About HIFY Staff

Nefertiti Altan
Nefertiti is honored and grateful for the opportunity to discuss and teach health with all the beautiful bay area youth! From holding it down militant style with the Watsonville Brown Berets to facilitating theatre, writing and storytelling workshops with SF middle school youth, Nefertiti has managed to stay true to the belief that when the village cares for the youth, the village becomes enriched with justice, heart and creativity.  Born to Guatemalan parents here in the bay, Nefertiti maintains that migratory spirit, traveling as much as she can, and even returning to Guatemala in 2005 to research indigenous medicine and discuss reproductive health with rural communities.  She feels the most alive when she is dancing in a class, on stage or in her room, and hopes to one day combine health and dance education. She has her B.A in Anthropology and Community studies, and is always learning something new everyday because knowledge is not only power, but hella fun! Her greatest inspirations are her parents and siblings, teaching her courage all amidst laughter, her favorite medicine.     

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Cassie Benton
Hey Bay Area- it's me Cassandra Benton aka Cassie! A bit about myself... I started working with HIFY in 2005 in the Peer Health Education department. After becoming a 2 nd year Peer Leader, I was offered the opportunity to move into a different position with the adult staff in the Training Department. Now, I am a Health Educator/ Trainer at HIFY. It's an awesome job and I really enjoy developing and presenting workshops to youth and adults in the Bay Area. I am a recent graduate of Oakland High (go '07!!) and a person who's very passionate about HIV. I've been interviewed for radio shows and have been a guest on local shows about positive sexuality and HIV/ AIDS. My favorite motto is: "if it's safe, fun, and consensual- it's all good!" I believe that we (the youths) have the power to change the world, and HIFY gives us the tools we need to take our first steps. If you want to be an active member of the community and have fun, then sign up to be a trainer at HIFY!

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Ariel Clemenzi-Allen
Ariel began her work as a peer health educator in 1996 and has been active in the field ever since. She has worked as an HIV testing counselor, a gynecology instructor and a health columnist for the University of Illinois. She went on to direct a peer education program, where she provided workshops and trainings to more than 3,000 people ages 10 and up each year. Now as HIFY's Training Department Manager she is delighted to bring her technical health expertise and passion for social justice together to serve Bay Area service providers and youth. Contact her for information on HIFY's provider trainings!

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Maliyah Coye
Maliyah joined HIFY as a Senior Editor in the Publications Department facilitating a series of anti-oppression workshops and zine series with the students at Yerba Buena's Young Artists At Work program. She is currently HIFY's Publications Workshop Coordinator, working on the Zine-Making/W.O.R.D (Writing Our Realities Down) workshop series. Outside of the HIFY office Maliyah is pursuing her passion as a musician and artist using the creative writing and art department at San Francisco State as a tool. You can catch her drumming and dancing the streets during Carnaval with Loco Bloco. Or maybe you'll find her in the park reading self-help books, pulling Tarot cards and affirming. She is a Taurus with a Cancer rising and a moon in Libra. And yes if you ask, she will cast your birth-chart..

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Philipe Lonestar
Philipe Lonestar is an excitable genderqueer originally from the south—a city-dweller with a small town heart. Ze is delighted to join HIFY as the new Media Arts Coordinator with a background in sex education, harm reduction, anti-oppression work, counseling, survivor advocacy and filmmaking. Philipe’s short films and animations about gender, bodies, queerness, trauma and healing have screened internationally at film festivals, conferences, street corners and living rooms. Philipe loves cats, chickens, tattoos and polka dots. Ze can often be found playing dress-up, eating ice cream, wearing sequins, laughing, sporting fake moustaches, drinking tea and riding bicycles- often all at the same time.

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Esperanza Macias
Esperanza joined HIFY on August 28, 2006. She has a long history of working in the Bay Area nonprofit community, including working with the Women's Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights, Dolores Street Community Services, and Rainbow Adult Community Housing. She also served as executive director for the Women's Building. "One of the great things about being a Latina lesbian in the Bay Area is that there are a great many nonprofits that address the LGBT community, women, communities of color, and various social justice issues that I'm interested in," explained Macias. "I've been very fortunate to work with some of the best organizations in the Bay Area. Hopefully, HIFY will benefit from the lessons I've learned from them," she added.
- taken from Bay Area Reporter online article

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Tina Mahle
Tina Mahle first got a taste of HIFY when she joined the Peers in the summer of 2006 as the Peer Education Program Intern. She was ecstatic to join the HIFY staff after graduating from Antioch College in the spring. Originally from Ohio, she is adjusting to the NorCal way of life. She wants to learn more about organizing and educating so that she can take some of the anti-oppression ideas back to Ohio and challenge the Midwestern status quo. Besides having the greatest job on earth, Tina works as a fat activist, loves to read, play with gender, and karaoke her little heart out.

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Carnelius Quinn
Back in the Bay by popular demand! Carnelius is honored and excited to return to HIFY in this very new capacity, working with the awesome Peer Health Educators! Born and raised in San Francisco, Carnelius has been working with youth since he was a wee lad himself—finding unique ways to fuse the Arts with social education and responsibility. Educated at San Francisco State University, Carnelius holds degrees in both the Arts and the Social Sciences...a combination that's finally becoming more popular. From directing the Exaltation! Youth choir; through learning what Peer Education was all about through SF Peer Resources, Youth United Through Health Education, and the NAMES Project; to directing the amazing Santa Rosa educational troupe Teens Teaching Through Theatre (T4), Carnelius is a performance artist-turned-activist. He believes strongly in advancing the rights of all underserved and marginalized peoples - especially youth, and loves that HIFY is just the place to further that cause. He is as excited to learn from the amazing people around him at HIFY as he is to help guide the Peer Education Team to new heights! He doesn't have much of a life outside of work, but since he has so much fun at work - he's okay with that. When he IS off the clock, you can most likely find him catching a play, writing his own, dancing, hiking, eating, or soaking up the sun in random spots around the Bay. He has been known to sing, and can tear it up at Karaoke...but that's always on a case-by-case basis.

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Nate Robles
Nathan "Nate" Robles is a proud, young Native American man. He began working at HIFY in June 2007 in the training department just one month after graduating from HIFY's peer educator program. In response to questions about his experiences at HIFY he has been quoted as saying, "There are very few things in my experiences that feel quite as good as the feeling I get after doing a great workshop." Being a peer educator throughout most of his high school years allowed him to realize how much our communities - as beautiful as the may be - need a lot of love.   He was born and raised in Oakland primarily and has a strong sense of the rich culture that is unique to the Bay Area. At the same time he loves traveling to anywhere and everywhere that helps him gain a little perspective and to learn a few things about himself, too. To say that Nate is out going would be something of an exaggeration but he loves surrounding himself with non-judgmental people. He loves writing, exploring, getting/giving hugs, eating and the Oakland Athletics! He hopes to see you soon!

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Tomas Valotta
Tomas joined HIFY on September of 2006, as an intern for the Publications Department working on future content and what could become the Queer Youth Survival Guide. All the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina, the land of tango and beef, Tomas moved to the Bay Area in 2001. He received his undergrad degree at San Francisco State University in Sociology with an ever-controversial minor in Marketing. Previously he formed part of an international ethnography project that studied youth in the city. Tomas also provided translations and transcriptions for the Cesar Chavez Institute's Relations Project which studied acceptance and relationships between Queer youth of color and their parents.  Previously a rather decent drummer and skateboarder, he now likes to takes things a lot more slowly. He enjoys watching foreign movies, obsessing over music, visiting Hawai'i every year,  eBaying, and taking coffee breaks by our cold San Francisco beaches.

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