Board of Directors

Chair: Alex Mooradian, Esq.

Attorney Alex Mooradian represents clients in deportation proceedings, including immigrant juveniles, refugees, asylum-seekers, and survivors of crimes. He also represents those seeking immigration benefits, such as citizenship, adjustment of status, family-based visas, deferred action, relief under the Violence Against Women Act, U/T visas, and appeals to the Administrative Appeals Office and Board of Immigration Appeals.

  • He has appeared before numerous courts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including the Federal District Court, District and Superior Courts, Probate and Family Courts, the Boston Immigration Court and USCIS. Alex has served as lead counsel on complex cases relating to protracted immigration detention, post-conviction relief, spurious gang allegations against immigrant juveniles, and gender-based and political asylum claims.

    He serves as the Board Chair of the Organization for Nonprofit Excellence (ONE Worcester), which provides pro bono business consulting to Worcester-area nonprofits. He also serves on the pro bono panel at Ascentria Care Alliance's ILAP; is a mentor (and contract attorney) for the BU Law Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Program; is on the mental health committee for distribution of the City of Worcester's ARPA funding; is a member of the Steering Committee for African Community Education's capital campaign; is a Corporator of the Boys and Girls Club of Worcester; and routinely presents to and advises health centers and universities on immigration policy. He is the 2021 Recipient of the Boston University School of Law’s Public Interest Alumni Award in recognition of his pro bono work with immigrant kids, including those in immigrant detention, and his work on complex asylum matters. Alex speaks fluent Spanish.

Vice Chair:Caroline Miranda Foley, Esq.

Caroline Miranda Foley is a humanitarian immigration attorney at Central West Justice Center who has been advocating on behalf of immigrants in Worcester for over ten years.  

  • She provides free legal services through her work at Central West Justice Center. Her work focuses on compassionate representation of immigrant children, victims of crimes, human trafficking, and those who have been persecuted in their home country. She also is involved in many initiatives in the City of Worcester like providing free legal consultations at the Worcester Public Library, community organizing, and coordinating free legal clinics.  She was formerly on the Board of Directors of the Worcester Brazilian Association and currently serves on the Board of Trustees at the Museum of Worcester. Additionally, she serves in the Committee for Prevention Against Violence at the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers.

Treasurer: Millie Rao, MBA

Term: July 2023 – June 2025

Millie Rao has a bachelor’s in economics and an M.B.A. After spending over two decades on the payor side of healthcare where her career evolved from planning and program development to analytics, she moved to the non-profit sector in 2020 and has been serving refugees in her role as Education Coordinator and, more recently, the Executive Director of Worcester Refugee Assistance Project (WRAP).

  • Rao is the Executive Director of WRAP, a 501c3 non-profit organization committed to assisting refugees to achieve self-reliance through advocacy, mentoring, and educational assistance. WRAP has been serving Burmese refugees since 2009 and expanded its mission to include all refugees in 2021.

    Millie's analytical experience at Massachusetts-based payors such as Fallon Health, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, and BMC Health includes

    • Use of medical and pharmacy claims data for Actuarial pricing and Modeling, Care Management, and Risk Adjustment

    • Physician profiling using ETG's (episode treatment groupers) and EBM's (evidence-based metrics)

    • Hedis quality metrics

    • Predictive modeling for high-risk care management registries.

    • Data profiling to identify new opportunities for medical cost savings.

    • Risk assessment for new-to-market drugs

    • Evaluation of medical cost savings initiatives

    • ROI and cost-benefit analysis

    In her role as Director of Clinical Informatics at Boston Medical Center, she worked extensively with clinical staff to design innovative programs for the Medicaid population which addressed underlying social determinants with the ultimate aim of improved quality and efficiency. As Director of Medical Economics at Axial Healthcare, a start-up, she was responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of programs focused on reducing opioid and substance use dependency. Millie sees many parallels between the refugee population and the impoverished, co-morbid, and high-risk populations she has worked with over the years and is deeply vested in the mission of RISE.

Secretary: Jillian Phillips, LICSW, CEIS, IMH-E®

Jillian Phillips (she|they) is a social worker who has worked in Worcester supporting individuals and families since 2005 first as an outpatient therapist and then as a clinical supervisor at MENTOR South Bay Early Intervention for the past ten years. She is a licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW), certified early intervention specialist (CEIS), and was recently endorsed by the MassAIMH (Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health).


  • They are passionate about providing child-focused trauma-informed care, with a specific interest in supporting refugee families. They also spearheaded a nonprofit in their hometown aimed at cultivating a healthy community, reducing barriers to accessing physical and mental health care, and opened a community center with programming to support those goals. Jillian is a single mother by choice to 4 amazing children, including two children on the autism spectrum. They strongly believe that it takes a village to help communities thrive, and are honored to support the on-the-ground work helping ensure refugee families have the support and access to services they need to thrive.

Board Member: Crista Johnson-Agbakwu, MD

Term: October 2023 – June 2025

Dr. Crista Johnson-Agbakwu, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist, is the inaugural Executive Director of the Collaborative in Health Equity at UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Health. She is also a Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and a Professor in the Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, Population & Quantitative Health Sciences.

  • Her efforts will aim to center health equity throughout all aspects of clinical care, research, education, and community engagement; leveraging institution-spanning, community-wide, and global assets that foster and sustain community embeddedness and trust while nurturing the recruitment, retention, and promotion of underrepresented minorities in medicine (URiM) across trainees, faculty, staff, and leadership. Her vision is for UMass Medical School to become the premier academic institution nationally and globally in advancing health equity for vulnerable, underserved, and historically marginalized communities.

    From 2008 - 2023, Dr. Johnson-Agbakwu was the Founding Director of the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic (RWHC) at Valleywise Health in Phoenix, AZ, and the Director of the Office of Refugee Health in the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center at Arizona State University. Her research focused on investigating strategies to advance sexual and reproductive health equity for women of color, including migrant women, to improve health care access and utilization, sexual and reproductive health education, counseling, and community engagement, as well as enhancing health care provider cultural competency.

    The RWHC was the first of its kind in the state of Arizona and has been nationally recognized as an innovative best practice model of care wherein she has spearheaded a unique patient-centered medical home for migrant families. Exponential growth beyond women’s services has led to the care of over 16,000 patients across Women’s Health, Pediatrics, Internal and Family Medicine, hailing from 68 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia, and the Middle East and speaking over 71 languages.

    She has led a federally funded effort to improve health care services, community engagement, and provider cultural competency on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), and gender-based violence, and has provided consultative expertise to the CDC and WHO on refugee women’s health and FGM/C.

    Dr. Johnson-Agbakwu has garnered numerous awards including most recently: the 2023 APGO Humanism in Teaching Award, the 2022 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award presented by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation on behalf of the University of Arizona, College of Medicine, Phoenix, the 2022 Lisa C Bruch Woman of the Year Award by the Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Foundation, the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Program in Human Sexuality Inaugural 50 Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Revolutionaries Award, the 2021 ISSWSH Humanitarian Service Award, and the 2018 ACOG CREOG National Faculty Award for Excellence in Resident Education.

Board Member: Mukhtar Idhow

Mukhtar Idhow founded the Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success (ORIS) in September 2009 previously known as the Somali Bantu Community Association of NH.

  • As the Executive director, he brought with him over 10 years of experience serving people ranging from individuals with disabilities to those who are the most vulnerable in our communities and those impacted by global crises. The organization has recently expanded to Worcester, MA. While being an effective manager, he created space for people to talk, implemented programs that make impacts in the lives of communities, and managed staff that are passionate about what they do every single day

    Mukhtar is an innovative Community leader who has focused his career on designing and implementing services that make an impact on people’s lives, both those being served and the staff doing the work. He believes that by amplifying the voices of those with lived experience and creating collaborative spaces for human-centered design, we can accomplish the critical goal of making a difference in people’s lives

    He began his career supporting and advocating for children and adults displaced by conflicts and natural disasters, living in a refugee camp in Kenya. By working alongside different NGOs Mr. Idhow focused his efforts on providing vulnerable refugees at the camp access to food, health care, and safety.

    Mr. Idhow believes that diversity, equity, and inclusion are core pillars in every setting; finding ways of having courageous conversations is a priority for him.

    Mukhtar has a Degree from Kenyatta University, Nairobi Kenya, and earned a Certificate in project management from Makerere University and an Associate degree in Organizational Leadership from Southern NH University.

Board Member: Kristin Black Ph.D., M.S.

Kristin Black, serves as Director of Shared Services at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

  • She brings over 15 years of experience working in both state and local government, with a strong focus on community health and public service. While serving as Health Director for the Town of Northborough in 2023, Kristin worked closely with Worcester RISE for Health and other local partners to support 30 families sheltered through the Emergency Assistance Family Shelter System. Kristin joined the Board of Worcester RISE for Health because she deeply values the rich diversity of the Worcester community and is passionate about supporting a team that is re-envisioning healthcare to be trauma-informed, welcoming, and accessible to individuals who have been historically underserved. She is honored to contribute to an organization committed to ensuring every newcomer has the opportunity to thrive.

Board Member: Kayanna James

A tireless community advocate, business owner and the District Director for Senator Robyn Kennedy.

  • Kayanna James believes in the power of bringing people together through education, experience and empowerment. 

    Kayanna is a Worcester native, but graduated from Rhode Island College receiving a B.A in Psychology and Behavioral neuroscience. Furthering her education, Kayanna has gained her  Masters of Public administration degree from Clark University. Passionate about empowering young women, Kayanna strives to create pathways for growth and success. She serves on the Worcester County State Commission on the Status of Women and actively contributes to numerous boards and committees dedicated to fostering the advancement, and positive impact of young women. 

     Kayanna is a writer, a certified birth and postpartum doula and a returned Peace Corps volunteer, and remains deeply committed to community service, focusing on improving policies, programs, and best practices.

Board Member: James B. Leary, Esq.

James B. Leary, is the Founder and Principal of Leary Public Affairs, LLC, a law firm that specializes in state, federal and local advocacy, policy and legal analysis, coalition building, and strategic communications.

  • Jim has three decades of experience as an attorney, policymaker, public policy advocate, and lobbyist.

    Before establishing Leary Public Affairs, Jim led government and community relations for one of the commonwealth’s largest hospital and healthcare systems, UMass Memorial Health, and prior to that, for the commonwealth’s only public medical school, UMass Chan Medical School. He was a senior advisor to the Massachusetts Governor and of chief of staff to the Lieutenant Governor and served six years as an elected member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing the city of Worcester and town of West Boylston. As an attorney, he represented clients in a wide variety of matters, including criminal and civil litigation.

    In addition to his professional experience, Jim has been an active member of a variety of professional and civic organizations, including America’s Essential Hospitals, the Association of American Medical Colleges, RFK Community Alliance, the United Way of Central Massachusetts, the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Worcester Regional Research Bureau. Jim is an alumnus of Assumption University and Georgetown University Law Center.