Faculty

Ashley Montoya, MHA, CPI, CCHW. Ashley is an dynamic, cross-sectoral community leader with experience working in schools, government, the judicial system, and in healthcare. Born and raised in the Española Valley, Ashley’s work has been focused on prevention and harm reduction, marked by a deep commitment to social justice. She’s worked with a variety of community-based prevention programs in Rio Arriba County, and has a passion for community outreach. While working for the City of Española, she served as Director of Project RACE, a NM-High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program aimed at decreasing drug and alcohol use while increasing graduation rates, reducing delinquency, reducing crime rate and providing life skills, career and college readiness, and local employment opportunities.
Ashley graduated from Northern New Mexico College in 2015 with a Bachelor of Art degree in Business Administration and Management, and received a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from Colorado State University-Global in 2017. She graduated from UNM-T in 2018 with her certificate in Community Health, where she qualified to become a certified Community Health Worker, and then joined the program faculty. She holds dozens of training certifications in areas such as QPR suicide prevention, youth SBIRT, adolescent trauma and substance misuse, and mediation. Ashley has a passion for higher education and enjoys sharing and gaining knowledge from students in the CHW program. In addition to teaching at UNM-T, Ashley works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and currently is in law school.

Juliana Anastasoff, MS. Juliana joined the public health workforce as a peer health advocate in 1977 and has continued that work since. She served 17 years as a health education specialist on care teams in migrant, workplace, primary care, hospital, and school-based settings before moving into program development and health workforce training. She first built a team of CHWs in 1994, recruiting moms living with HIV to provide education and support to their peers. Over the years she has developed roles for, hired, trained, and supervised CHWs in both community and clinical settings, working in areas such as immigrant outreach, veteran’s health, adolescent health, women’s health, diabetes, hepatitis-c, elder care, access to care, cardiovascular disease, depression, and community assessment. She developed this certificate program for the UNM system, and consulted on the redesign of the seminal textbook Foundations for Community Health Workers (2nd edition).

As UNM-HSC’s Health Extension Officer in the North, Juliana is part of a statewide team focused on strengthening local health capacity and infrastructure, building the health professions pipeline, and addressing the determinants of health; her faculty appointment is in Family & Community Medicine, UNM School of Medicine. Prior to joining UNM she served as Chief Project Officer in a seven-county community health center system developing collaborative health homes, prevention and disease management initiatives, integrated behavioral health services, telehealth systems, and quality improvement initiatives across northern New Mexico. She’s directed a Rural/Frontier Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, an NM operating site of the National Health Corps (AmeriCorps), a VA-contracted Community-Based Outpatient Clinic system, and served as a training specialist in a regional HRSA training center. She holds a BS degree in Communications, and a Master’s degree in Community Development with applied practice in health education and communication. She’s a graduate of the National Service Leadership Institute, the Cultivating Women’s Leadership Program (the Bioneers), and the Institute for Health Improvement’s (IHI) Primary Care Coaching Professional Development Program.

Tana Beverwyk-Abouda, MA. Tana is a clinical health educator, rural non-profit leader, and CHW advocate. She’s passionate about being part of the solution toward creating equality for all around social the determinants of health. Born and raised in the Española Valley, Tana grew-up in the rich cultural mix that is northern New Mexico, and was intrigued at an early age with the impact of social, economic, and cultural factors on individual and community health and well-being. She served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi working with rural villages on the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, and closer to home, with the NM Department of Health, and NM Boys and Girls Clubs. Tana worked in primary care clinics throughout northern New Mexico as the Director of Health Education at El Centro Family Health where she supervised teams of CHWs and facilitated health prevention and intervention projects in areas ranging from diabetes to safer sex. She is passionate about creating community-driven programming that impacts health and well-being in culturally inclusive and positive ways. Currently Tana is the founding Director of Bridge to Health, an Española-based nonprofit with the mission of helping individuals and their communities overcome barriers to exercise and health behavior change. Tana holds a BA from Michigan State University, and an MA in Cross Cultural Health Communication from Purdue University. She is an Exercise is Medicine fitness provider, has two sons, and lives in Nambe with her husband and a flock of happy chickens.

Victoria Flores, MA. Victoria is a dedicated community member with a long history of working with groups and on group development, with special emphasis on youth and service learning. Originally from the Bay Area, Victoria has deep familial roots in northern New Mexico. After completing her training in the San Luis Valley, she dedicated her next steps to moving her family back to New Mexico to raise her children in the communities her grandparents loved and called home. A central theme of Victoria’s work revolves around the art and science of supporting group processes in experiential and expeditionary learning environments. Through her long-standing commitment to national service through AmeriCorps, she’s worked in community, school, and higher education settings, including work abroad in México and Costa Rica. In addition to teaching at UNM-Taos, Victoria is currently the Training Manager at Rocky Mountain Youth Corps where she develops and delivers a wide range trainings ranging from citizenship to team-building to suicide prevention. Victoria earned her BA in Sociology, as well as a Master’s Degree in Community Counseling from Adams State University. Over the past decade she has offered Mental Health First Aid courses to hundreds of organizations, community members, schools, tribal agencies, and youth. She has a passion for supporting people dedicated to addressing needs in the community, and supporting access to resources.