Our People
Complete biographies
Kristin Urquiza, MPA
Board President
Executive Director, Co-founder
Kristin Urquiza, MPA is the nation’s top disaster equity advocate, with expertise in race, economic, environmental, and health policy. An experienced grassroots organizer, Urquiza co-founded Marked by COVID and catalyzed the nation’s foremost community-led Covid justice movement days after the death of her father, Mark Urquiza, to COVID in June 2020.
Sarah Senk, PhD
Board Secretary
Sarah Senk, PhD is an associate professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at California State University Maritime Academy. She completed her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 2011 at Cornell University, where she focused on contemporary Anglophone writing, trauma theory, and memory studies.
Ryan Pukos, MPA
Board Treasurer
Policy Lead
Ryan Pukos, MPA has served as Marked by COVID's volunteer Policy Lead since the organization's founding and is one of the country's leading experts on COVID justice policy. He has also spent the last decade plus working at the intersection of urban planning and economic development with the Grand Central Partnership in New York City.
Kimberly Jones, Esq.
Board Director
Since 2007, Kimberly Jones, Esq. has served as a leading advocate for low-income students, first-generation students, students with disabilities, and students of color. Currently, Ms. Jones serves as the Executive Vice President at the Council for Opportunity in Education (“COE”).
Christine Keeves, MPH
Board Director
Communications Director, Co-founder
Christine Keeves, MPH co-founded Marked by COVID in 2020 and has built the communications infrastructure that drives the organization's national reach. A public health communicator with 20 years of experience, she brings rare fluency across earned media, digital strategy, and health advocacy — translating the human toll of COVID into stories that reach policy makers, funders, and the public.
Media contact: Christine@MarkedByCOVID.com