People

Sandy Chen Stokes, RN, MSN
Founder
Sandy has focused much of her career and volunteer activities on end of life care, elder care, public health, and mental health issues in the Chinese American community. For her work with the CACCC, in 2008 Sandy was one of 15 nationally to receive the American Cancer Society’s Lane Adams Award. She was one of 10 in the nation to receive the 2011 AARP Inspire Award. Sandy was presented with the 2017 Compassionate Care Innovator Award for her extraordinary role in improving the quality of advance care planning and palliative care in California at the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC) 9th Annual Summit. Sandy is a member of the advisory board for the Chinese Health Initiative Project at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California and a Diversity Advisory Council Member of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

Cindy Wang, CACCC Co-Chair and Treasurer, is Accounting Manager at a Palo Alto consulting firm, where she has worked for more than 12 years. She has been the CACCC's South Bay Volunteer Support Group Coordinator since its formation in 2011 and has volunteered with the ACSCCU for more than 16 years.

Alex Tsao, Ph. D., CACCC Co-Chair, is a volunteer and board member of CACCC where he helps coordinate CACCC Speakers Bureau’s community outreach seminars and workshops.  Alex has worked in the technology industries for more than 30 years. He held technical management positions in communication satellite companies and was the founder and CEO of a wireless network company. In recent years, he has been active in community volunteer work.  He served as a board member and president for American Cancer Society, California Chinese Unit and was a board member of Alzheimer’s Association, Northern California and Northern Nevada Chapter. He is currently a member of Alzheimer’s Association’s National Board of Directors and the Chair of Chinese Advisory Board for Alzheimer’s Association, Northern California and Northern Nevada Chapter. He is also an advisory board member for the Chinese Health Initiative project of El Camino Hospital and the New Hope Chinese Cancer Care Foundation. Alex is also a volunteer of Tzu Chi Foundation.

Emiley Chang, MD, MPH, MS, CACCC Secretary, graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine, with an additional M.P.H. degree from UC Berkeley. She trained in internal medicine at UC Davis Medical Center and completed a subspecialty geriatrics fellowship at UCLA. Currently she is a faculty member in General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She serves on chronic pain management and palliative care workgroups for Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. She is currently completing interviews and surveys related to advance care planning in the Chinese American community.

Sandra Lew, LCSW, received her Master Degree in Social Work from San Francisco State university. She was CEO of Hospice By the Bay until her retirement in 2014. She has worked in End of Life Care for nearly 30 years in various administrative capacities at Hospice By the Bay, Catholic Charities, On Lok, and Kaiser Permanente and as a clinician early in her career at CPMC and UCLA Medical Center.

Yan Huang RN, MS is a Clinical Nurse Educator in Clinical Case Management at a Medical Center in Sacramento region. Being at the front line of patient care and witnessing health disparities among Chinese Americans due to limited health literacy and healthcare resources, Yan decided to join the CACCC volunteer support group in 2011 and started serving the CACCC Board in 2015.  Yan hopes to continue her CACCC work on increasing awareness in life education, advance care planning, and health literacy for Chinese American population. Another lifetime goal for Yan is to promote harmonic dialogues and interactions between Chinese Americans and the main stream community we live within.

Yuaner Wu, PhD, RN, MS, MPH has completed a post-doc fellowship at National Institute of Health-National Institute of Nursing Research. Currently, she is a researcher at UCSF-ZSFGH and a staff nurse at San Francisco VA Medical Center. Yuaner has been a CACCC's volunteer since 2005. She has played a few different roles which including interpretation, translation, member of Speaker's Bureau, lecturer of the volunteer training workshops. Yuaner believes that death and dying are natural transitions of human life. The circle of life can be beautiful if one is prepared.

Gary S. Lee, MD, is a board-certified internist, geriatrician, and palliative medicine physician. He is currently a hospice medical director with Suncrest Hospice in the San Francisco Bay Area. He worked for over 25 years as a general internist and palliative care doctor at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and helped to start and develop the palliative care program at VMC.
Dr. Lee was born in Oakland, attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate, and received his medical training at UC San Diego. He is married with two grown children, and he has lived in San Jose for almost 30 years.

Dr. Jeffrey Yee, M.D. is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Care medicine.  He served 20 years as the Chair of Internal Medicine at Woodland Healthcare.  He is the medical director of Dignity Hope Palliative Care, and medical director of two community skilled nursing facilities and the Yolo Adult Day Healthcare Center.  He is also the lead physician for developing the Patient Centered Medical Home Model in his organization. Dr. Yee is an advocate for team based care, community collaboration, and following palliative care principles. Jeff is the winner of the 2014 CCCC Leadership Award.  

Melinda Leong Capozzi, Esq., received her law degree from UC Davis School of Law.  After serving as Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Peter H. Carroll, US Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, she worked at law firms litigating cases involving public entities.  Thereafter, as Deputy County Counsel in Alameda County, she represented social workers in child abuse and neglect cases.  Melinda's passion for helping the most vulnerable in our society led her to joining the CACCC board.  She advises CACCC in legal matters.

Teresa Cheng, a long-time volunteer of CACCC, Project Lead, CACCC Mindful Self-Care for Caregivers. She has been a freelance translator since 2005.  Her interest is mainly in religions, meditation, and their implication and application to psychotherapy.  Since then, 20 books of her translation have been published in Taiwan, China, and Malaysia. She was awarded, based on her work No Time to Lose, the 2009 Best Translator of National Book Award (i.e., National Golden Tripod Award) in Taiwan.    

Shirley Pan, Director,  was a volunteer with CACCC and previously to that a corporate communications manager and a field operations manager with a major high-tech company for 20 years. 

Yannie Ho, MPH, Project Coordinator, graduated from Chinese University of Hong Kong with a master in public health and UC Irvine with a B.S. She worked in Hong Kong for 4 years accumulating experience in both project management and marketing within the pharmaceutical industry. Yannie joined CACCC in January 2020.

Gail Lam, Administrative Assistant,  graduated from University of California, San Diego. Gail works in the gaming industries for more than 3 years. She joined CACCC in Dec 2018.

Betty Chiang, Administrative Coordinator, After nearly 10 years as an ABA Certified Paralegal in private, public, and corporate sectors, Betty has rerouted her focus to non-profit work in end-of-life education and advocacy. She recently accepted the position of Office Manager with Coalition for Compassionate Care of California, but continues to volunteer for CACCC as the Administrative Coordinator.

Phil Stokes，MA volunteer Consultant, is a retired English Professor who taught at De Anza College for 33 years, and at Foothill College for three years before that. Phil writes and/or edits CACCC's English publications. He also served as CACCC's former webmaster.