Governance and staff

Governance

CI:Now is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. The Board meets monthly and serves as the locus for overall strategic planning and progress measurement, branding and messaging for community relations, resource development, and fiscal stewardship. The current members of the Board are:

Maria Robledo Montecel, PhD (Chair)
Hisham Eid, Credit Human, a Federal Credit Union (Vice Chair)
Christopher Heiser, CPA, MBA, CentroMed (Secretary/Treasurer)
Mark Holliday, community member
Richard Milk, Opportunity Home San Antonio
Henrietta Muñoz, PhD, Texas A&M San Antonio Institute for School and Community Partnerships
Lloyd Potter, PhD, Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research, UT San Antonio
Anna Taranova, MD, University Health System

Steve Blanchard, PhD (Director Emeritus)
Pilar Oates, MA (Director Emeritus)
In memoriam: Mary Ellen Burns (Honorary Director)

Board meeting notices may be found here.

Staff

Danequa Forrest, PhD, Research Coordinator III

Danequa Forrest is a Research Coordinator III with Community Information Now. With a double major in psychology and sociology, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio with Honors, in three and a half years. Then she was awarded a full graduate assistantship at Louisiana State University where she earned her Master of Arts degree in sociology. In the Spring of 2021, she graduated with a PhD in sociology with double minors in Applied Statistics and African and African-American Studies. She is a mixed methods researcher with experience in quantitative and qualitative data analysis. She has many research interests, including health and race.

Cristina Martinez, MPH, Research Coordinator III

Cristina Martinez is a Research Coordinator III at Community Information Now with experience in community outreach, program evaluation, and data management. She joined CI:Now in 2020 after working in community-based research at UT Health San Antonio and UTSA. Born and raised on the Texas border, Cristina is excited to be part of data democratization and using data to create equitable communities in San Antonio and surrounding areas. Cristina has a background in Nutrition and Public Health and is currently a doctoral candidate in Applied Demography at UTSA.

Laura McKieran, DrPH, Executive Director

Laura McKieran is Executive Director of CI:Now and an Associate Professor of Management, Policy, and Community Health at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health in San Antonio. She earned her Doctor of Public Health degree in 1998 from the UTHSCH-Houston School of Public Health, focusing on community involvement in health care planning and service systems. In 1998 she joined the United Way of America in Alexandria, Virginia, working in the area of program- and community-level outcome measurement. She later moved to the New York Academy of Medicine, where she provided technical assistance to communities working to broaden community participation in health-related decisionmaking. Between 2001 and 2008 she held various positions in planning, evaluation, health informatics, and grants management at CentroMed, a large Federally Qualified Health Center in San Antonio. She came to CI:Now in 2010 after launching an independent consulting practice to assist nonprofits and health care organizations with community assessment, planning and evaluation, systems change, and development. In addition to overall direction, she brings particular expertise in health, performance improvement, and outcome-focused planning and measurement. She served on the Executive Committee of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership from 2016 to 2019 and won the Network Steward Award in 2021.

Jeanette Parra, Training Specialist II

Jeanette Parra is a Training Specialist II with Community Information Now. The daughter of immigrants, Jeanette Parra stepped up as translator and advocate for her parents at a young age. Navigating language and cultural barriers with her parents inspired her to do the same for her community. As a Training Specialist with CI:Now since 2022, she aims to inspire community members to use data to create positive change. Before joining CI:Now, Jeanette served on the San Antonio COVID-19 Response Team as a Contact Tracer, Team Lead and Program Trainer. Jeanette was trained as a Sociologist at Hamilton College and shortly after graduation, she served as a Resident Care Coordinator at an assisted living and memory care facility. More recently, she was certified as a Community Health Worker (CHW) in the state of Texas. Driven by a positive attitude, she takes pride in advocating for others and looks forward to fostering a stronger connection with the community.

Jeremy Pyne, MPA, Project Manager

Jeremy Pyne is the Project Manager at Community Information Now, overseeing all aspects of day-to-day operations. He joined CI:Now in 2018 with over a decade of experience managing and supporting community based research projects including local indicator reports, online dashboards and interactive mapping tools with the focus to support equitable community change. In this work Jeremy also designed and facilitated community data training sessions and presented to local stakeholders to promote awareness and knowledge around available community data resources. He brings expertise in Geographic Information Systems, demographic mapping, project management, data analysis and data processing. Jeremy earned his Master of Public Administration degree (MPA) with a focus on Urban and Regional Affairs and a B.S. in Geography both from Grand Valley State University. He is co-author of a book on state in-migration/out-migration patterns and a journal article on teaching ethics in public administration using film. Prior to joining CI:Now, Jeremy was the GIS Manager at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy’s Community Research Institute in West Michigan and taught courses at Grand Valley State University on GIS in the Public Sector and Ethics in Public Administration.

Natalia Rodriguez, MPH, Research Coordinator II

Natalia Rodriguez is a Research Coordinator II at Community Information Now, joining the team in 2023. She has over five years of experience managing and coordinating community-based research projects in South Texas that address chronic illness and outcomes in vulnerable populations with expertise in community outreach, data management and program evaluation. Natalia has her Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology and is currently a doctoral student in Community Health Practice at the UTHealth School of Public Health at San Antonio. Her research interests include chronic disease management, health disparities, community-based participatory research, and translational science.

Jef Waltman, Independent Consultant

Although not on staff with CI:Now, Jef has been a frequent collaborator on a wide range of CI:Now’s projects since 2015, serving in a variety of technical roles depending on what’s needed for a particular project to use data and technology to address civic problems and opportunities. These roles have to date included Agile coaching and execution, data system design and implementation, software and systems development, and technology management. He is developer of the ACS Sidekick tool that makes query and processing of Census ACS 5-year estimates much faster and easier.