Aral Sürmeli
Position: CEO & Founder
Aral graduated from the Acıbadem University School of Medicine as an MD and from Harvard University T. H. Chan School of Public Health as an MPH. He is the cofounder and president of Medical Rescue Association of Turkey (MEDAK) since 2013. He primarily works on medical rescue, disaster response and healthcare of migratory populations.
Neeru Narla, MD, MPH
Position: Chief Medical Officer
Neeru earned her MD from Mayo Clinic, and completed her pediatrics residency and MPH at Harvard, where she is currently faculty. She has collaborated extensively with international partners in Africa and Asia on maternal, infant, and adolescent health, to deliver context-specific interventions with locally driven solutions, and supplemented her medical training with a fellowship in global health delivery. Her work focuses on promoting health equity and innovative preventive services primarily for children and families in resource-denied settings.
Kristyn Anderson
Position: Chief Operating Officer
Kristyn is an associate vice president and the chief of staff of Rasky Partners. In this capacity, she supports both the Boston and DC offices by coordinating the execution of strategic initiatives for the firm and day-to-day activities.
Kristyn holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management with a concentration in Finance from Boston University. She is the chairwoman of the Young Professionals Board of First Literacy, a non-profit benefiting adult and immigration literacy programs throughout Massachusetts.
Su Yuen Chin
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Su Yuen is an entrepreneur with a passion for democratizing access to opportunities with remote work. Her current startup MomoCentral.com, is an on-demand tech talent platform of human-interviewed, tested and verified developers and designers.
Currently the platform has 450+ talents with 1000+ companies hiring, including YCombinator to Series C startups and Fortune 500 companies including Deloitte and Standard Chartered Bank.
In her free time, she enjoys finding ways to give back to the community with tech. In March 2016, she created the MomoGivesBack program at MomoCentral - in partnership with Fast Forward - the top US tech non-profit accelerator. Talents on MomoCentral.com have donated thousands of hours to selected non-profits from YCombinator, Google.org and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative with their tech skills. In June 2019, she was selected for the highly competitive MIT DeepTech Program in Cambridge, Boston.
Selin Deniz
Position: HERA Field Officer/Facilitator
Selin a anesthesia technician graduated from Kocaeli University. Selin joined MEDAK in 2019 while attending Pharmacy School at the University of Health Sciences in Istanbul. As a field officer, she primarily works in translating and assisting immigrant and refugee populations during our field work in Turkey.
Our Advisors
Ertan Karabıyık
Position: Field Advisor
He has participated in programs and projects related to children working in the agricultural sector since 1992. Between 1994-1997, he carried out the "Children for Rent" project in the forest villages in Sinop province at Black Sea Region of Turkey. Between 2001-2004, he coordinated the baseline survey and action plan preparation related to the project on children working in the cotton harvest in Adana province within the scope of Worst Forms Child Labor. From 2004 to 2011, he worked as a field expert for monitoring and capacity building activities at the local level for girls' education in the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). Since 2011, he has worked as a manager and expert in many projects and field studies on children working in seasonal migratory agricultural works. He is the secretary-general of the Development Workshop Cooperative (Kalkınma Atölyesi Kooperatifi), a non-profit social cooperative based in Ankara since 2010.
Yağız Nizipli
Position: Technology Advisor
Yagiz is a Senior Software Architect and Node.js core member with over 10 years of experience. He's an experienced software architect focusing on performance, security, and privacy. He's currently working as a technology advisor helping Hera's software development.