Board of Directors
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Maria P. Hernandez |
Maria P. Hernandez is the President and Founder of Growing Roots. After graduating with a Masters Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorder from UT Austin in 2006, she started working as a bilingual speech- language pathologist with the low-income immigrant population in Austin. Throughout her years in home health and outpatient settings, she noticed that the majority of these families had not had the opportunities to learn about their child’s special needs resulting in reduced carryover, bonding and advocacy. Her experiences working with these families prompted her interest to do something more to fill the educational gaps and target these families needs. Her current and previous volunteer experiences both in Austin and Bogota, Colombia have served to teach her how to provide comprehensive services that truly consider the family’s needs as a whole. She continues to provide services to families in a home health setting where she feels the family’s needs are most evident. Although her professional background is in speech/language and feeding development, she truly believes that families need an umbrella of services in order to succeed. |
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Katie Macdonald |
Katie Macdonald has more than 10 years experience in PR and marketing for various industry sectors , including health care, technology, finance, government and the Internet. Currently, she works for WCG helping her mostly health care clients harness the power of social media to expand their reach to more patients. Most recently, before WCG, Katie worked as a marketing specialist at the Seton Family of Hospitals focusing on branding and identity development for the hospital system and physician specialties. Katie has enjoyed working with children in the health care field for many years now as both an Emergency Department volunteer with Dell Children’s Hospital and as a counselor at Camp Periwinkle, serving children with cancer. Her strong background in marketing for nationally recognized businesses and clients, along with her passion for helping others brought Katie to Growing Roots where she can apply her past experiences to support the under-served in our community. Katie received her bachelor of arts in English at Saint Mary’s College of Notre Dame, IN and a master’s in Journalism from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she focused on medical reporting. |
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Santiago Hernandez |
Santiago’s passion for graphic and web design began over seven years ago when he was majoring in finance at Towson University. Currently he advises and builds websites for non-profits such as Growing Roots. For the past five years Santiago has been working in the banking sector where he specializes in financial and strategic analysis. He served as a co-chair for the Emmaus House, a non-profit homeless shelter serving families with children with an emphasis on education and job placement. There, Santiago, lead a team of peers to raise over $85,000, through events such as a bowl-a-thon, golf-outing, and a charity raffle. For his efforts he was awarded the, “President’s Volunteer Service Award”. Santiago grew up understanding why Growing Root’s mission is so important. As a child he was diagnosed with a learning disability of his own which is why he believes that early intervention is critical to development. |
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Pranaya Kondekar |
An engineer by trade, Pranaya’s true passion lies in making a difference through literacy. She has been an active member of the Austin community supporting local organizations such as The Miracle Foundation, Literacy Austin and Leadership Austin. Fundraising, media relations and event planning are strengths she brings to the Growing Roots Board. She also serves as the event planning director for Room to Read’s Austin chapter, an international organization which believes that world change starts with educated children. Her strong experience in the corporate world coupled with her community service background and networks through Austin makes Pranaya a strong candidate as the Fundraising Chair for Growing Roots. She aspires to develop Growing Roots by reaching out to the underserved communities empowering one family at a time. Pranaya has a Masters in Computer Science from Texas A&M and currently an engineer at Dell, Inc. Austin, TX. |
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Amy Long |
Amy Long is a speech language pathologist in Austin, TX. She has a Master’s degree in speech language pathology from the University of Texas at Austin, and has 4 years of experience working with young children with developmental delays, speech and language impairments, and a variety of medical diagnoses. Her experiences include positions at the MHMRA of Harris County’s Early Childhood Intervention program, the Rise School of Houston, and the cleft palate team and Down syndrome clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital. Amy has always enjoyed working with families and believes that knowledge is the key to empowerment and advocacy. In her current role, Amy sees the need for educational and emotional support for families with children who have a new diagnosis, and especially for families with cultural, language, and educational differences. Amy also enjoys yoga and practicing her Spanish skills with her families in early intervention. |
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Chantel Acosta-Saubon |
Chantel Acosta-Saubon is a licensed clinical social worker with a part time private practice with a focus on infant mental health. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002 with a MSSW. Chantel has worked in a variety of settings with different populations including children in foster care, and families with children with medical and developmental disabilities. Before starting private practice work, she worked with the Early Childhood Intervention program for five years. She was trained in infant mental health and developed an infant mental health team to identify social emotional needs of children and to provide services focusing on healthy social emotional development. Currently, she is involved in two supervision groups and one group focuses on infant mental health. She has provided workshops to parents and professionals regarding infant mental health topics in the community. Also, she is a member of NASW (National Association of Social Workers) ALSW (Association of Latino Social Workers) and Baby Connections chapter of TAIMH (Texas Association of Infant Mental Health). Chantel Acosta-Saubon is a wife and proud parent of a 2 year old toddler. Becoming a board member of the organization, Growing Roots, has been a tremendous opportunity to promote healthy social emotional connections for the families involved in the organization. |
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Brooke Miller |
Brooke Miller is a speech-language pathologist. After graduation from the University of Texas with a Master’s Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders, she went on to work as a speech therapist in both public and private school settings. Her experiences include positions at Capitol School of Austin, Austin Independent School District, and The Maverick School. She also works for Spectrum Social and Recreation Services, leading social skills groups for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. More recently, Brooke has begun working for Riverkids Pediatric Home Health. She enjoys helping children and their families by empowering them to achieve higher levels of understanding, independence, and growth. In addition to her therapy background, Brooke also has significant experience working with community service organizations. At Boston University, she managed Student Food Rescue, the largest college run food salvage program in the United States. She served as the Travel Coordinator for Texas 4000, a 4,600 mile charity bike ride, and has participated in development projects in Thailand and Peru. She is passionate about helping others, and more importantly, about giving those individuals the tools to help themselves. |
