Staff

Dr. Maya Rockeymoore

President and CEO

Dr. Maya Rockeymoore is president and CEO of Global Policy Solutions LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm and President of the Center for Global Policy Solutions, a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to driving society toward inclusion. She provides vision, direction and guidance to the Allies for Reaching Community Healthy Equity initiative.

Dr. Rockeymoore has previously served as the vice president of research and programs at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), senior resident scholar for Health and Income Security at the National Urban League, Chief Of Staff to Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), professional staff on the House Ways and Means Committee, and as an adjunct professor at American University’s Women and Politics Institute among other positions.

Dr. Rockeymoore has presented and written extensively about health disparities, childhood obesity, health care reform, community-based approaches to health, HIV/AIDS, and Medicaid and Medicare policy. She is the co-author of the Action Strategies for Healthy Communities Toolkit and she has published articles in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and the National Association of State Boards of Education’s State Education Standard among other publications. A member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, Dr. Rockeymoore contributed to the development of its seminal study panel report, “Strengthening Medicare’s Role in Reducing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.”

Dr. Rockeymoore is also a widely sought after economic security expert. She has spoken extensively on jobs and the economy, the racial wealth gap, financial literacy, and Social Security. She is the co-editor of Strengthening Community: Social Insurance in a Diverse America and the co-author of Plan for a New Future: The Impact of Social Security Reform on Communities of Color. Dr. Rockeymoore has been invited to testify before Congress on income security matters and on February 23, 2009 she was among other nationally renowned economic and income security experts selected to attend the Obama Administration’s White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit.

Dr. Rockeymoore has been invited to speak before numerous organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Women Donors Network, Grantmakers in Aging, Drexel University, Columbia University, Congressional Democratic Caucus, Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the National Association of Black Journalists among many other groups. She has been quoted in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post and has been interviewed on NPR, Sirius XM radio, BET, CNN, and Al Jazeera English among many other media outlets. The recipient of many honors, she was named an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow in 2004 and received Running Start’s 2007 Young Women to Watch Award.

Dr. Rockeymoore holds a B.A. in political science and mass communications from Prairie View A&M University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science, with an emphasis in public policy, from Purdue University.

Ashley Brown

Director

Ashley Brown is the director for Allies for Reaching Community Health Equity and manager of the Kansas Health Foundation’s Community Engagement Initiative.

Prior to joining the Center for Global Policy Solutions, Ashley was the Program Coordinator for the National Collaborative for Health Equity, a project of the New Venture Fund. She has been dedicated to serving the most vulnerable populations throughout her career. Her leadership experience is diverse, having worked with non-profits that sought to reduce childhood obesity in Washington, D.C. to the mayor’s office in Baltimore promoting the retention of quality teachers. At these institutions, she has conducted groundbreaking research and advocated for the implementation of innovative health policy. She holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Maryland with a concentration in health policy and inequality studies and a BA in Political Science from the University of Florida.

Elise F. Goldstein

Deputy Director

Elise Goldstein is a program management, evaluation, and policy consultant with expertise in health, environment and energy. She serves as the deputy director for the ARCHE initiative, as well as the evaluator for the Center for Global Policy Solutions and Kansas Health Foundation’s Community Engagement Initiative.

Prior to her work with ARCHE, Elise was deputy director for the Leadership for Healthy Communities program, where she supported local and state government leaders nationwide in their efforts to reduce childhood obesity through public policies that promote active living, healthy eating and access to healthy foods. Ms. Goldstein has also worked as donor communications manager at a national animal protection organization, raising over $5 million annually and supporting the development and distribution of policy products to inspire and educate grassroots advocates. A planner at heart, Elise has provided leadership to multiple long-term strategic planning processes, with a focus on charting goal-based strategies that prioritize core organizational values.

Elise received her BA from Mary Washington College and her MPA from the George Washington University Trachtenburg School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

Deepthi Welaratna

HED Lab Facilitator

Deepthi Welaratna leads the team at Thicket Labs and serves as the HED Lab facilitator for the ARCHE program. For the last 15 years she’s helped build and launch products, movements, and ventures at the intersection of research, community, and technology.

Through her consulting at the intersection of markets, policy, and communities, Deepthi has worked with global brands and fortune 500 companies. Her award-winning communications campaigns have engaged communities globally in understanding and reshaping complex policy issues that affect their lives. She started her career working on public health issues like education, violence prevention, and civic engagement for clients including The California Wellness Foundation, United Way of the Bay Area and the California Secretary of State. More recently, she has conducted impact evaluations for public health programs in Haiti, New York, and New Zealand using a participatory design and systems methodology. She has worked in broadcasting at KQED, and recent articles have appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Antonio White

Project and Events Manager

Antonio White is the ARCHE Program and Events manager and has a significant background in special event production, communications, and strategy. Antonio spent nearly five years in the Obama Administration, first at the White House and later as an appointee at the U.S. Treasury Department, where he managed events, public engagements, and travel operations for Secretaries Tim Geithner and Jack Lew. Later as a Senior Advisor in Treasury’s Office of Public Affairs, Antonio organized message events and public engagement meetings, serving as a liaison to CEOs and stakeholders. After Treasury, Antonio managed communications projects and media relations as a Director at Hamilton Place Strategies. He is the founder and CEO of Beyond Ideas Group, a special events and creative strategy company. He earned a B.A. in Black World Studies with a minor in Sociology from Miami University, and an M.A. in History from Morgan State University.

Dr. Dawn Godbolt

Health Equity Fellow

Dr. Dawn Godbolt is a health equity fellow at the Center for Global Policy Solutions. Her research interests include medical sociology, health equity, inequalities of race and gender, comparative health analyses, neighborhood disorder, and urban poverty.

Prior to joining the Center for Global Policy Solutions, Dawn was part of a research team at Florida State University where she conducted an analysis that focused on the links between race, religious participation, and body mass. She has also conducted qualitative analyses to demonstrate the effect of stereotypes on stress for black women and the connection between stereotypes, stress, and obesity. For her dissertation she examined race differences in maternal fear of allowing children outside based on neighborhood disadvantage, the implications of which provided proximal explanations for increased levels of anxiety for women of color. Dawn recently completed her PhD in Sociology from Florida State University, holds an MS in Sociology from Florida State University, and a BS in Sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is also a Project Op-Ed Fellow and a former Ronald McNair Fellow.