Meet the Team

Dory Escobar, PhD
​Executive Director

While beginning her career in the 1980’s in the field of mental health, Dr. Escobar focused her work for several decades on community organizing, coalition building, and grassroots leadership development in Northern California and El Salvador. Dory worked for over a decade in El Salvador in the areas of community mental health, community-based rehabilitation, community organizing, and coalition building. Her experience in El Salvador and California includes training community health workers, or promotores; as well as working with their supervising institutions on how to understand and address the risk and protective factors for secondary stress and traumatization. As Director of Healthy Communities and Community Benefit at St. Joseph Health Sonoma County, Dory oversaw community organizing, coalition building and the organization’s Community Benefit planning and reporting. Based on her innovative integration of community organizing and collaboration into hospitals’ Community Benefit work, Dory was invited to join national work groups convened by the CDC, Dept. of Health & Human Services, and the Obama Administration’s White House Office on Neighborhood and Faith- Based Partnerships.
In 2015, Dory founded Coaction Institute to help build capacity of community leaders and institutions such as community-based organizations, hospitals, clinics, public health agencies, and other stakeholders seeking to enhance their efforts in collaboration, strategic planning, program planning and evaluation, and authentic community engagement. As Director of Applied Practice for the University of San Francisco’s public health programs, Dory integrated her expertise in partnership and collaborative practice, program development and monitoring, teaching and mentoring to benefit students and the organizations and populations they serve

Martin Rivarola, MPH
Sr Community Engagement Specialist

receMartin Rivarola, MPH is Coaction Institute’s Senior Community Engagement Specialist. Martin is the former Health Program Manager in the Public Health Division of Sonoma County’s Department of Health Services and has worked in the CHW/P field in Sonoma County since 1999, as a community organizer, community health worker and coordinator and supervisor of CHW/Promotores. Martin served as a CHW/Promotor working as a community organizer for St. Joseph Health Sonoma County from the late 1990’s to the early 2000’s. It was here that Martin and Dory first started working together when she joined the St. Joseph team as the area Director of Healthy Communities and Community Benefit.
After leaving St. Joseph’s, Martin became a CHW/Promotor supervisor and coordinator as the Community Engagement Manager at the Northern California Center for Wellbeing. Martin returned to his home country of Argentina to get his MPH degree and to work with CHWs/Promotores in the Cordoba region serving their community during the pandemic. He then returned to Sonoma County, CA, where he joined the County Health Dept. as Program Manager to help develop the county’s CHW/Promotor workforce. In this role, he oversaw implementation of the “Community Health Workers for COVID Response and Resilient Communities” grant from the CDC. Through this grant, he led efforts to put more trained CHW/Promotores in the communities hit hardest by the pandemic and at elevated risk for exposure and illness, building cohesion and sustainability for these roles moving forward. Martin recently retired from his role as Program Manager with Sonoma County Dept. of Health Services and is joining forces once again with Dory as Coaction Institute’s Senior Community Engagement Specialist.

Camina Gillotti, MPH, CHES
Health Program Specialist

Camina Gillotti, MPH, CHES is the newest member of the Coaction Institute team, serving as its Health Program Specialist.  Camina has experience in health promotion and health education, with a background is in Ayurveda, yoga, and nature-based health education. She is passionate about promoting overall well-being for populations experiencing social and health inequities and works to increase accessibility of tools, practices and resources that prevent disease. Camina believes in integrative approach to health that draws from the healing elements of nature to create a more balanced, sustainable lifestyle and culture. In addition to her work with Coaction Institute, Camina also offers Ayurvedic health consultations, employee wellness programs, retreats, and private yoga and meditation sessions. 

Kate Lorenzen, MNA
Progam Manager
Kate Lorenzen, MNP, has served as a member of Coaction's Advisory Committee since our founding and recently joined the staff team on a project-basis as our Program Manager. She brings over 25 years of experience in program leadership, organizational development and relationship building in academic and non-profit settings focused on public health and policy. In her current full-time role she serves at the University of CA Davis Health serves as Director of Operations for the Healthy Aging Initiative and as Director of the Community of Practice with the Nurse Leaders and Innovators Fellowship National Program Office. She has extensive experience with grant writing, implementation and evaluation. As well as strategic planning and work plan development, advisory board stewardship, team leadership, coalition building and advocacy work. Before joining UC Davis Health, she was an associate Director at the University of WA with the Professional and Continuing Education Dept. planning and developing health and social work certificate and degree programs. Kate’s other professional experience includes working for the Public Health Institute in Oakland, CA Kate Lorenzen, MNP, has served as a member of Coaction's Advisory Committee since its founding and recently joined us on a project-basis as our Program Manager. She brings over 25 years of experience in program leadership, organizational development and relationship building in academic and non-profit settings focused on public health and policy. In her current full-time role she serves at the University of CA Davis Health serves as Director of Operations for the Healthy Aging Initiative and as Director of the Community of Practice with the Nurse Leaders and Innovators Fellowship National Program Office. She has extensive experience with grant writing, implementation and evaluation. As well as strategic planning and work plan development, advisory board stewardship, team leadership, coalition building and advocacy work. Before joining UC Davis Health, she was an associate Director at the University of WA with the Professional and Continuing Education Dept. planning and developing health and social work certificate and degree programs. Kate’s other professional experience includes working for the Public Health Institute as a Senior Program Associate focused on social inequities and environmental health projects, Asthma Project Director for the American Lung Assoc. of CA,, Grassroots and Outreach Director for the SHARE Foundation in El Salvador, and as a consultant on strategic planning projects. She is a graduate of Western Washington University and received a master’s degree in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco.