Karemi Alavarez (she/her) is a Program Manager, where she manages the California Fruit and Vegetable EBT Pilot Project. Her role includes the coordination of a nutrition incentive program designed to help to address and improve health equity by reducing hunger, improving access to healthy food while supporting local agriculture and retailers.

Prior to her current work in this pilot project, Karemi worked with the Center for Community Health for almost 10 years where she led various public health initiatives focused on the prevention of diet-related chronic diseases. Her work involved nutrition education and advancing policy, systems and environmental (PSE) changes across San Diego County.

Her experience in health education, health promotion, program planning, management and evaluation have allowed her to collaborate with stakeholders to advance healthy eating and active living initiatives for underserved communities throughout southern California.

As Associate Director, she served five county health departments (Imperial, Inyo, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego) in their local implementation of community health initiatives in food security, nutrition education and obesity prevention, where she oversaw and managed multi-county collaboration and provided capacity building in areas including youth engagement, CalFresh, media collaboration, health equity, and coalition building.

Karemi has extensive experience developing partnerships with community organizations and residents, public health departments, elected officials, businesses and English- and Spanish-language media to advance public health initiatives.

Karemi was honored with the KPBS Local Hero Award for Hispanic Heritage Month in 2015 for her leadership in the National City Mobilizing Change initiative that she created in partnership with high school students, which included the collaboration of public and private sector partners, school district officials and elected officials. This initiative also received a statewide award from the California Center for Public Health Advocacy. Karemi was also honored with the San Diego Business Journal – Women Who Mean Business Award in 2014 for her leadership in advancing health equity in San Diego County through her work with the Center for Community Health.

Karemi’s passion for working in partnership with community residents to advance health equity, led her to collaborate with Dr. Meredith Minkler in the UC Berkeley, School of Public Health, in which she collaborated in advancing advocacy efforts for senior resident leaders. She also co-authored a case study with Dr. Minkler on a PSE initiative that she had worked on under the Center for Community Health.

Karemi rejoined the Center for Community Health in 2023.