Our
Team

For the last 15 years, Christopher (pronouns he/him) has been dedicated to addressing health and social inequities among vulnerable NYC communities. Christopher joined the EngageWell IPA in January 2019 as Director of Programs, overseeing program innovation and quality management initiatives, and assumed the Executive Director role in July 2021. Prior to EngageWell, Christopher oversaw NYC's largest HIV Care Coordination Program at Mount Sinai Hospital and managed an SDOH intervention at Woodhull Medical Center where undergrad Health Advocates connected Brooklyn families’ to community resources and government benefits as a standard of care. Since 2011, Christopher has sat on the HIV Health and Human Services, HIV Planning Council and Integration of Care Committee helping improve NYC's safety-net system for people with HIV. Christopher was also an Adjunct Instructor for four years at LaGuardia Community College where he taught Population Health for the Community Health Worker Workforce Development Program. In 2015, Christopher’s health equity work earned him a NASW-NYC Emerging Social Work Leadership Award.  He earned Master's degrees in Public Health and Social Work from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.

Cheyenne Stewart (pronouns they/them) joined the EngageWell team in June 2019 as the Adult Behavioral Health Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Project Coordinator and became the Director of Strategic Implementation in January 2022. Prior to joining EngageWell, they were a Program Coordinator at NYS Clinical Education Initiative’s HIV/HCV Center of Excellence based at Mount Sinai Institute for Advanced Medicine, where they organized New York State’s first clinical preceptorship on providing Transgender-Affirming Primary Care for providers in under-resourced areas. Their background is in population health, with a focus in social determinants of health, economic justice, and LGBTQ health. They received their Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Urvashi Pandya (pronouns she/her), Manager of Special Projects, joined the EngageWell team in April 2023. She has been driven to uplift voices often excluded from the public health narrative through community-rooted programs and cross-sectoral partnerships that focus on eliminating unjust barriers to health. Prior to her time at EngageWell, she was Director of Programs at AIRnyc, where she led a team of Community Health Workers (CHWs) to deliver health coaching and wraparound service programs while building relationships with healthcare system stakeholders. She also worked at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention's Office of Minority Health & Health Equity on a Zika virus training for CHWs and at The Greater Boston Food Bank on the evaluation of a mobile produce market program. Urvashi has spent time working on public health interventions in Peru, Honduras, Indonesia, and Liberia. She holds a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Tara Merigan (she/her) joined the EngageWell team in March 2024. Prior to EngageWell, she worked at NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as the Special Projects Coordinator for the Bureau of Children, Youth and Families within the Division of Mental Hygiene. In this role she supported the implementation of a digital mental health platform for NYC teenagers, the design and planning of youth suicide prevention initiatives, and Medicaid and policy research. She has also worked in supportive housing, where she conducted qualitative and quantitative research. She received her Master of Public Administration from the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.