Emergency Management

Marysel Pagán Santana, DrPH, MS, serves as Director of Environmental and Occupational Health of Migrant Clinicians Network in Puerto Rico, where she leads and coordinates MCN projects related to the climate crisis, occupational health, and emergency response. She is also the organization's lead for the Caribbean Office. Dr. Pagán Santana provides technical assistance, training, and tool development for community health centers in Puerto Rico and the communities they serve to address disaster-related issues and health-related impacts. Additionally, she is the project director of a USDA-funded project to support resiliency among farmworkers in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. She also provides training related to occupational health and safety to different populations of workers in Puerto Rico. Dr. Pagán Santana has extensive experience providing training to vulnerable and high-risk worker populations and carrying out community projects. She also has over eight years of experience in the private sector as an industrial hygienist and continues to offer them her professional consulting in the development and implementation of training programs in occupational and environmental health, emergency preparedness, and business continuity planning. In recent years, Dr. Pagán Santana has focused on assisting the response to COVID-19 in educational institutions in Puerto Rico, as well as supporting the PR Department of Health's response by offering training to personnel responsible for monitoring schools and businesses to promote the health of students and essential personnel in Puerto Rico. Dr. Pagán Santana has a Master’s degree in Industrial Hygiene and a Doctorate in Public Health with an emphasis on environmental health from the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico.

Alma Galván, MHC (she/her/ella), is the Director of Community Engagement and Worker Training with MCN. Bicultural and bilingual, Galván has worked for more than three decades to improve the health of communities disadvantaged by structural inequities in the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Latin America. Her work has focused on a broad range of public health topics including infectious diseases, environmental health and justice, climate justice, worker health and safety, drug prevention, water and sanitation, cultural competency, and community development water and sanitation. She has worked with community-based organizations and international agencies such as the Pan American Health Organization. At Migrant Clinicians Network, she fosters innovative and participatory approaches to building capacity among immigrant and migrant communities and other underserved populations. She contributes to the development, implementation, and evaluation of multiple projects. Galván has extensive expertise in providing technical assistance and developing culturally contextual curricula and educational materials for Limited English Proficiency and low-literacy adult learners, community health workers, health professionals, health educators, and clinicians. Her unique approach to adult learning and expansive expertise in community-based approaches to health promotion helped hundreds of community health workers, clinicians and health department personnel bring culturally contextual COVID-19 resources and strategies to immigrant and migrant communities in order to promote vaccination and address mis/disinformation. Galván has worked extensively with MCN partners, community-based organizations, health agencies, and local and state health departments promoting health equity through language access and cultural competency. Galván has a strong health and social science background and has designed, implemented, and assessed programs for over 30 years. Galván is bilingual in English and Spanish. She is passionate and committed to addressing health inequities and lessening disparities. In her free time, Galván spends time with her family, and enjoys movies, reading, and learning about different cultures.