Meet the Staff

Sharon Adams-Taylor - Associate Executive Director
Sharon Adams-Taylor joined AASA in 1990 as director of the association's Options for Pre-Teens program, a school-based primary prevention and youth development program in three urban school districts. Before coming to AASA, Adams-Taylor was a senior program associate with the Children's Defense Fund, where she coordinated CDF's adolescent pregnancy prevention clearinghouse. She also provided state and local technical assistance around adolescent issues and developed and managed a national coalition of youth and education organizations focused on positive outcomes for young people. Adams-Taylor's extensive background in training and research includes leadership positions with the University of North Carolina's Child Health Outcomes Project and the Resource Access Project, where she coordinated training and technical assistance for 178 Head Start grantees in six states, and fellowships at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Adams-Taylor holds a bachelor of science degree from Howard University, a master of public health degree in maternal and child health from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a master of arts degree from the Catholic University of America.

Lorene Alba - Project Manager
Lorene Alba joined AASA in July 2009 to focus on asthma projects. She comes to us from the American Lung Association of VA, where as the manager of mission services she implemented asthma self-management programs for elementary school children. She has provided training for more than 600 adults who work with children with asthma, and works closely with school systems to help create asthma-friendly schools. Lorene is the co-creator of the Asthma and Allergy School Nurse Expert Program; a curriculum designed to embed certified asthma educators into school systems. She has completed the Asthma Educators Institute and is in the process of becoming a certified asthma educator.

Kelly Beckwith - Project Director
Kelly Beckwith is involved in projects focused on childhood obesity and asthma, as well as other association activities related to the health and achievement of all children. She comes from a background of direct service, including two years of AmeriCorps service, which introduced her to the field of public health. Beckwith received her master's in public health, with a concentration in community health education, from the University of Minnesota in 2005. She has worked at AASA since 2006.

Yasmin Bowers - Project Manager
Yasmin Bowers joined AASA in July 2009 to focus on projects that promote awareness and improvement of indoor environmental health in schools. She serves as the Project Manager for the Healthy Schools Environment, and uses her background in Environmental Health and Science to provide a holistic approach to health. Bowers comes from New Orleans, where she served as co-founder and director of Consciously Rebuilding for two and a half years. She was a Research Fellow for Mount Sinai School of Medicine International Exchange Program where she researched health equity of farmworker women in Cape Town, South Africa. The combination of non-profit work and public health research afforded her experience in community health, education, health rights, and outreach. She received her master’s of science in public health from Tulane University.

Bryan Joffe - Project Director
Bryan Joffe serves as AASA's project director for the Ready by 21® national partnership. Ready by 21 works with education, community, and business leaders to improve outcomes for children and youth and ensure that all children are ready for college, work, and life. Prior to joining AASA, he worked for the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education focusing on PK-16 alignment and high school to college transition. Joffe received his master's in public affairs from Brown University and bachelor’s degree in political science from Tulane University. He joined AASA in October 2009.

Angela Johnson Davis - Strategy, Innovation, and Research Director
Angela Johnson Davis joined AASA in August 2009. She is involved in projects that focus on preparing children for life beyond high school. She serves as the strategy, innovation, and research director and is primarily responsible for directing the research activities of the Ready by 21Ò subcontract agreement which is focused on the efforts of developing, implementing and sustaining strategies for building impactful school-community relationships essential to school districts. Prior to coming to AASA, she worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a management analyst. While there, she was responsible for managing environmental-related issues and inquiries from the public, members of Congress, and various organizations and affiliates. Angela also worked as a public health analyst for the Health Resources and Services Administration where her primary responsibility was monitoring and analyzing HIV/AIDS-related policy development and epidemiological data in order to provide technical assistance, training and consultation of the development and implementation of a variety of HRSA-related prevention, care and treatment programs. Some of her additional experiences include: research and policy-related work in public health and health care domains on both federal and state levels, and working in school and community settings. Johnson Davis holds a Bachelor of Science degree in criminology from Florida State University, a Masters of Arts degree in health studies from the University of Alabama, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in health education and health promotion from the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

Mlatibe Seidou - Administrative Assistant
Mlatibe Seidou joined AASA in October 2006 from the Center for Child and Human Development at Georgetown University. She enjoys contributing to issues that have an impact on children and education.