadership roles for both the North Carolina Chapter and the Food, Agriculture and Nutrition Division of the Special Libraries Association, and at International Focus Inc, where she was recognized as 2012 Volunteer of the Year. She also chairs her church leadership board. In her free time, Karin enjoys walking her rescue greyhound, and is making slow but steady progress towards the goal of reading a book from every country in the world.  

Beth (Board Secretary) lives in Virginia, where she heads the study abroad program at Eastern Mennonite University.  Until recently, Beth lived in Nairobi, Kenya, where she and her husband directed the Kenya office of Mennonite Central Committee (mcc.org), an international NGO working in health, livelihoods, education, agriculture, and peacebuilding. Beth previously worked as the MCC global Health Coordinator, supporting health projects in 57 countries, including providing technical advisory support to MCC Maternal and Child Health programs in Kenya, Somaliland, Tanzania and Burkina Faso, and other health and trauma healing programs around the world.  Beth’s prior experience includes serving as Director of Clinical Health Services at Hope Within Community Health Center; founder and board president of River of Life Health Center; Catalyst for a Response to HIV/AIDS with Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM); staff nurse at Hershey Medical Center; and community development worker in Kenya with EMM. She is an adjunct professor of Nursing at Eastern Mennonite University.  Beth and her family have lived in Kinshasa, DRC (1984-1985), Kenya (1989-2001) and Bukavu, DRC (2016-2018) and back in Kenya (2018-present).  Beth has expertise in health programming in the areas of HIV/AIDS, sexual & gender-based violence, trauma, and public health, especially for underserved populations. She earned her MSN & PhD from Widener University in Public Health Nursing and Nursing Science & Research and her undergraduate nursing degree from Eastern Mennonite University. Outside of work, Beth loves spoiling her grandchildren. 

Janelle has more than twenty years of social work experience, with expertise in mental illness, trauma, addictions, international health, child protection, women’s empowerment, immigration, disaster response, and poverty alleviation. She completed her undergraduate social work degree at Eastern Mennonite University, her Master’s in Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University, and graduate coursework in Public Health at the University of London. She is dually-licensed as a Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and serves as a clinical supervisor in both states.

Janelle has worked in international development, international health, maternal and child health, and disaster response, supporting projects impacting more than fifteen countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North America and the Caribbean. She served for three years as Clinical Programs Director for Health Horizons International in the Dominican Republic where, in partnership with the National Ministry of Public Health, she co-initiated the first province-wide healthy living program and medical system capacity building plan to improve outcomes for Dominicans with diabetes and co-occurring diseases. Janelle has provided leadership in grants management for programs funded by USAID and the European Union. She teaches about global health as adjunct faculty at Eastern Mennonite University.

 As Director of We Rise Int'l, Janelle splits her time between our headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, her home office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and our international field office in Montellano, Dominican Republic. 

Tresor Medju is a public health educator and special education instructor who is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He previously lived in a refugee camp in Uganda and served there in a program responding to the health, education and shelter needs of children orphaned by war and HIV. In the U.S. he has worked for AmeriCorps ACCESS and World Relief Durham as a health specialist, improving health outcomes for refugees and immigrants in North Carolina. Tresor spent several years coordinating the Centers for Disease Prevention One and Only and Antibiotics ResistanceCampaigns in Raleigh, through the North Carolina Division of Public Health. He previously conducted research on HIV incidence and treatment outcomes in the NC prison population, and has recently accepted a special education position in the Wake County Public Schools. Tresor speaks six languages including five languages of Africa. He holds a Master’s in Public Health degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a Master’s of Arts in Special Education from NC State University.  

Doctor Rosalba Santana is an Internal Medicine Physician originally from the Dominican Republic. She currently works as a House Physician at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, in Brooklyn, New York.  Dr. Santana completed medical school at Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra, and her Internal Medicine residency at Hospital Regional Universitario Jose Maria Cabral y Baez, in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Dr. Santana is passionate about internal medicine, particularly targeting chronic illnesses. She notes that “chronic Illnesses are one of the leading causes of death around the world, and yet they are preventable. So, by helping people learn to modify their risks we can give them a better quality of life.”  

Selena McCoy Carpenter is the Engagement Liaison for the Engagement Core of the All of Us Research Program, housed at the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville, Tennessee. She previously served as co-country director in Kenya for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), an international NGO working in development, peacebuilding and disaster response. As co-country director she oversaw funding and provided technical support in project planning, management, and monitoring and evaluation, to Kenyan partner organizations implementing projects focused on maternal and child health, HIV prevention, food security and agriculture, sustainable livelihoods development, education, and disaster response. Prior to her work in Kenya, Selena worked in Nashville as a Research Coordinator in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, and in both Pediatric Neurology and on an NIH-funded pediatric obesity prevention study. Selena holds a BS in Special Education, with a focus on behavioral disorders from the College of Charleston and a Master’s in Education in Health Promotion and Behavior from the University of Georgia. Her earlier professional experience includes teaching, and working in Haiti on a disease elimination project  targeting lymphatic filariasis.

 Edith Rodriguez Melendez RN, BSN, MHSA  

Edith Rodriguez Melendez hails from Puerto Rico where she works as a nurse in the emergency department at Javier Anton Hospital in San Juan. She earned her Bachelor’s degree and RN in nursing from the University of Puerto Rico, and her Master’s Degree in Health System Administration (MHSA) from Metropolitan University Bayamon Campus.

Edith has served in international health in medical clinics and hospitals in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and India, treating women, children and patients with HIV and Leprosy. She subsequently served in Nigeria with Mennonite Central Committee, working as a labor and delivery nurse in the HIV and high-risk pregnancies department at Faith Alive Hospital in Jos, Nigeria.