Our Team

 Donna Shelley, MD, MPH 

Director, NYC Treats Tobacco
Professor and Vice Chair for Research 
Dept. Public Health Policy and Management 
Director, Global Center for Implementation Science

Jacqueline Saltarelli, MPH

Jackie is the Assistant Director of New York City Treats Tobacco, a NY State Bureau of Tobacco Control funded grant. Jackie manages partnerships with organization leaders to develop and implement tobacco use treatment policies and procedures that align with evidence-based best practices. She also trains providers on tobacco use treatment, motivational interviewing, health inequities that exist within their communities, emerging issues, and more.

Prior to working with NYC Treats Tobacco, Jackie worked with the Child Sex Trafficking Action Team at the American Academy of Pediatrics and designed a healthcare provider training on identifying and responding to signs of child sex trafficking. She also worked at NYU Langone Health as a development coordinator, managing a portfolio of corporate and foundation donors.

Jacqueline holds an MPH in Population and Family Health with a certificate in Health Promotion Research and Practice from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and a BA with Honors in Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies from College of the Holy Cross. She is currently a student in the Doctor of Public Health program at NYU School of Global Public Health.

Avani Ansari is a Program Manager for New York City Treats Tobacco. Avani works to support medical and behavioral health organizations in implementing evidence-based tobacco use treatment policies and procedures. 

In her role, she manages and strengthens relationships with executive-level leadership across varied stakeholder groups, including the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the NYS Office of Mental Health, the NYC Housing Authority, healthcare organizations, and hospital systems. She leverages these relationships to develop tobacco use treatment policy templates that suit the unique needs of each type of healthcare agency. She is developing a template policy to support behavioral healthcare agencies across NYS and has developed NYCTT’s first school-based healthcare agency policy template to address tobacco use (including vape use) among the school-age population in NYC.

Avani has led, and now supervises, NYCTT’s earned media efforts. She is developing robust evaluation methods and Standard of Practice manuals for the team’s practice facilitators. She is closely involved with NYCTT’s presence at PrideFest every June, and she also manages and mentors staff.

Avani currently sits on several committees: Center for Social Capital (SoCa) Linking Group, Behavioral Health Tobacco Working Group, Asian and Immigrant Communities Against Smoking (AICAS) Partnership, Health Systems for a Tobacco-Free New York Steering Committee, and NYU Global School for Public Health’s Employee Engagement Committee. 

Previously, she worked with the Public Health Detailing Program and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, developing campaigns for varied public health concerns such as latent tuberculosis infection, maternal morbidity and mortality, youth tobacco use, and COVID-19 during the agency’s emergency response period.

Avani holds an MPH in Sociomedical Sciences with a certificate in Health Promotion Research and Practice from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and a BA in Human Health from Emory University.

Camilo Parra is a Project Coordinator for New York City Treats Tobacco. He is interested in systemic change to support healthier lives free of tobacco-related morbidity and mortality. Camilo fosters relationships with medical and behavioral health organizations to implement health system improvements which will expand access to evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment. He also collaborates with different community and policy advocacy partners to further tobacco control efforts across New York City and New York State.

Prior to joining the NYCTT, Camilo worked with NYC Health + Hospitals in various capacities. He was part of the first cohort of contact tracers deployed by NYC Health + Hospitals, Test and Trace Corps, during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. Working with both Spanish and English-speaking populations, he connected thousands of New York residents to essential social services while monitoring the spread of the virus. He then transitioned to a new capacity at NYC Health + Hospitals / Bellevue, Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic, as a Community Health Worker. In his role, Camilo worked within an interdisciplinary team of psychiatrists, social workers, pharmacists, and case managers to ensure that clients' needs were met by addressing their social determinants of health.

In tandem with his work at NYC Health + Hospitals, Camilo worked as a research assistant at CUNY’s Institute for Implementation Science for Population Health on a community-based participatory research project evaluating various NYC nonprofits' distribution of COVID-19 related materials and information through a health literacy lens. Through conducting community member interviews and using validated measurement tools for health literacy, he has worked on submitting various QI reports for the Department of Health.

Camilo holds a MS in Health Communications for Social Change from CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, and a BA in Global Public Health & Anthropology from New York University. He is currently a student in the Masters of Public Administration program with a specialization in Health Administration at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Previously, Sara has interned at Quality Undergraduate Education and Scholarly Training (QUEST), a NYU Steinhardt Applied Psychology program that seeks to increase research opportunities for historically under-resourced students. She created a critical theories database for the use of future students in their research projects. She also built and designed QUEST's 2022 Research Conference website, as well as designed social media content for QUEST's Instagram. Sara has also interned at the American Red Cross National Headquarters, where she conducted surveys of disaster response workforces and oversaw assignment of volunteers to disaster sites in the Southeast and Midwestern United States. Sara has also interned at Aga Khan University Hospital's Family Medicine Centre (FMC) in Nairobi, Kenya. She assisted PhD students in conducting quality improvement studies regarding patient satisfaction within FMC by surveying patients post-appointment.

Sara holds a BS in Global Public Health and Applied Psychology from New York University, and plans on getting her Masters of Public Health.

Faith Daniel

Health Promotion Specialist

fd2188@nyu.edu

Faith Daniel is a Health Promotion Specialist with New York City Treats Tobacco and a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) student at NYU. She received her Master in Public Health (MPH) from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where she studied Population and Family Health and earned a Certificate in Health Policy Analysis and Practice. Her capstone project focused on investigating the public health impact of crisis pregnancy centers/anti-abortion centers using New York City as a case study. In honor of her lifelong commitment to reproductive and social justice advocacy, she was named a Lion of Social Justice’22 by Columbia University. Faith is also a graduate of Bryn Mawr College where she earned her BA in Anthropology and graduated with Magna Cum Laude. She double minored in Health Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies. 

Currently, Faith is the Operations and Administrative Manager at Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT), a nationwide advocacy group working to proactively advance telemedicine abortion in all 50 states.  Prior to ACT, Faith worked as a manager in SBH Health System’s marketing and communications department for 4 years. She was awarded an LGBTQIA+ advocacy and leadership award from SBH Health System in 2022 for her work with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. A Bronx native and daughter of immigrants from Nevis, Faith is a fierce advocate for reproductive and social justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, and health equity. She does consulting work with health advocacy organizations and serves as a NY leader with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice.