Board of Trustees

Gina Arias has been working for over 15 years in the field of pubic health in the areas of program management, program development, monitoring and evaluation, training, health education, and policy and advocacy. Her public health experience includes work in New York City and rural West Africa with institutions such as The Carter Center, Hunter College, Peace Corps, and Alianza Dominicana. In the past several years her work domestically has focused on HIV/AIDS prevention. She has held positions in HIV policy/advocacy and program management at Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Housing Works.  Ms. Arias received a dual master’s degree in Public Health and International Affairs from Columbia University in 2000. In 2008 she was the recipient of the 1^st Annual Barbara Seaman Award from the National Women’s Health Network.

Michael Carden has been on the Board of Trustees of the Washington Heights CORNER Project since 2007 and is currently Acting Co-Chair. He was integrally involved in executing the community needs assessment supporting the agency’s New York State Syringe Exchange Program waiver application.  Michael has dual Masters Degrees in Rehabilitation Counseling and Substance Abuse Counseling. He is a Project Director at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and has a joint position at The Center for the Study of Hepatitis C at Weill Cornell Medical College.  He is the Chair of the Board of Directors of New York Harm Reduction Educators and has served as past President of the National Hepatitis C Advocacy Council.   Michael is a member of the Hepatitis C Community Advisory Board, where he provides input to pharmaceutical companies regarding their hepatitis C antiviral drug development programs, a member of the Hepatitis C Fair Pricing Coalition, and serves on the Steering Committee for the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable.  Michael has 10 years experience designing, implementing and evaluating community-based programs providing medical and supportive services to people who use drugs and currently oversees an NIH funded project evaluating the effectiveness of an integrated, multidisciplinary care model for delivering hepatitis C medical care and antiviral treatment to active drug users.

Michael Chen brings a strong commitment to developing programs that provide quality healthcare and education to the disadvantaged and underprivileged.   He has been a volunteer for United Way and the Community Partners program of the Harvard Business School Club of New York, where he is also a member of its social services committee.  Michael is a business consultant who has over thirty years of experience in the healthcare field.  He served as a strategic advisor to WHCP’s Executor Director in the areas of business coaching and mentoring and joined its Board in August 2010.   Previously, Michael was Vice President for Global Business Development for EpiCept Corporation, a development stage company focused on novel anticancer and pain management therapies.  He has also held executive positions at Johnson & Johnson and Synaptic Pharmaceutical Corporation.  Michael has degrees in chemical engineering from Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University

Donald Grove has been involved in the creation of harm reduction and syringe access programs since 1990.  During that time he has served in practically every role/position in the field, including outreach worker, counselor, administrator, fundraiser, advocate and activist.  As an activist, then as a volunteer, and finally as a staff member, Donald did street based syringe exchange with Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center for 7 years.  From 1998 until 2003 he worked with Harm Reduction Coalition, a national education and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting drug user health and rights.  Since 2003 he worked primarily as a data management consultant.

“The criminalization of drug use is part of a systemic criminalization of poor people, people of color, young people, women, queer people, you name it.  Harm reduction isn’t just about drug use.  It is about accepting the ways in which your personal survival must reject cultural ideas that say a person is fundamentally criminal, fundamentally diseased.  Under so much violent attack, we create our own systems where justice, honor and beauty are possible.  Public officials struggle to theorize and quantify our success, in order to package it and fund it, or make it illegal.  But we’re here.  It’s happening.  It’s real.”

Jim Gutierrez serves as Chief Financial Officer of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, a non-profit organization serving the needs of injection drug users and the community. He has over 16 years of Accounting & Fiscal Management experience, 12 of which have been spent serving various non-profit organizations. He began his career as an accountant at the Wall Street based brokerage firm Dean Witter. Over the years he has held various positions with dramatically diverse organizations which have aided him in gaining a unique prospective on fiscal management and operations. He received his M.B.A. from St. John’s University in 2001.

Jennifer Schurer joined the Board of Trustees of the Washington Heights CORNER Project in early 2011. As a WHCP supporter from the very beginning, she is excited to now formally use her experience in program evaluation and nonprofit management to help the organization further its mission reach. Jennifer is currently working at Good Shepherd Services as the Child Welfare Coordinator in their Program Evaluation and Planning Department. She has a B.A. in psychology from Wellesley College and an M.S.W. from Columbia University. She is also nearing completion of her Ph.D. in Social Work from Washington University in Saint Louis.