Program Director: Linda Meurer, MD

Presenters: Carla Echeveste; Edwin Maldonado, MS; Zeno Franco, PhD

Carla Elena Echeveste is a former accountant turned published researcher and community program coordinator for the All of Us Research Program. Echeveste holds a degree in accounting and mathematics from Alverno College and a post-baccalaureate premedical studies certificate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and numerous professional awards for her engagement. Most recently, she represented All of Us at the White House as she was invited to attend the 2019 Hispanic Heritage Month reception. In her role at the Medical College of Wisconsin for the All of Us Research Program, which is a historic and ambitious effort to gather data from one million or more people living in the United States to accelerate research and improve health, she is instrumental in advancing programmatic efforts and strategic communications with key partners and organizations, while providing the NIH feedback to continuously improve marketing to reflect the cultural mosaic of the Greater Milwaukee area.

Edwin Maldonado, MS is a first generation Latino with over 25 years of experience in public relations skills and community organizing. He obtained a Bachelor degree in Educational Policy and Community Studies and a Masters in Cultural Foundations of Community Engagement and Education from the University of WI – Milwaukee. He is currently a Community Program Coordinator for the All of Us Research Program at the Medical College of WI.

Zeno Franco, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Dept of Family & Community Medicine and is faculty in the MCW Office of Community Engagement.  In addition to his local work on veteran engagement, Dr. Franco has studied the social psychology of heroism over the last decade in collaboration with Dr. Philip Zimbardo.  This collaboration in the early 2000s is credited with creating renewed focus on heroics as a serious topic of research in psychology. Dr. Franco recently served as guest editor for the first special issue on “Heroism & the Human Experience” for the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and has spoken about the topic to schools, community groups, and multinational corporations to bring attention to the importance of fostering the idea of everyday heroism at each stage of life – from youth, to the workplace, to those in seasoned leadership roles. Dr. Franco’s applied work on veteran engagement and heroism were recently recognized through the MCW President’s award for Community Engagement and the American Psychological Association’s Carmi Harari early career award from the Division of Humanistic Psychology.

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