Our team
Administrative Assistant
Silvina de la Iglesia, MA
Silvina supports administrative operations at the Center for Clinician Multilingualism. With over 15 years of experience as a healthcare language access leader, she specializes in the development of patient-centered language services programs that meet statutory and regulatory compliance, medical translation and interpretation, as well as staff education. She also teaches Community and Medical Interpreting at Hunter College, CUNY. She is an Authorized POLOM Educator and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Medical Spanish, contributing her language access expertise to advance healthcare quality and reduce health disparities through improved communication and culturally responsive care.
Antonio Sánchez, BS, BA
Antonio is Course Administrative Coordinator. A recent graduate of the University of Chicago, he earned a BS in Biological Sciences and a BA in Latin American & Caribbean Studies. Antonio is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in the Social Sciences with a focus on Latin American & Caribbean Studies at the university. His research interests center on medical Spanish education, language-concordant care, and patient autonomy, with a deep commitment to addressing structural health disparities.
Our courses were developed by a multidisciplinary leadership team that brings together nationally recognized expertise in medical Spanish education, applied linguistics, language pedagogy and assessment, healthcare policy, medical education, and the integration of multilingual clinicians and qualified medical interpreters into healthcare systems.
The internationally recognized leadership team includes Pilar Ortega, MD, MGM, an expert in medical Spanish education; Lisa Diamond, MD, MPH, a leader in multilingual healthcare research and health policy; and Alyssia Miller, PhD, a specialist in medical Spanish, applied linguistics, language pedagogy, and technology-enhanced learning and who leads CCM's curriculum development and instructional design.
Collectively, the leadership team has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications that have helped shape the field of medical language education and assessment over the past decade.
Meet the Experts Behind our Medical Spanish Curriculum
Course Development Team
The contributions of Alexandra López Vera, PhD, MPH, and Javier González, MFA, strengthened content development. The curriculum was brought to life by a team with expertise in educational design, online learning, multimedia development, and learner engagement.
Brooke Cano
Brooke is a Digital Learning Specialist, Research Assistant, and Exam Proctor. She is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan double majoring in Spanish and Biology, Health, and Society. Brooke is passionate about improving communication and access to culturally responsive care for Spanish-speaking patients.
Janaina Rodríguez, BS
Janaina is an eLearning Developer with a background in Elementary Education and English as a Second Language from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A former classroom teacher, she specializes in transforming complex content into intuitive, learner-centered experiences through visual design, authentic scenarios, and meaningful opportunities for practice and application.
CLIC Instructors
Javier González, MFA
Javier is an Expert POLOM Rater and CLIC Course Instructor. He leads the Language Initiatives Program at the Immigrant Health and Cancer Disparities Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. For over 25 years, he has worked to address language discordance in healthcare and community settings. He has developed training curricula for interpreters, clinicians, and patients and is an active participant in research that evaluates the impact of language on patient outcomes, including testing for non-English languages.
Alexandra López-Vera, PhD, MPH
Alexandra is a Verified POLOM Rater and CLIC Course Instructor with over 10 years of experience in language education and 5 years in medical education. She serves as Assistant Professor and Medical Spanish Program Director at the California University of Science and Medicine, where she specializes in medical Spanish, public health, and curriculum development. Alexandra publishes on language concordance and health advocacy, has authored a medical Spanish textbook, and holds degrees from Claremont Graduate University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Universidad de Murcia.
Verified POLOM Raters
Yovana Coupey, MA
Yovana is a Verified POLOM Rater with 15 years of experience teaching medical Spanish to medical students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She specializes in medical translation of critical documents intended for Spanish-speaking patients enrolled in clinical trials at her organization, and in curriculum development for medical Spanish programs. Yovana also works as a medical interpreter and is passionate about enhancing future clinicians' Spanish communication skills and cultural awareness to improve access to quality healthcare.
Sarah Dutton, MEd
Sarah is a Verified POLOM Rater with over 20 years of experience teaching and developing medical Spanish courses at the university level. She has also developed and presented bilingual Standardized Patient cases and was recognized as the 2025 Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association's Outstanding World Language Educator. In her free time, Sarah is an award-winning amateur gingerbread artist.
Diana Galarreta-Aima, PhD
Diana is a Verified POLOM Rater and certified medical interpreter with over 9 years of experience teaching medical Spanish at the college level. She is an Associate Professor of Spanish at James Madison University, where she coordinates the minor in medical Spanish. Her research focuses on medical Spanish education, particularly assessment at the undergraduate level, and she is passionate about advancing population health through linguistically and culturally responsive teaching.
Paloma Moscardó-Vallés, Licenciada en Filología Románica
Paloma is a Verified POLOM Rater with more than 20 years of experience teaching French and Spanish. She has created two medical Spanish courses at Princeton University with the ultimate goal of improving the interaction between doctors and patients through better communication and cultural understanding.
Robert Mueller, PharmD, BCPS
Robby is a Verified POLOM Rater with 13 years of experience teaching medical Spanish to pharmacy students at Concordia University Wisconsin and Palm Beach Atlantic University. He also practices as an ambulatory care pharmacist in a family medicine clinic, where he provides medication therapy management in Spanish to patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes under a collaborative practice agreement. Robby serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Medical Spanish.
Olga C. Rodríguez, MD, PhD
Olga is a Verified POLOM Rater. She holds an appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology in the Lombardi Cancer Center and serves as Co-Director of the Preclinical Imaging Research Laboratory at Georgetown University. An important focus of Olga’s educational work is directing the Medical Spanish program at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, where she teaches students to effectively communicate with Spanish-speaking patients in a culturally sensitive manner. She earned her medical degree at University del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia, and her doctoral degree in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at Georgetown.
Michael C. Tan, MD
Michael is a Verified POLOM Rater. He holds an appointment as Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Science at the Bernard J. Tyson Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, where he directs the KPasa Frontera Medical Spanish elective and serves as faculty advisor to the medical Spanish interest group. He practices inpatient and outpatient general pediatrics with the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, provides leadership for KPasa medical Spanish education programs for physicians and nurses, and is a medical Spanish textbook author. He earned his medical degree at UCLA School of Medicine and completed his pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
Alejandra Ullauri, AuD, MPH
Alejandra is a Verified POLOM Rater. She is the founder of Audiology En Español (AEE), an educational platform that teaches medical Spanish courses to audiologists and audiology students. Alejandra developed the first Medical Spanish for Audiologists curriculum and currently works as a course instructor at AEE. She is passionate about building capacity in the field of audiology to meet the needs of Spanish-speaking patients.