Staff

Leadership

Dr. Ann Barnes

President and Chief Executive Officer

Shao-Chee Sim, PhD, MPA

Executive Vice President for Health Policy, Research & Strategic Partnerships

Michael Waslh

Michael T. Walsh, Jr.

Vice President for Grants

Zahyrah Blakeney

Vice President for Community Engagement

832-658-2672
Email

Zahyrah is responsible for investigating and evaluating grant proposals and supporting Foundation initiatives through soliciting proposals, conducting due diligence, maintaining communications with stakeholders, and project management related to grantmaking.

Susybelle Gosslee

Susybelle Gosslee

Chief Administrative Officer

Brian Sasser

Brian Sasser

Chief Communications Officer

C.J. Eisenbarth Hager - Assistant Vice President for Innovation & Integration

C.J. Eisenbarth Hager

Assistant Vice President for Innovation & Integration

832-807-2589
Email

C.J. provides leadership, planning, and management of research projects in support of the Research Division’s goal of providing timely and relevant data and research to inform EHF’s work.

Staff

Loretta Aldape

Executive Assistant to the President and CEO, Ann Barnes
832-807-2568
Email

Loretta supports the President in administrative areas.

Sheryl Barmasse

Administrative Specialist
832-807-2588
Email

Sheryl provides administrative support for the President’s Office and is responsible for regular communication with the Board.

April Barnes

Director of Grants Management
832-807-2573
Email

April is responsible for overseeing the online grantmaking system and integrating its work with other EHF departments, and for monitoring all other grants management functions to ensure the overall high quality of all grants processes.

Willie Bennett

Senior Congregational Engagement Officer
832-807-2590
Email

Willie is responsible for developing and implementing EHF’s collaborative work with the congregations of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.

Troy Bush-DiDonato

Senior Community Engagement Officer
832-807-2563
Email

Troy implements EHF’s community engagement strategy through training and capacity building with community partners, grant partners and congregations.

Dale Dodds

Director of Finance
832-658-2664
Email

Dale assists with matters relating to the finances of the Foundation.

Jimmy Donelson III

Grants Manager
832-807-2577
Email

Jimmy manages EHF’s grants portfolio and oversees the grants management cycles.

Anne Eisner

Administrative Assistant, Engagement
832-658-2600
Email

Anne supports the Engagement team in administrative areas.

Claire Elestwani

Graphic/Data Visualization Designer
832-658-2606
Email

Claire creates and oversees data visualization, graphics, illustrations, and other design work across all of EHF’s divisions and initiatives.

Tanweer Kaleemullah

Director of Policy & Research
832-807-2579
Email

Tanweer is responsible for investigating and evaluating grant proposals and supporting Foundation initiatives through soliciting proposals, conducting due diligence, maintaining communications with stakeholders, and project management related to grantmaking.

Cindy Lucia

Senior Program Officer
832-658-2663
Email

Cindy is responsible for investigating and evaluating grant proposals and supporting Foundation initiatives through soliciting proposals, conducting due diligence, maintaining communications with stakeholders, and project management related to grantmaking.

Briana Martin

Research & Evaluation Associate
832-658-2665
Email

Briana provides project management and oversight of assignments in support of the Research and Evaluation projects. 

Lisa Mendoza

Grants Database Coordinator
832-807-2574
Email

Lisa is responsible for maintaining the accuracy and integrity of EHF’s grants database. In accordance with grant guidelines, she processes applicants’ inquiries regarding the online application process.

Jennifer Mineo, DrPH, LMSW

Director of Evaluation
832-658-2671
Email

Jennifer provides leadership, planning, and management of evaluation projects in support of the Research Division’s goal of providing timely and relevant data and research to inform EHF’s work.

Eric Moen

Senior Congregational Engagement Officer
832-807-2582
Email

Eric is responsible for developing and implementing EHF’s collaborative work with the congregations of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.

Roosevelt Neely

Community Partnerships Officer
832-658-2604
Email

Roosevelt is responsible for developing and implementing EHF’s capacity building strategies for strengthening community health.

Christy Serrano

Program Officer
832-807-2572
Email

Christy is responsible for investigating and evaluating grant proposals and supporting Foundation initiatives through soliciting proposals, conducting due diligence, maintaining communications with stakeholders, and project management related to grantmaking.

Laura Thewalt

Executive Assistant, Business and Communications
832-807-2578
Email

Laura supports the Business and Communication teams in administrative areas.

Melodee Toles

Congregational Engagement Officer & Equity Co-Lead
832-658-2662
Email

Melodee supports EHF’s collaborative work with congregations by developing resource materials and communications, and provides project management for the Congregational Engagement team.

Kirstie Valverde

Research Coordinator, Research and Evaluation
832-658-2672
Email

Kirstie provides administrative support the Research and Evaluation team.

Amy Willa

Research & Evaluation Associate
832-658-2566
Email

Amy provides project management and oversight of assignments in support of the Research and Evaluation projects. 

Aerial Williams

Administrative Assistant, Grants
832-807-2587
Email

Aerial supports the Grants team in administrative areas.

Ann Barnes

President and Chief Executive Officer

832.807.2568
Email

Dr. Ann Barnes is President and CEO of Episcopal Health Foundation. She joined EHF in October of 2022. Throughout her career, Ann has led innovative care solutions that go beyond the doctor’s office to tackle social, economic, and environmental drivers of health.

Most recently, Ann served as Senior Vice President and Chief Health Officer at Harris Health, the largest safety-net health system in Greater Houston. Ann was responsible for developing the system’s health equity strategy and also led the system’s efforts to improve population health, prevent disease, and address chronic conditions by integrating community resources that impact underlying, non-medical conditions like food security, safe places to exercise, poverty, and more.

Prior to Harris Health, she was Chief Medical Officer at Legacy Community Health, a large federally qualified health center system in Houston that serves more than 170,000 patients. Ann oversaw all clinic services and was instrumental in introducing the Health Leads model for patient health that focused on non-medical drivers of health.

She also served as the principal investigator for a National Institute of Health project that established a first-of-its-kind registry to understand factors that lead to successful weight loss maintenance in African Americans.

Ann is a proud native of Houston’s Fifth Ward and came back to work with Houston’s at-risk communities after graduating from Yale University and Harvard Medical School. She’s a board certified internist who completed her residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and also earned a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health.

Shao-Chee Sim, PhD, MPA

Executive Vice President for Health Policy, Research & Strategic Partnerships

832-807-2565
Email

Dr. Shao-Chee Sim is the Episcopal Health Foundation’s Executive Vice President for Health Policy, Research & Strategic Partnerships. He leads EHF’s work in health policy analysis, research, planning and pilot projects to advance the strategic plan of the Foundation. Current priority areas include statewide health policy public opinion surveys, managed care organizations (MCO) strategies to address non-medical drivers of health, multi-sectoral community health collaboratives, health center payment reform, rural health care service delivery, and more.

Shao-Chee joined EHF after more than 20 years of research, planning, and strategy experience within philanthropy, federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs) and nonprofits. Most recently, he was the chief strategy officer of the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center in New York City. Dr. Sim also assumed research leadership roles at the Wallace Foundation and the Asian American Federation.

He currently serves on the Board of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, National Rural Health Resource Center, on the advisory committee of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Value Based Payment and Quality Improvement Committee, and the Asian American Policy Review at Harvard’s JFK School of Government. 

Dr. Sim earned his Master’s degree in public administration from the JFK School of Government at Harvard University and a doctorate in public policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Michael T. Walsh, Jr.

Vice President for Grants

832-658-2672
Email

Michael T. Walsh, Jr. is EHF’s Vice President for Grants. He joined EHF in January 2024. Throughout his career, Michael has served as the principal architect for the vision, structure, financing, comprehensive evaluation, governance, and execution pathway for health equity, public health, health systems, global health, and social impact strategies spanning 22 years and 48 countries, including deep, in-country systems building and capacity strengthening in 20 countries and within 10 US states.

Michael has dedicated his entire professional career to building the systems underlying the achievement of good health and accelerating impact on populations experiencing disproportionate burden, regionally, nationally, and globally. Michael’s early career work in public health preparedness was followed by an 11-year tenure at Texas Children’s Hospital, where he was the founding director of Texas Children’s Global Health Initiative. In this capacity, he led strategic, financial, governance, and implementation portfolio in care delivery and health system capacity building spanning 10 clinical specialties and geographically focused in East Africa, West Africa, and South Africa as well as Central America and South America. This work included strategic leadership of an expansive portfolio public private partnerships with 18 foreign governments and was supported by complex interweaving of U.S federal funding streams, U.N. agencies, grants, philanthropic investments, and corporate investments. Just prior to joining EHF, Michael served the mission of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for eight years and built the institution’s community and social impact incubator from the ground up. This included field building work in novel place-based investment strategies, health systems strengthening initiatives with FQHCs and safety net systems, impact evaluation and public health intelligence, and the concurrent design of partnership ecosystems centered on high-impact public health practice and aligned, enabled capital for health in communities.

Michael is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and holds a master’s degree in health policy and management from the University of Pittsburgh. He has advanced training in nonprofit law, corporate governance, negotiation, public policy, and humanitarian strategy, in addition to formal certificates in social impact strategy from the University of Pennsylvania and in impact finance innovations / impact investing from the University of Oxford.

Zahyrah Blakeney

Vice President for Community Engagement

832-658-2672
Email

Zahyrah Blakeney is EHF’s Vice President for Community Engagement and an experienced community health leader with over 20 years grantmaking, management, and strategic expertise
across philanthropic, government, nonprofit, and faith-based sectors. 

She joined EHF’s grants division in 2020 serving as a senior program officer overseeing a $14 million portfolio of more than 60 grants. Blakeney managed many of EHF’s investments in community-based organizations across Texas that work with underserved populations to advocate for health and adopt new ways of solving health-related problems.  

Before EHF, Blakeney spent 14 years at the Houston Health Department as a division and administrative manager overseeing health clinics, community involvement, and public health initiatives. She also worked as a community outreach director at the Community Doula Program and a youth program director for the Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston/Houston.

Blakeney currently serves as board chair of Dia de la Mujer Latina, a national Community Health Worker non-profit organization headquartered in Houston.  She is a Texas Department of State Health Services certified Community Health Workers Instructor and a graduate of the University of Houston

Susybelle Gosslee

Chief Administrative Officer

832-807-2580
Email

Susybelle Gosslee is the Episcopal Health Foundation’s Chief Administrative Officer. She is responsible for all business and administrative functions of the Foundation, including operations, human resources, human capital, information technology, process improvement, and facilities management.  Susybelle oversees EHF’s internal finance function and interfaces with the Episcopal Diocese of Texas which provides accounting, finance, and payroll/benefits processing support to EHF.

Susybelle’s background includes more than 10 years of experience overseeing the business and administration function in law firms in Houston, Austin and Dallas and nine years serving as a political compliance consultant for political candidates and political action committees. She served as Houston Mayor Bill White’s campaign Comptroller for six years. Susybelle has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and is a life-long Episcopalian.

Brian Sasser

Chief Communications Officer

832-807-2575 • 832-795-9404 (Cell)
Email

Brian Sasser is EHF’s Chief Communications Officer. He spent 20 years in television news as a reporter and investigative/special projects producer. Brian spent 13 years as the investigative producer and national field producer at KPRC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Houston. At EHF, he oversees all internal and external communications, including media relations, public relations, news and research releases, website management, video production, and communications consulting with grant partners and others.

He currently serves on the board of directors at HOPE Clinic in Houston and is a charter member of the Texas Census Institute’s Accelerator Network. Brian previously served as chair of the Communications Committee for Philanthropy Southwest, co-chair of the Health Subcommittee for the Houston/Harris County 2020 Census Complete Count effort, and was a member of the board of directors at Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston.

Brian graduated from TCU with bachelor’s degrees in Broadcast Journalism and Political Science.

C.J. Eisenbarth Hager

Assistant Vice President for Innovation & Integration

832-658-2672
Email

C.J. Eisenbarth Hager is EHF’s Assistant Vice President for Innovation and Integration. With a career spanning three decades, she is dedicated to advancing equity through policy and systems change, focusing on the social determinants of health. Her expertise crosses various roles including equity advocate, lobbyist, policy analyst, researcher, and coalition-builder at national, state, and local levels.

Prior to her tenure with EHF, she was the founding director of Vitalyst Health Foundation’s healthy communities portfolio, which encompassed the built environment, food systems, housing, transportation, and heat resilience. Notable achievements include spearheading transformative neighborhood place-focused plans in Phoenix, advocating for Complete Streets ordinances, and a founding member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition.

Prior roles include Senior Policy Analyst at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Poli[1]cy, Director of Government Relations at NeighborWorks America, a national housing and community development  intermediary, and has held positions with the Minnesota House of Representatives, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, and Rapoza Associates.

She serves on the Advisory Board for The Funders Network PLACES Fellowship, which she is a proud former fellow. She also serves as Chair of LISC Houston’s Local Advisory Board. C.J. received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Marquette University and a master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from Kansas State University.