Speakers Bureau: Meet Our Experts
Executive Director
An internationally recognized leader and tireless advocate devoted to promoting the health and development of infants and toddlers, Matthew has served as executive director since 1995. He has guided the dramatic growth of ZERO TO THREE’s efforts to support of professionals, policymakers and parents to ensure every baby has a strong start in life.
Areas of Expertise:
- Early childhood education field and nonprofit leadership
- Early childhood development
- Infant and early childhood mental health
Manager, Training/TA Integration, Safe Babies
Darneshia has extensive experience working with families, communities and cross-sector professionals to support safety and nurture strong foundations for healthy development of infants and toddlers impacted by early adversity.
Areas of Expertise:
- Developing and sustaining best practices utilizing the Safe Babies approach
- Child welfare, prevention and promotionÂ
- Promoting equity and access to quality service provision
Chief Communications Officer
Ernestine brings more than 20 years of experience in marketing and communications. She oversees digital communications, media and public relations, brand management and promotion. She also leads the vision, strategy and execution for ZERO TO THREE LEARN, a robust offering of early childhood professional development products and services.
Areas of Expertise:
- Nonprofit Communications
- Communications and technology/Artificial Intelligence
- Literacy and Diverse Books
National Director of HealthySteps
A child psychologist by training, Rahil has overseen the dramatic national growth of HealthySteps, a team-based, integrated pediatric primary care program. With more than 20 years of on-the-ground, academic and systems-level experience in early childhood development, she is an expert on macro and micro trends as well as evidence-based practices.
Areas of Expertise:
- Child Development
- Infant and early childhood mental health
- Health equity
Senior Director of Federal Policy
With over 30 years of experience in policy at the federal and state levels, Patricia leads federal policy formulation and legislative strategies in a range of areas affecting infants and toddlers, including early care and learning, home visiting, child welfare, infant-early childhood mental health and health care.Â
Areas of Expertise:
- Good Health—Physical, social and emotional health; developmental screening; nutrition; maternal and infant health; mental health (including infant and early childhood mental health); and health care
- Strong Families—Economic security; family support; home visiting; paid family and medical leave; stable housing; and child welfareÂ
- Positive Early Learning Experiences—Child care, Early Head Start, early intervention
National Director of Safe Babies and Early Childhood Systems
Janie has over 30 years of experience and expertise in early education, child welfare, Medicaid, mental health, early learning and early childhood system change. She directs a program at ZERO TO THREE that leads states, sites and communities in building coordinated and aligned early childhood systems to support families during their children’s most crucial years of development.
Areas of Expertise:
- Safe Babies programÂ
- Safe Babies state and site implementation and sustainability
- Infant-toddler court teams
- Child welfare, prevention and promotion
Senior Director of Professional Innovations
Sarah has focused her career on building quality professional development opportunities, systems and policies for early childhood educators and the early childhood education field.
Areas of Expertise:
- Adult learner curriculum development
- Early childhood education workforce developmentÂ
- State systemsÂ
Lead Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer
Emeobong (Eme) Martin is responsible for leading the organization’s strategic development and implementation of work to address the needs of overlooked and under-resourced communities.Â
Areas of Expertise:
Cultural humility
Racial and gender equity
Health equity
Senior Director of Programs
With more than 30 years of experience, Christina leads programmatic, financial and administrative oversight of ZERO TO THREE’s California Initiative. She spearheads the customization of national programs for the State of California – impacting learning systems and supporting parents and training leaders.
Areas of Expertise:
Early childhood education
Supporting parents
Workforce training
Senior Director of Programs
Rebecca directs a portfolio of projects related to child development, parenting, and high-quality teaching and caregiving. She has developed many parenting resources including several video series, an app to promote parent-child play, web-based resources and several publications and curricula for professionals.
Areas of Expertise:
Decoding challenging behaviors
Screen/media use in the first 3 years; impacts of parental screen use on the parent-child relationship
Play-based early STEM experiences; instructional strategies to support early math, science, and engineering learning
Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Clinical Consultation Manager, Safe Babies
A licensed clinical psychologist and NAPA/UC Davis Infant-Parent Mental Health fellow, Mike Sherman is an expert in infant and early childhood mental health and has presented internationally. For more than 15 years, he has worked at the nexus of community mental health and child welfare programs, including direct service provision, supervision, training, consulting, program development and administration. 
Areas of Expertise:
Infant and early childhood mental health
Integration of mental health in community and child welfare systems 
Intersection of trauma- and relationally-driven practice
Acting Director, Early Childhood Developmental Health Systems: Evidence to Impact Center
Dawn has extensive expertise in policy, health care innovation and Medicaid services. Before joining ZERO TO THREE, she was recognized as one of the nation’s longest-serving Medicaid directors through her work with the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Areas of Expertise:
Early childhood health systems
Medicaid eligibility, systems and financing
Early Childhood Developmental Health Systems: Evidence to Impact Center
