TECCS Staff Directory

Efren Aguilar heads GIS activities for the Center. He applies cutting-edge GIS and web-based technologies to support planning and evaluation practices that emphasize the impact of neighborhood conditions on individual and community health. His work emphasizes the democratization of data and inclusion of local residents in developing community-based planning efforts, actionable research, and place-based funding decisions. His professional experience runs a broad range of social service issues including social justice, homelessness, supporting displaced political refugees, domestic violence, education, public health, and child development.

Previous positions include: Senior Research Analyst for Healthy City; Program Officer for First 5 L.A.; consultant for L.A. Partnership for Early Childhood Investments, the California Endowment, Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services; and staff with the Statewide California Coalition for Battered Women, American Cancer Society and the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

Ellen Rippberger is the National EDI Coordinator for the Transforming Early Childhood Community Systems (TECCS) project. Prior to joining the Center, she served as an administrative specialist at the UCLA OB/GYN Clinic. She focused on patient health education and community outreach.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and her master’s degree in Public Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, with a concentration in Community Health Sciences.

Dr. Moira Inkelas is Assistant Director of the Center and Assistant Director of the Child and Family Health Program. She applies her training in public policy analysis and public health to examine how systems of care influence quality, access, and performance in children’s health care.

Dr. Inkelas directs quality improvement initiatives to redesign primary care to achieve prevention and development goals for children and their families. She has worked with networks of physicians, early care and education programs, and community organizations to improve care through the Early Developmental Systems Initiative (EDSI). Recent collaborations focus on creating cross-sector learning systems that use process improvement and transformative care design strategies to produce better outcomes for populations of children.

Dr. Inkelas has conducted a range of health services studies, including natural experiments, interventions and evaluations. These studies focus on children with chronic conditions with an emphasis on public insured and health disparity populations. She is part of a university consortium conducting a formative study for the National Children’s Study–Healthy Beginnings–to assess the validity, stability, and associations of measures of health literacy, discrimination, parenting self-efficacy, and health care access and quality among diverse populations in the U.S. She also contributes to the UCLA Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) in developing new community-partnered research activities and infrastructure.

Shayna Tasoff is the data analyst for the Transforming Early Childhood Community Systems (TECCS) project which uses data from the Early Development Instrument (EDI). Prior to joining the Center, she served as a Research Assistant at MPR Associates, Inc., located in Berkeley, CA. She focused on educational policy, advancing sound practice, and expanding educational access for youth and adults.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at UC Santa Cruz and her master’s degree in Public Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, with a concentration in Community Health Sciences.