Our People

Director of State Program Technical Assistance and Training for IOWA CASA (Coalition Against Sexual Assault) (she/her/hers)

Since April 2008, Elizabeth Balcarcel has worked for the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault (IowaCASA). During this time, she has held different roles, such as helping undocumented victims safety plan and apply for U Visas and providing training and technical assistance (TTA) in Latino services to state sexual violence centers and other community-based organizations. At IowaCASA national project’s Rural Technical Assistance, she provided TTA to improve access and service to Latino survivors. As director of the State TTA Program, she oversees coordinating the TTA team for the state’s sexual violence centers. Prior to IowaCASA, she worked as a domestic violence counselor and prevention program coordinator at one of the local culturally relevant crisis centers. She has aided survivors of sexual assault with one-on-one counseling, support groups, and safety plans for undocumented survivors. She also provides sexual abuse trainings in Spanish for community leaders and has presented workshops and keynote plenaries at state and national conferences. In September 2019, she received the Passport of Prosperity Award and in October 2020 received the Iowa Latino Hall of Fame recognition.

Senior Technical Assistance and Resource Specialist at the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) (she/her/hers).

Patricia Branco has been a social justice advocate for over 20 years. Drawing upon her lived experiences as an Afro-Latina immigrant, her work is informed by an anti-oppression and intersectional lens. With the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) since 2003, she responds to requests from a broad-based constituency for information, technical assistance, and training on a full range of topics related to gender-based violence. She engages in the identification and development of resources to support NRCDV’s capacity-building efforts and has been the lead staff in the development of several NRCDV publications. Her background includes anti-violence work in Brazil at the intersections of anti-Blackness, poverty, and police brutality. She has a Master’s in Community Psychology and Social Change from Pennsylvania State University.

Meetings with Feelings, PLLC (they/elle, she/ella)

Shakira Cruz Román is a queer puertorriqueña politicized healer, mental health therapist, clinical supervisor, and facilitator currently living on the traditional lands of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People past and present. They work from a liberation, health, trauma-informed, and transformative perspective that seeks to integrate the impacts of systems of oppression, cultural influences, and personal experiences into the liberatory and healing journeys of her clients. She has nearly two decades of experience working with survivors of trauma, people of color, and the LGBTQA+ communities through advocacy, clinical supervision, individual and group therapy, mentorship, and organizational planning. When not facilitating feelings, they can be found at brunch, riding their bike, hanging out with their cat, or laughing with chosen friends and family.

CEO and Co-Founder of Colectiva Wellness & Healing (she/they)

Elizabeth Delgado is an international public speaker, employee well-being strategist, appreciative inquiry and workshop facilitator, healer, resilience coach, community organizer, and activist. She has 20 year experience in earth-based and healing practices, having worked with many community members on their path towards healing and liberation.

Combined with 20+ years of human resources, employee wellness management, community theater, community organizing, and intersectional activism, they specifically focus on gender-based violence advocacy, prevention, and artivism as the co-founder of V-Day Lawrence since 2008. She currently served on the National Council for Technical & Training Assistance for Esperanza United. They are also the co-founder of Rainbow Alianza in Lawrence, creating safe and inclusive spaces and events for LGBTQ+ people. She also recently joined the National Care-Team and Facilitators Group for Creating Freedom Movements.

They bring an authentic, personable, and intersectional approach to her work. Working with C-Level executives in various fields such as healthcare, government, education, and nonprofits. She has a vast knowledge of these workforce cultures and their employee wellness needs. Blending her unique knowledge and skills in HR management, activism, and the healing arts, she birthed Colectiva Wellness & Healing.

They identify as a Taino-Borikua, queer, disabled, survivor of gender-based violence, and a sole parent raising her teen daughter – they love to cook and travel together. She is committed to sharing her knowledge, resources, and gifts with the world through the lens of decolonization, social, disability, and healing justice.

Men’s Engagement Specialist at Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) (he/him/his)

Emiliano Diaz de Leon has been providing training and technical assistance on sexual violence primary prevention to rape crisis centers across Texas. Hiswork as a men’s engagement specialist, along with his past experiences, have led to invitations to speak and provide training to universities, conferences, and community events throughout the country.

Chief of Programs at Tahirih, (she/her/hers)

Maricarmen Garza joined Tahirih in 2021 as the chief of programs. She previously held a 21-year tenure with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA). As a TRLA attorney, she focused her legal practice on assisting survivors of gender-based violence with complex family law and victim privacy matters. She initiated and managed one of TRLA’s most successful, and longstanding projects of the organization: the Legal Alliance for Survivors of Abuse (LASA). LASA is a unique collaboration between TRLA and domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers in the 68 Texas counties served by TRLA. She currently chairs the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence and serves on the Board of the Texas Council on Family Violence, Texas’ statewide domestic violence coalition.

Independent Contractor (she/they)

María Limon’s work to end gender-based violence began when she witnessed the links between economic, cultural, and environmental violence affecting communities, and the violence people experience in their personal relationships. Her experience as a community organizer prepared her for her current position where she puts public health theory into practice that indicates connection is the strongest protective factor. She supports rural domestic and sexual violence programs, establishing coordinated community responses. As a skilled and experienced facilitator, they are trained in adult education and facilitation practices, including Freire’s popular education, Vella’s Dialogue Education, and Liberating Structures. Previously, she was the prevention coordinator for the Texas Council on Family Violence, providing technical assistance and training to prevention educators throughout the state. As training coordinator for the National Domestic Violence Hotline and Love is Respect, the teen dating abuse helpline, she prepared volunteer and staff advocates to respond to callers. Their greatest teachers are the community organizers working to support queer Latina/o communities being decimated by AIDS in the 1980s, successfully stopping the construction of a nuclear waste facility in an impoverished border community, and addressing the displacement caused by gentrification.

Joy Cultivator, Trainer, & Consultant at Collective Capacity LLC (she/her/hers)

Jessica Moreno grew up in the field as a youth activist with a local domestic violence program in Texas. Over the past 20 years, she’s worked for local, state, and national organizations uniting her experience in facilitation, adolescent counseling, program management, evaluation, and radical play. She is the managing partner at Collective Capacity Consulting, LLC., where she supports multiple state and federal technical assistance projects with programs serving children and youth. She also chairs the Board of Directors for Jane’s Due Process, a reproductive justice organization serving Texas minors.

Director of Training and Technical Assistance NRCDV (she/her/hers)

Ivonne Ortiz has been with NRCDV since 2013. She provides a wide range of technical assistance and training services to many domestic violence programs throughout the US, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Her primary areas of expertise are the provision of training, crisis intervention, building culturally and linguistically appropriate services, community organizing, and facilitating culturally relevant support group sessions for women of color. At NRCDV, she is responsible for providing bold and expert leadership to NRCDV’s Training Institute and technical assistance efforts. She is responsible for developing training activities and educational resources that are based in innovative theories and practices, and that are guided by the experiences and realities of survivors of domestic violence, with particular emphasis on marginalized communities. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico.

Independent Contractor (she/her/hers)

Elsabel Rincon has over 18 years of experience in the nonprofit sector working with social justice nonprofit organizations and community groups on issues including anti-violence initiatives, racial justice, immigrant rights, poverty relief, LGBTQ equity, and community organizing.  In 2013, she received the Kipp Tiernan Social Justice Fellowship through which she founded The Welcome Immigrant Network to support the integration of newcomers to the North Shore of MA. She also works as a business development officer supporting minority owned businesses. Ms. Rincon is a board member of Voices Against Injustice, Project Out, the Latino Leadership Coalition of Salem, and ECCF Racial Equity Task Force.

She is currently a PhD student in Global Studies: Migration at UMass Lowell University and holds a Master of Education, a BS in Human Services, and a Master Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership and Management.

CA CSSJ Statewide Manager at Californians for Safety and Justice (she/her/hers)

Tina Rodriguez is an accomplished grant writer and business consultant for organizations that serve crime victims and those impacted by incarceration. She currently serves as the CA CSSJ statewide manager, traveling throughout California expanding programs and developing new businesses. As an expert in best practices for crisis intervention and racial justice, her work has been published in the California Health Report, the HuffPost, and various other outlets. As the CSSJ statewide manager, she organizes diverse survivors of crime across California to weigh in on criminal justice and public safety policy to expand protections and support for all victims of crime. She graduated from California State University Fresno, in 2014, with Master of Science degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. Her passion is rooted in prevention through cultural accountability.

Associate Director for National Center for Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health  (they/them/elle)

Gabriela Zapata-Alma, LCSW, CADC, is a liberation-centered bilingual and multicultural leader, clinician, educator, and national subject matter expert whose driving force is social justice. They currently serve as the associate director of the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health, as well as the director of the University of Chicago’s Advanced Alcohol and Other Drugs Counselor Training Program. They bring over 15 years of experience supporting people impacted by structural and interpersonal violence and their traumatic effects through innovative and evidence-based clinical, housing, resource advocacy, peer-led, harm reduction, and HIV-integrated care programs. In addition, they author best practices, lead national capacity-building efforts, and provide trauma-informed policy consultation, all to advance health equity and social justice.