Cultural Literacy Summit
Speaker Biographies
Tammer Attallah
Tammer Attallah, MBA, LCSW, serves as the executive clinical director for Intermountain Healthcare’s Behavioral Health Clinical Program. Prior to this role, he served as the administrative director of Behavioral Health Services at Intermountain’s Primary Children’s Hospital. Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based, not-for-profit system of 33 hospitals (includes "virtual" hospital), a Medical Group with more than 3,800 physicians and advanced practice clinicians at about 385 clinics, and a health plans division called SelectHealth. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in clinical quality improvement and efficient healthcare delivery.
Tammer currently serves on the University of Utah’s College of Social Work Community Advisory Board, Impact Clinic Board (a nonprofit free mental health clinic treating low-income and the uninsured in Utah), and he chairs Salt Lake County’s System of Care Advisory Council. He also has experience on community and state boards including the Salt Lake County Council on Diversity Affairs, the Division of Occupation and Professional Social Work Licensing Board, and Salt Lake County’s System of Care Advisory Council.
Tammer has over 25 years of experience in mental health and substance use disorder services across the lifespan. Over the course of his leadership career, Tammer has emphasized the value of delivering evidence-based behavioral health care. From this cornerstone, a clear vision and collaboration create innovations that ultimately overcome barriers to care. He holds master’s degrees in social work and business administration from the University of Utah.
Santiago Cortez
Santiago Cortez, ASUDC, CEO of Clinical Consultants, is a local expert in the area of substance use disorder treatment and the therapeutic community model. After relocating to Utah to assist in establishing the therapeutic community model in the state, he chose to stay in the area and has since become a local leader in the field. He served as a member of the International Quality Assurance Board for a therapeutic community for 26 years, and has acted as the chairperson of the Substance Use Disorder Counselors Board for DOPL. Mr. Cortez has been a part of the Governor's USAAV+ counsel for the last 15 years and is the chairperson for the Behavioral Health Workforce Committee Group. He has been an advocate for clients seeking behavioral health services and the professionals providing those services on individual, corporate, and legislative levels and is passionate about his work in the field.
Jim Dunnigan
A lifelong resident of Utah, and a dedicated public servant and advocate for the residents of West Jordan and Taylorsville, Representative Jim Dunnigan serves in the Utah House as the speaker pro tem and chairs the Political Subdivisions Committee and the Legislative Process Committee. He has sponsored numerous pieces of legislation dealing with health care reform.
Over the past seven years, he has served in the Oxbow jail as a volunteer clergy, working one-on-one with those struggling with addiction and mental health challenges. He helps arrange food, clothing, sober living, and employment upon their release. He loves helping others get on the path to sobriety and success in the community and reengaging with their families.
Rep Dunnigan is a small business owner. He received the 2019 Governor’s Award for leadership and advocacy for Utahns with substance use and mental health disorders and was named the Utah Small Business Champion of the Year by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the University of Utah.
Luz Escamilla
Senator Luz Escamilla, MPA, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Marketing and a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Utah.
In 2008, she was elected to the Utah State Senate representing Senate District 1, becoming the first Latina elected to the Utah State Senate and the first immigrant elected to the Utah State Legislature. She is serving her fourth term in the Utah State Senate after being reelected in 2012 and 2016. Senator Escamilla serves in the Senate leadership team as the senate minority whip. She has served as chair of NHCSL's Banking, Affordable Housing, and Credit Task Force since 2018.
In 2005 she was appointed by Governor Jon Huntsman as the first director for the State Office of Ethnic Affairs. In this position, she oversaw the directors of Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Pacific Islander Affairs. She worked as vice president for Zions Bank in the Community Development Group, representing Zions Bank in community and business relationships across the state of Utah and Idaho. At Zions Bank she worked as director for the Business Resource Center, as well as the Hispanic/Latino Market Manager.
She was the chief operations officer at MiCARE Network, a Utah-based healthcare startup focused on innovative solutions to care management. As the co-founder and managing partner of ESCATEC Solutions, she is focusing on CX solutions and improving customer experiences for different organizations and entities. Senator Escamilla has a vast experience as a business and political consultant focusing on strategy and government relations for business and nonprofits.
Natalie Gochnour
Natalie Gochnour, MS, serves as an associate dean in the David Eccles School of Business and director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah. She also serves as the chief economist for the Salt Lake Chamber.
Gochnour’s experience includes a diverse mix of public service and business experience. From 2006 to 2013 she guided the public policy work of the Salt Lake Chamber, Utah’s largest business association, representing 7,700 member businesses. She helped create and lead the Downtown Rising movement, helped pass a ballot initiative to secure funds for the expansion of Utah’s TRAX light rail and FrontRunner commuter rail service, and assisted with the drafting and promotion of balanced immigration policies inspired by the Utah Compact. During Gochnour’s state service she advised Utah governors Bangerter, Leavitt, and Walker, and served as the media spokesperson for the governor’s office during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. She also served as a political appointee in the George W. Bush administration, serving as an associate administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a deputy to the secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2022, Gochnour was the recipient of the internationally-acclaimed Athena award, a recognition given to a professional female leader who has demonstrated significant achievement in business and community service.
Gochnour has both an undergraduate and master’s degree in economics from the University of Utah. She shares her views as a contributor to the Deseret News and on a weekly public radio public affairs program called Both Sides of the Aisle.
April Graham
April Graham, LCSW, is the interim director of Utah’s Juvenile Justice Services. April has over 25 years of experience with Juvenile Justice Services in most of its capacities, from facility work to case manager. She has been largely involved in building case planning for JJS case managers and in reform efforts and implementation of the Families First Services and prevention act in Utah. This included building processes for implementation practices to adhere to the changes in statue. April has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the Utah State University and a master’s degree from the University of Utah in social work, and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
Jesse Higgins
Jesse Higgins, PhD, MS, is the clinical director for Utah Juvenile Justice and Youth Services. He earned his MS in Marriage & Family Therapy from a joint program of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Nebraska Medical Center. He also has a PhD from Utah State University in Family and Human Development, with specializations in adolescent development and parenting. He has practiced individual, couple, and family therapy for over 10 years and is a clinical fellow and approved supervisor with the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy. On the weekends, he reads comic books and consumes Snickers and gummy bears.
Sandra Hollins
Sandra Hollins, LCSW, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and she has been a resident of Salt Lake City for the past 30 years. Sandra and her husband David currently reside in Fair Park and have two daughters.
Sandra is a licensed clinical social worker, and the primary focus of her career has been on substance abuse treatment and advocacy services for Salt Lake City’s homeless population. She earned her bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Phoenix and her master’s degree in social work from the University of Utah. Sandra is a member of the graduate chapter of the Greater Salt Lake Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and has served on numerous boards and councils.
Sandra is the first Black American woman elected to the Utah State Legislature. She is a member of the Utah House of Representatives where she has proudly served District 21 since 2015. She successfully passed legislation banning knee on the neck restraint by law enforcement, requiring cultural training for school resource officers, increasing job opportunities for the formerly incarcerated, removing the provision that allow for slavery in the Utah state constitution, and declaring Juneteenth a state holiday. Sandra serves as the assistant minority whip of the Utah House minority caucus and is vice chair of the Executive Office and Criminal Justice appropriation committee. She is a member of the Health and Human Services, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, Executive Appropriation committee, Fairpark oversight panel, and the Child Welfare oversight panel.
Curtis Johnson
Curtis Johnson is an assistant professor/faculty field liaison at the University of Utah College of Social Work. Before joining the College of Social Work at the University of Utah, Curtis served as a child protection services social worker in the State of California and taught at Touro University Worldwide Department of Social Work in Los Alamitos, California.
Curtis earned a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice Studies at Kent State University Department of Criminal Justice Studies, and a Master of Social Work from Howard University (HBCU) School of Social Work. Curtis is a seasoned social work practitioner with over 37 years of direct social work practice experience in child welfare, criminal justice, and mental health. Curtis has served more than 17 years as a professor and training consultant.
Throughout his career, Curtis has served in various positions nationally that have all intensified his ongoing professional growth. Curtis has taught at an array of universities—both public and private—including, California State University, Dominguez Hills’ Master of Social Work Program; the University of Southern California School of Social Work; Kent State University Department of Sociology Criminology and Justice Studies Program; Central State University Department of Social Work; the Ohio State University College of Social Work; and at Central Ohio Technical College Department of Human Services.
David Litvack
David Litvack, MA, brings policy and programming experience from serving in various levels of government. He was director of the Criminal Justice Advisory Council (CJAC) in the Salt Lake County Mayor’s Office, and both deputy chief of staff and, most recently, senior policy advisor in the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office. Litvack also served in the Utah State House of Representatives from 2000 to 2012. He is a graduate of Westminster College and earned a Master of Arts in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago.
Philip Osteen
Philip Osteen, PhD, MSW, is an associate professor and dean of the College of Social Work at the University of Utah. Dr. Osteen has been working in a variety of positions in the mental health field since 1990, including case management, community-based residential treatment, and clinical research. His work in suicide intervention and prevention began after the loss of a client to suicide early in his career. Following that, he began studying the training of mental health professionals and non-professional gatekeepers. His recent work has shifted to evaluating interventions for high-risk groups such as middle-aged men, men of color, and queer men. Additionally, he is actively engaged in initiatives to expand access to higher education to minority and marginalized communities, such as the Indigenous Social Work Scholars program in the BSW Program, and the development of an online, bilingual Spanish language online MSW Program.
Dr. Osteen earned master’s degrees in social work and quantitative research methods, as well as doctoral degrees in social work and quantitative research methods from the University of Denver. Before joining the University of Utah, he held faculty positions at Florida State University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the University of Denver.
Nubia Peña
Ms. Nubia Peña, JD, is the senior advisor on equity and opportunity to Governor Cox and the director for the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs, where their mission is to promote an inclusive climate for Utah's growing diverse community through training, outreach, and youth leadership development. Ms. Peña is immensely grateful for the extensive experience acquired during the past 15 years working as a community organizer, advocate, and ally for systematically marginalized populations. She has the great opportunity to facilitate dialogues amongst local and national leaders on complex topics of inclusion and racial justice working to create equitable access in services and resources for historically disenfranchised communities.
Ms. Peña is a proud former member of the zealous team at the Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys, where she advocated for youth rights during detention and delinquency proceedings. She is certified by the National Juvenile Defender Center as a Juvenile Training Immersion Program facilitator. In addition, Ms. Peña is a national consultant dedicated to bringing awareness to intersections of trauma and the school-to-prison pipeline, an epidemic that targets our most vulnerable youth by streamlining them into the juvenile justice system. She also serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.
Ms. Peña has actively sought to bring awareness to issues of interpersonal and community violence through her professional endeavors and personal faith-based initiatives. She has a decade of experience assisting survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, and violent crimes as a Law Enforcement Victim Advocate. Ms. Peña served as the training and prevention education specialist at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault (UCASA) for over a decade, where she developed trainings on Youth Advocacy for Trafficked Survivors, Social Justice in Prevention Efforts, and Sexual Harassment in the #MeToo Era.
Ms. Peña earned her Juris Doctorate from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in May 2016. During that year, she was selected as one of 25 law students in the nation to be recognized and highlighted for her social justice activism in the National Jurist, a leading news source in legal education. She was also selected as the recipient of the National Juvenile Justice Network 2019 Emerging Leader Award due to her longstanding commitment to youth rights, empowerment, and leadership development. Ms. Peña was named in Utah Business Magazine’s 2020 40 Under 40 award recipients, recognized among the 2020 Heroes for Utah Philanthropy Day, selected as Sundance Film Festival 2021 Women’s Leadership Celebration honorees, and awarded the Utah Business Magazine’s Living Color recognition for service in driving equity and inclusion in the state. In 2022, she was named the recipient of the Utah Minority Bar Association (UMBA) Jimi Mitsunaga Excellence in the Law Award for significantly contributing to and promoting the provision of legal services to underserved communities, excelling in the practice of law, and contributing to UMBA's mission of inclusive social impact. Most recently, Ms. Peña was selected as a 2023 Presidential Leaders Scholars, a national development experience that hones leadership capabilities through interactions with former U.S. presidents, key administration officials, world-renowned academics, and business and civic leaders.
Eric Tadehara
Eric Yoshio Jesús Tadehara, LCSW, MPA, works for the Utah Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health as the assistant director over Substance Use Services and Suicide Prevention Services. He has worked in the field of social work for the past 15 years in roles including: direct clinical practice working with children, adolescents, youth in transition, and adults with mental health and substance use needs, and intellectual disabilities; crisis evaluation and management; and behavioral health administration. He is also an adjunct professor at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.
He earned his Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) from Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, and his Master of Social Work (MSW) and Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In his spare time, he can be seen gushing over his newly 1-year-old child!
Martell Teasley
Martell L. Teasley, PhD, MSW, is the former interim provost of the University of Utah and dean (on leave) of the College of Social Work at the University of Utah. He is in his second term as president of the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work. Martell was professor and chair of the Department of Social Work in the College of Public Policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 2012 until 2017. As the lead investigator on the social work profession’s Grand Challenge to Eliminate Racism, his major areas of research interests are African American adolescent development, school social work practice, and diversity in social work education.
He is the former chair of the Social Work and Disaster Recovery Program at Florida State University College of Social Work. He served in the U.S. Army for 10 years and participated in the First Persian Gulf War as a Licensed Practical Nurse. His education includes a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Fayetteville State University in North Carolina in 1994. He earned a Master of Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in 1996, and his doctorate in Social Work in 2002 from Howard University, located in Washington, DC.
Mason Turner
Mason Spain Turner, MD, is the senior medical director for behavioral health for Intermountain Healthcare based in Salt Lake City. His leadership in mental health care focuses on the development and evolution of strategic innovations in behavioral health care delivery that enhance quality of care and clinical excellence and are guided by principles of equity and inclusion of the patient/consumer voice into all aspects of the behavioral healthcare ecosystem.
Including integration initiatives which link mental health care and addiction medicine services with both primary and specialty medical care, as well as supporting innovative technological means of reaching patients for treatment of behavioral health conditions, he is also committed to enhancing access for behavioral health care services to all those who need it. Additionally, he has extensive experience in promoting employee health and well-being in a variety of corporate and healthcare sectors.
As a clinician, he specializes in addiction medicine, consult-liaison psychiatry, and treatment of personality disorders. He has received extensive training in resiliency- and systems-based approaches for improving the mental health and well-being of refugees, asylum seekers, and torture survivors.
Dr. Turner also served as a former assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, where he taught medical students at all levels the practice of interviewing patients and clinical reasoning skills. He also served as adjunct faculty at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine.
Dr. Turner earned his AB degree in psychology from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, and completed his MD degree at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center/Parkland Hospital in Dallas, TX. He completed his residency in psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School through Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, in Boston, MA, with additional training in psychotherapy at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at Massachusetts General Hospital and addiction psychiatry at McLean Hospital. He is board certified in psychiatry and certified in addiction medicine through the American Board of Preventive Medicine.
Pamela Vickrey
Pamela Vickrey is the executive director of the Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys. Ms. Vickrey also serves chair to the Utah Sentencing Commission; chair of the Juvenile Subcommittee for the Utah Sentencing Commission; a member of the Indigent Defense Commission; a member of Salt Lake County’s Criminal Justice Advisory Council, and the juvenile defense representative on the Juvenile Justice Implementation Committee under Utah’s Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.
Ms. Vickrey has been instrumental in numerous sweeping reforms in Utah, including: the creation of Utah’s first juvenile mental health court; the development and implementation of Utah’s juvenile competency statute; ending indiscriminate shackling of youth; eliminating juvenile life without parole sentences; legislative amendments to Utah’s laws regarding the transfer of youth to the adult criminal justice system; and automatic appointment of counsel for all children at all juvenile court proceedings. Ms. Vickrey also helped develop and pass an omnibus juvenile justice reform bill that identified and addressed racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system; removed truancy from the court system; diverted low-risk youth from formal court proceedings; limited the imposition of fines and fees, driver’s license suspensions, and compensatory service; shifted dollars from costly out-of-home placements for children to community-based services; and restricted the use of detention. As the first certified Juvenile Training Immersion Program trainer in Utah, Ms. Vickrey coordinates and provides specialized training to juvenile defense attorneys in the state and around the country.