Megan Haas is a cultural entrepreneur who comes from a family of explorers and innovators whose ideas and actions have shaped her own. Growing up she was immersed in several world-wide communities with strong social, cultural and business values, and as a result has modeled her life and work around both developing healthy community culture, and learning from it.
Megan is a long-time strategist and founder focused on the social and emotional importance of connecting community with business. From co-founding a groundbreaking company that puts men all over the world in skirts, (the Utilikilts Co.), to developing a new culture around global public self-health—Megan's strength is openly translating an underground sensibility to a mainstream audience without losing either.
With Kinnected, Megan is committed to offering a free, equitable, and diverse platform to unite the global community and to redefine self-health. Kinnected's functions are designed around how frontlining intergenerational stories from across cultures can innovate care, reduce healthcare costs, guide people in sensitive and empathetic directions, diminish physician burnout, legitimize different medical systems, and normalize the relationship between mental, emotional and physical health.
Evelyn began working with computers at an early age. While enrolled in the University of South Florida’s computer engineering program, she was a campus representative for Commodore Computers U.S.A.
Evelyn founded The Logical Alternative in 1992 and began her career as a consultant, network engineer, and developer. Areas of expertise include the Microsoft .NET and Linux LAMP development environments, high availability secure network design, business process analysis, and ERP systems.
As the former Chief Information Officer of billion-dollar retailer Lazydays RV, she also has considerable experience in professional IT project management.
Recent projects include development of a build-your-own Avatar viral social media project for Microsoft for the Rio 2016 Olympic games, a dealership inventory management system for the automotive industry, unique web-based presentation technology, a dynamic survey and reporting system for the National School Climate Center, a custom time-tracking system for a staffing company, content-managed web sites for a number of small to medium businesses, and a complete affiliate web-based business solution for the funeral industry.
Evelyn’s favorite past-times include cooking vegan food, practicing yoga, dancing to live music, and playing a mean game of pool.
Melissa has worked in the graphic design and user experience field for 27 years. She has strong roots in print and environmental design, but for the last 20 years, most of her creative work has focused on interactive design.
Since 1992, she and her wife have owned and operated a boutique consulting company providing outsourced IT, branding, and communications services for countless small, medium, and large businesses. This has given her the opportunity to design unique complex visual and interactive solutions. Some of these include: a series of learning kiosks and websites for the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, a personalized interactive Diabetes Advisor app developed for GlaxoSmithKline, a membership-based video and discussion support group site for the parents of transgender kids, a remote learning system for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, as well as numerous mobile and desktop websites and apps. She is particularly invested in designing systems of communication for non-profits and socially-conscious small business owners.
Melissa’s lifeime of experience with migraines and chronic back pain gives her a sense of urgency when it comes to Kinnected. She offers what she’s learned to others, in the hopes that they may find it helpful.
When not managing a housing co-op in Seattle or spending time with her family, Melissa loves reading about history, writing, hiking in the woods, spending time with animals of all kinds, and making remix music videos.
Natalie has always sought to find a way to make a difference by applying technology to important problems for the common good, and feels extremely grateful for having had opportunities to work with some amazing people making positive changes in the world.
At the Institue for Systems Biology, she helped to support open science through software which enabled the then-burgeoning field of proteomics. Later, she also helped to lead a collaboration between teams at the ISB and Google during the initial phase of Cancer Genomics Cloud project. The CGC was in the first cohort of computing projects approved to meet government and NIH privacy standards for working with human genetic sequence data in the cloud.
More recently, Natalie was extremely honored to take part in data management for the global HIV/AIDS clinical vaccine research networks as a part of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Kate Haas learned the nuts and bolts of copy editing at The New England Journal of Medicine in Boston, where her job involved tracking down every article referenced in the Journal to ensure that each citation was error-free. Kate traces her interest in health matters to those hours wandering the basement stacks of Harvard’s Countway Medical Library, poring over obscure medical journals.
Later, as a Peace Corps volunteer working at a school for the blind in Morocco, Kate witnessed directly the impact of access to healthcare. That was also where she learned Arabic, a skill she continues to use in her volunteer work with refugees.
Since 2006, Kate has been a Creative Nonfiction editor at Literary Mama, helping writers craft stories that compel and captivate. Developmental editing is her wheelhouse and intellectual delight.
A freelance writer, Kate’s personal essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine, Slate, Salon, and other venues.
Stephanie grew up on a farm and learned early on how people can work together and positively impact their communities. As an adult, she applied that knowledge to implement systems within healthcare—locally and across the country—to improve services for patients and their families.
She persuaded leaders to listen to stakeholders (e.g. patients, families, physicians, employees, donors) and use that information to enhance the experience of patients, families, and teams. Her marketing expertise spans branding, strategic planning, metrics, and communications. Her team recruited patient and family advisors who influenced operational and strategic decisions. They shared personal narratives to catalyze change and make it better for the next family.
Healthcare improves when people share their stories.
Stephanie is drawn to Kinnected because its heart beats with members’ stories, what they have to offer, and what they would like to receive. That interdependence creates meaningful relationships. She is excited to learn within this dynamic environment and witness powerful partnerships crisscrossing the globe!
Stephanie and Paul, her husband who is a nurse, wander amongst the trees, bike with their two children, and revel in nurturing family and friends with delicious food and lively conversation. They go on family adventures to experience other cultures, reduce fear of the unknown, and deeply appreciate how people live and love.
Suzanne is a medical anthropologist eager to hear people’s stories of health and healing in pursuit of solutions to injustices and inequalities. As both a teacher and a scholar, Suzanne invites herself, her students and her research collaborators to challenge their assumptions about being, knowing and doing, disrupting what gets defined as familiar versus strange.
Suzanne combines her training as a qualitative researcher, experience as a moderator and facilitator, her deep understanding of the healthcare industry and ecosystem, and her own patient experience to uncover patient and provider histories of illness and healing. Her applied and public approach to scholarship means that she puts data back in the hands of people who need it most for value-based and patient-centered care.
Suzanne was born and raised in Syracuse, NY yet has called Walla Walla, WA home for nearly 20 years. She has served as a volunteer EMT for the local fire district, loves snow and outdoor sports, knitting, and binge-watching British dramas. In her spare time, Suzanne runs a craft beer and cider educational tour business, Walla Walla Brews Cruise, with her partner Brent.
Sara is pursuing a degree in Environmental Studies with a focus in Anthropology at Whitman College. She is studying people’s identities and their relationships to the places they live. Sara grew up learning about health disparities in multicultural spaces. This sparked an interest in environmental studies and vulnerabilities relating to environmental degradation and injustice.
Sara has a drive for active and thoughtful participation in her community. At Whitman, she has worked in the Fouts Center for Visual Arts, will be a Cultural Events and Lectures Director, and is creating an art exhibit on queer ecology with peers during her senior year.
When she is not busy trying to make a small impact in a large world, Sara spends her time painting, boring her friends with tree facts, and watching the beautiful Walla Walla sunsets.
Niha is a sophomore at UC Berkeley, currently studying Public Health. She first came to college as a student studying Biology, but realized her true passion was in helping communities directly and understanding how to alleviate inequities in local and global populations. Niha loves innovation and creativity, and believes the best solutions come from research, policy change, and delivering personalized care. Her desire is to work with people and communities to create long-term changes that overcome barriers to health and systemic divides.
In her free time, she enjoys talking to her family, Netflix, cooking, and music.
Madhu is in her element working side by side with CEOs and businesses crafting legal solutions that fit the needs, vision and values of today’s growing companies. She is particularly interested in the emerging intersections of technology, new media and business law and enjoys helping companies navigate the front lines of these fast-developing areas.
Madhu holds a number of community positions that allow her to share her knowledge and passion with others. Madhu is Adjunct Faculty Lead at the Community Development and Entrepreneurship Clinic at Seattle University School of Business and School of Law and President of the Women’s Business Exchange.
Seeking to make a positive impact in our community, Madhu also spends her time speaking at CLEs for attorneys, advising at micro-enterprise clinics, providing pro-bono services for nonprofits, serving on nonprofit boards and hosting free seminars for local businesses on business topics including contracts, intellectual property and social media.
When she’s not busy working, teaching, blogging and networking, Madhu is a mother of two and enjoys time with her family and makes time to enjoy the diverse sights, sounds and tastes the Seattle area has to offer.
Riah has worked for more than 11 years in healthcare and administration, as well as leadership. Riah has seen first-hand the differences that access to adequate healthcare and related information can make. Fluent in both English and Spanish, Riah has volunteered for years in healthcare clinics so that patients can properly communicate their symptoms and healthcare providers can prescribe appropriate care.
As Outreach Coordinator, Riah hopes to equalize the healthcare playing field by literally taking the tools of Kinnected to the public here, in the US and globally. From interacting with her local community members in transitional housing to track their health; to being part of a global campaign to connect our friends and neighbors across borders through technology.
When not wrangling three girls and running her own business, Riah can be found in her community making people smile whenever possible.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here. To the East you spy a mysterious cave.
What do you do?
