STAFF
Marsha Nye Adler, PhD
Policy and Research
Marsha Adler is a member of the Core Group coordinating Age-Friendly Santa Clara County and the City of San Jose. She also serves on the Leadership Council of the Aging Services Collaborative (ASC), the Policy and Advocacy Committee of the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits/ ASC, and the Santa Clara County Seniors’ Agenda Policy and Funding Work Group.
Marsha holds a Ph.D. in political science and has served in the U. S. House of Representatives, the U. S. Senate, and on the staff of California’s Lieutenant Governor, and as staff aide to Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss. She also has held posts in national and regional associations, nonprofits, and higher education institutions.
Tessie Calligeros, MA
Event Coordinator
Tessie Calligeros has been catering and event planning for over 20 years and is the CEO of Calligeros Catered Events. She comes from a multicultural, Mediterranean background which builds upon her skill set as a creative and knowledgeable event coordinator. She is time and detail oriented, and has strong organizational and managerial skills. Her diverse range of skills from organizing small intimate events to large corporate functions to chairing large community festivals and luncheons, have given her valuable insights on what makes events go smoothly, and look beautiful. Tessie has been the event coordinator of Greek Food Festivals in SF which attract over 10,000 attendees, the event coordinator of luncheons, auctions, galas and conventions. She is a team player having served on various committees, and sets her standards very high for herself and her colleagues to ensure a successful event.
Tessie has a Masters of Arts in Gerontology from San Francisco State University and is a proud UC Davis Alumni holding a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Human Development and a Minor in Aging and Adult Development. She is bilingual in English and Greek and travels to Greece often to connect with her family and heritage.
Margriet DeLange, MS
SIPP Project Coordinator
Margriet DeLange is a Certified Professional Gerontologist and insightful educator and presenter. She holds a Masters degree in Gerontology from San Francisco State University and a Bachelors degree in Psychology from J.F. Kennedy University, and was selected at both Universities as Alumni of the Year (2007 and 2014).
Since Margriet founded StoriesUnfolding in 2006, she has been facilitating Guided Autobiography (GAB) Groups for hundreds of participants throughout the Bay Area.
Since 2006, Margriet has taught Gerontology courses at Foothill College in Los Altos, San Francisco State University and J.F.K. University.
Margriet’s experience also includes working with the Santa Clara Country Department of Aging and Adult Services (DAAS) as the Community Organizer for the project Protecting Our Elders: an Interfaith Response to Elder Abuse and Neglect.
This project was funded by the Santa Clara County Mental Health Department and the Archstone Foundation and designed to educate clergy and lay leaders of all faith traditions about the problem of elder abuse and how to successfully intervene.
Elizabeth Johnson, MCRP
Central Oregon Lead
Elizabeth Johnson holds a master's degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon. Her work as a facilitator and experiential educator has brought her to more than 30 countries around the globe. This international exposure to a diversity of
cultural and social contexts has sparked in her an appreciation for the importance of integrating all needs and voices into the fabric of a functional society, especially those of an aging population. In addition to her role as Cafe’s Central Oregon Lead,
she currently works as the Executive Director for the Peaceful Presence Project, a nonprofit that seeks
to help Central Oregonians live well, age well and die well by reimagining the way the community talks about, plans for and experiences
the last stage of life.
She’s passionate about the integration of age inclusive
initiatives into local communities, as well as honest dialogues around the complexities of the aging process.
David Klein
Technologist
David is working to enable a future of happier, healthier older adults, thriving in sustainable communities, knowing their lives matter. He assists CAFE with technology and data integration and strategy, tech industry partnerships, and future visioning. He believes our most advanced technological creativity should engage our civil servants and equally benefit all age groups.
David is an experienced scientist, technologist, and entrepreneur, in the domains of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and neuroscience. He has an electrical engineering bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech, and his neuroscience-focused Ph.D. research at Maryland explored the neural representation of sound. As a researcher in Switzerland, he developed the auditory system for an "intelligent room." Living in Los Altos since 2004, he has enjoyed working in technology leadership roles in several start-ups, experiencing an IPO along the way. In 2015, his collaboration with wildlife conservation scientists won Grand Prize recognition at the Bloomberg Data for Good Exchange. He works as founder and CEO of Empathy Inc, with a focus on Aging in Place, and advises several other startups and tech investment funds.
Jenny Jin-Young Lee, MA
Strategic Planning and Data Research
Jenny Lee has a passion for helping enhance the quality of life for minority elders by promoting improved health and access to social services. Jenny grew up in South Korea and moved to the U.S. nine years ago, when her beliefs and perspectives were already deeply ingrained based on the ethnic cultural values and norms of Korean society. As a first-generation, minority immigrant, who moved to a new country where the culture, language, and context are completely different, she experienced many of the challenges that all immigrants face and saw how these challenges could impact both their physical and mental health. This experience motivated her to go back to school to gain a deeper understanding of how to help immigrants live a better quality of life through improved social support structures.
Jenny has a Masters of Arts in Gerontology and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, both from San Francisco State University (SFSU). She is bilingual in English and Korean, serves as a Research Associate with SFSU, volunteers with On Lok’s 30th Street Senior Center, and is a Certified Shelter Volunteer helping survivors of human trafficking.
Susan Lewis
Program Associate
Susan Lewis loves helping older adults achieve optimum health and wellness within the bounds of both their desires and personal abilities. She believes older adults have a unique and important place in the community where their vast experiences can help the whole community be creative, positive and successful with intergenerational goals for health and wellness.
Currently Susan is engaged in many volunteer experiences, including being a volunteer Ombudsman for Santa Clara County, a committee member for the Cancer CAREpoint Garden Party fundraiser, a facilitator for a small church-based caregiver support group, and the Sustainer chair for National Charity League, Heritage Oaks chapter.
As a proud UC Davis Aggie, Susan earned her undergraduate Sociology degree from UC Davis . Additionally, she has an AA in Adaptive Fitness Therapy, has career certificates in both Adaptive Aquatics and Gerontology, and has completed a health and wellness coach training program.
Pauline Martinez, MA
Senior Research Associate
Pauline Martinez has been involved in a variety of CAFE projects, from our early days in Los Altos, to incorporating a dementia-friendly lens in our work in Santa Clara County, and later laying the foundation for our satellite site in Central Oregon.
She is currently a PhD Fellow in Public Health at UC Davis, where she is also a Graduate Research Assistant on their ‘Healthy Aging in a Digital World’ initiative. Her work is focused on cross-sector partnerships to design age friendly communities that include technology to support aging-in-place.
Mrs. Martinez brings a decade of professional experience in the field of gerontology, including teaching part-time at San Jose State and Oregon State Universities, managing educational initiatives for the Alzheimer’s Association of Northern California, launching an intergenerational TimeBank, leading an award-winning health promotion campaign ‘Healthy Steps in Silicon Valley,’ and helping organize interfaith summit meetings to raise awareness about elder abuse and neglect.
Darci Palmer, Master of City and Regional Planning
Darci Palmer came to CAFE Central Oregon through her passion for inclusive cities and people-focused community development. With more than 9 years combined professional experience in developing affordable housing serving extremely-low-income seniors and veterans, and a Masters degree in City and Regional Planning, Darci seeks to facilitate collaboration and consensus building among public and private stakeholders to achieve sustainable and thoughtful solutions to issues of housing, health, and transportation.
Vaishali ("Shali") Sirkay, MPH
Public Health Senior Consultant
Vaishali (“Shali”) Sirkay comes to CAFÉ from a public health background in Community Health and Program Development. She believes that health decision-making behavior does not exist in a vacuum, so taking a multi-generational, systems-level approach to improving health outcomes is critical for lasting behavioral change from the individual through community levels. Her passion for empowering communities has translated into working on diverse projects, including those looking at the Social Determinants of Health, and using Media Literacy as a public health tool. She started a national non-profit organization, the Action Coalition for Media Education, to address the need for a non-partisan media literacy organization. Her experience working in the non-profit public health sector complemented her later role in Corporate Philanthropy, which she found to be a powerful way of using resources within the community to address unmet need. Shali is sensitive to the ways in which philanthropy impacts the donors as much as it impacts the recipients.
As an active member of her community, Shali currently serves as Co-Chair of the Los Altos Community Coalition, sits on the Executive Board of the Los Altos Mountain View Council PTA (which serves three local school districts), and has been a Girl Scout Troop Leader since 2009. She has co-chaired campaigns that led to the successful passage of a bond and parcel tax in the November 2014 and 2016 General Elections.
Shali received her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Barnard College at Columbia University, and her Master of Public Health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
Tyler Smith
Marketing Lead
Tyler Smith joined CAFE to assist in the betterment of communities through encouraging inclusivity for all. Tyler assists CAFE as the marketing lead. Tyler plans to utilize many different avenues of social media to bring awareness to CAFE and the ongoing mission. In the past, Tyler has volunteered with California Youth Connection (CYC) to advocate for California’s foster youth and has participated in multiple Transitional Age Youth (TAY) Summits for youth aging out of the foster care system.