Paloma Candelaria Boeck (she/her) is currently employed as a laboratory genetic counselor at
Fulgent Genetics in El Monte, California. She graduated from the Keck Graduate Institute
program in 2021. Her passions include mentoring genetic counseling students, serving minority
populations, disadvantaged students, and vulnerable populations.

For over 30 years, Michelle coordinated the UCLA Genetics Clinic, providing genetic counseling services to both pediatric and adult populations, including the UCLA Predictive Huntington Disease Program, early onset Alzheimer and genetic neurodegenerative disorders.

Currently, Michelle provides consultation services to organizations, laboratories and businesses including Invitae. Michelle is a faculty member of the UCLA Genetic Counseling Program and serves on the Mt Sinai and UCLA Genetic Counseling Program Advisory Boards. She is president of the Southern California Genetic Counselors and is a director at large of the National Society of Genetic Counselors board of directors.

Joan Oliver is a certified and licensed genetic counselor with over 35 years of experience. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University, and her Master’s degree in Genetic Counseling from the University of California, Irvine. Currently, she is the Regional Director for Genetic Counseling Services for Labcorp in a region including Southern CA, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Hawaii. Joan leads the Labcorp Genetics GC JEDI Taskforce, a group tasked with developing JEDI programming for the genetic counseling groups in LabCorp Genetics in order to increase awareness of topics such as unconscious/implicit bias, microaggressions, and the need for increased diversity within the genetic counseling profession.

In 2010, Joan teamed with Kelly Ormond and Liz Kearney to shepherd the CA Genetic Licensing implementation bill (AB 2300) through its final legislative hurdles; she is proud to hold CA GC license #2. In her personal life, Joan is a mother to a daughter who is a member of many diverse groups, including the Deaf, cerebral palsy, and chronically ill adult communities; this lived experience has opened her eyes and ears in invaluable ways. She is also a former board member of the Estancia and TeWinkle Schools Foundation, which is devoted to making services more equitable across her local school district.

Rebecca LeShay Araujo, MS, is a licensed, certified genetic counselor with clinical experience in prenatal and cancer genetics and is currently the Assistant Program Director of the UCLA MS in Genetic Counseling Program. Rebecca is passionate about education, both within the genetic counseling community and to other healthcare providers and the general public. She has volunteered within NSGC on several committees, including finishing in her current three-year term as one of the chairs of the CEU review subcommittee and as a member of the 2022 NSGC Speaker Guidelines Task Force. Within SCGC, she has worked on the AEC planning committee in 2019, as CEU coordinator, and in 2020, as program committee chair. Rebecca hopes to continue to expand the educational offerings from SCGC to better meet the needs of the membership!

Nydia Santiago Neal, MS, CGC, graduated from California State University, Northridge genetic counseling program in 2009. She has worked in a wide array of settings, including prenatal, cancer risk assessment clinics and genetic laboratories. She enjoys providing genetic counseling services in Spanish and mentoring new and prospective genetic counselor. Recently focusing on addressing DEI issues within the genetics community.

Nicole Choy (she/they) is currently employed as a genetic counselor with Kaiser Permanente’s Regional Metabolics Team in Los Angeles, California. They graduated from the Keck Graduate Institute program in 2021. They have a passion for outreach and mentorship of prospective students, with a focus on individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Stacey Wong is a licensed and board-certified genetic counselor with over two decades of experience in clinical, research, and laboratory settings. She is currently a clinical genomics scientist in the Metabolic Development Team at Invitae. Prior to joining Invitae, she was a clinical product manager and genetic counselor at Courtagen Life Sciences, provided prenatal counseling at Genzyme Genetics, and a coordinator of the Lysosomal Storage Disease Research Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Senior Genetic Counselor at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. She holds an MS in Genetic Counseling from California State University Northridge, a Master of Traditional Oriental Medicine from Emperor’s College, and a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from UCLA.

Lauren Siems is a licensed and certified genetic counselor in the greater Los Angeles area. She has been a Regional Medical Specialist at Myriad Genetics since 2016, partnering with local health care practitioners in the fields of hereditary cancer and prenatal genetics. Prior to joining Myriad, Lauren trained at Northwestern University Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling. She is also a member of NSGC and an alumna of the City of Hope Intensive Course in Genetic Cancer Risk Assessment.

Hilary Kershberg is a board certified licensed genetic counselor with over 30 years of experience in the profession. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Genetics from UC Berkeley, and her Master’s degree in Genetic Counseling from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. She has worked as a genetic counselor at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, UC Irvine Medical Center, and at Genzyme Genetics, where she counseled at many of the hospitals in Orange County. She joined Kaiser Permanente in 2007 as the assistant regional manager for the Regional Genetics Department where she supervises about 40 genetic counselors throughout the Southern California region. Her professional volunteer experience includes an appointed member of the NSGC Efficiency subcommittee of the Access and Service Delivery Committee (2018-2021) where she worked on the NSGC Efficiency Toolkit and the Business Case Summit. In addition, she has participated in the Keck Graduate Institute’s Curriculum and Interview Committees.
She began volunteering for the SCGC in 2021, first on the program committee for the AEC, and then as co-chair of the program committee in 2022. She would now like to increase her involvement with a Board
position, and the secretarial position would allow her to do so. In this latter part of her career, she feels she has the time and motivation to give more back to the Southern California genetic counseling community.
In her personal life, she is a mother to a daughter with special needs, so has served as a volunteer on many committees wearing “that hat”.

The past two years as the SCGC AEC marketing chair and social media content creator have been so much fun and incredibly rewarding. It has been wonderful meeting, collaborating, and networking with so many GC’s in the southern California area. This position has created so much growth within myself and within my profession, so much so that my Kaiser team has been impressed by my skills and I am beginning to create graphics for our local Kaiser region as well.
Working with the marketing team has been such a wonderful experience. I have developed new skill sets that I didn’t even know I had and I am ready to take my position a step further: marketing board member for SCGC. I know that I will have large shoes to fill, but I am excited to keep sharing my ideas and be a leader for the marketing team.

Naomi Wagner is a licensed, board-certified genetic counselor located in San Diego. She specializes in ophthalmology, deafness, and rare disease. Naomi has worked as a telehealth genetic counselor on Invitae’s Genetic Counseling Services team and as a clinical and research genetic counselor at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Naomi is passionate about ocular genetics, and she is committed to making genetic services more accessible. Naomi also serves as the host of the NSGC Podcast Series, and she is biocurator for the Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen) Retina Gene Curation Expert Panel and ABCA4 Variant Curation Expert Panel. Naomi attended Pomona College and obtained her master's degree at Boston University.