Robyn joined Valley Vision in 2006 as a consultant to the Open Space Project and, as a full-time employee, currently manages the Sacramento Region Food System Collaborative, a diverse coalition focused on connecting the economic viability of local agriculture with increasing access to healthy foods in underserved communities in our region. She also manages a strategic planning effort for the UC Davis School of Medicine’s student run clinics. Previously she supported Valley Vision’s partnership with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) on the Rural Urban Connections Strategy (RUCS) by conducting stakeholder interviews for a Local Market Assessment of the Sacramento Region. She provided logistical and technical coordination for the Hmong Health Collaborative and has played roles on several other projects. Before joining Valley Vision, Robyn worked as a Research Assistant in the Pacific Regional Humanities Center at UC Davis, where she managed an oral history project with multi-generational landowner families in the Sutter Buttes, a geologically and culturally unique area in Northern California. She also worked in the public school system—where she helped create an innovative on campus-home study hybrid—and coordinated multi-million dollar contracts for a U.S. EPA contractor. Robyn earned a master's and bachelor's degree from UC Davis in cultural anthropology with graduate coursework in community development.

Dr. Frank is the president of Urban Design 4 Health, Inc., and a Professor and Bombardier Chairholder in Sustainable Transportation at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in the interaction between land use, travel behavior, air quality; and health and the fuel consumption and climate change impacts of urban form policies. He has done fundamental, groundbreaking research on the effects of neighborhood walkability on travel patterns and sustainability for 20 years and has led over $18 million in funded research and published over 100 peer reviewed articles and reports on these topics for a diverse range of journals such as Transportation, Journal of the American Planning Association, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and Social Science and Medicine. Dr. Frank works directly with local, regional, provincial or state, and federal agencies to help translate results from research into evidence based tools that provide direct feedback on the health and environmental impacts of alternative transportation and land development proposals.

Dr. Desiree Backman is the Chief Prevention Officer for the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and the Institute for Population Health Improvement (IPHI) at the UC Davis Health System. In this role, Dr. Backman works with DHCS staff and stakeholders to develop, implement, and sustain the Department’s Quality Strategy, which is a blueprint to improve the health of all Californians, improve the quality of all DHCS programs, and reduce the Department’s per capita health care costs. Prior to joining DHCS and IPHI, Dr. Backman worked with the Public Health Institute and the California Department of Public Health to direct statewide programs designed to improve the diet and physical activity habits of low-income Californians. She worked with a team of national, state, and local experts to develop, implement, evaluate, and sustain five nationally recognized programs, and has published research articles on the topics of cancer prevention, health promotion, and public health intervention approaches and effects. In addition to her work in public health, Dr. Backman has a passion for the environment. She was the Deputy Director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation. She directed all programs and services at the foundation and worked with a team of experts to use a social ecological framework to build and sustain the best urban forest for the greater Sacramento region. Dr. Backman has secured grants and contracts worth over $155 million, and has served on a variety of expert panels and work groups at Loma Linda University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and Yale University. In addition, she received multiple public health academic and practice awards including the 2012 Best GEM Award from the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Loma Linda University’s President Award, and the Joint Health, Fitness, and Nutrition Award from the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the National Association for Health and Fitness. Prior to launching her career, Dr. Backman earned her doctorate in public health from Loma Linda University.

Dr. Kathleen Wolf is a Research Social Scientist with the College of the Environment, University of Washington. She has a joint appointment with the US Forest Service Pacific NW Research Station to develop a program on Urban Natural Resources Stewardship. Since receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan Dr. Wolf has done research to better understand the human dimensions of urban forestry and urban ecosystems. She has also worked professionally as a landscape architect and as an environmental planner. Kathy's studies are based on the principles of environmental psychology; her professional mission is to discover, understand and communicate human behavior and benefits, as people experience nature in cities and towns. Moreover, Kathy is interested in how scientific information can be integrated into local government policy and planning. She is a member of the Environmental Design Research Association, the International Society of Arboriculture, a technical contributor on human well-being to the Sustainable Sites Initiative, a member of the Transportation Research Board national committee on Landscape and Environment, and the Washington State Community Forestry Council. Dr Wolf has presented her research throughout the United States, in Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan. An overview of Dr. Wolf's research programs can be found at www.naturewithin.info; additional research findings on Green Cities: Good Health: www.greenhealth.washington.edu