Winter 2026 Impact Forum Speaker Bios
PANELISTS
Sirene Garcia is the Chief Impact Officer at Finger Lakes Community Health, where she leads innovative strategies to expand equitable access to high-quality healthcare. With more than two decades of experience at FLCH, Sirene has held a range of leadership and programmatic roles, including Community Health Worker, Migrant Voucher Program Coordinator, Director of Special Programs, and administrative leadership.
She has worked in the telehealth field since 2010, playing a pivotal role in building partnerships and leveraging technology to improve care delivery for diverse and underserved populations across New York State. Sirene brings a bilingual, bicultural perspective to her work and holds a Master of Science in Management. Her focus includes healthcare innovation, access to care, telehealth expansion, and community-centered solutions.
Gretchen Gonzalez is the CEO/Executive Director of the Erie County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP). Ms. Gonzalez worked as a VLP senior staff attorney for six years prior to taking on the CEO role. She was a Senior Staff Attorney in VLP’s Positive Families and Individuals project providing representation to clients impacted by HIV and a staff attorney in VLP’s Community and Economic Development Program working with not for profits and small businesses in WNY. She was promoted to Deputy Director of VLP in 2018 and to CEO in 2021. She has worked in New York City as a trial attorney in the housing unit of both the Legal Aid Society’s Harlem Community Law Office and Queens Legal Services. Ms. Gonzalez has also worked as a Staff Attorney with the Urban Justice Center Mental Health Project where she represented clients with severe and persistent mental illness in cases related to public benefits. She clerked with the ACLU National LGBT Rights Project and Children’s Legal Services. Ms. Gonzalez holds a Bachelors of Arts and Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Boston University, as well as an MA in Psychology, cum laude, from City University of New York Hunter College. She is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Club of Buffalo’s Non-Profit Management Program. She is the Co-Chair of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) Committee on Legal Aid, and a member of the NYSBA President’s Committee on Access to Justice. She is an executive board member of the NYS Legal Services Coalition and sits on the Statewide Advisory Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution. She is also a co-owner of the Burning Buffalo Bar and Grill.
Executive Director Jennifer Rizzo-Choi has successfully led the International Institute of Buffalo (IIB) since September 2021.
During that time, she has navigated the organization through significant events affecting foreign-born people living in Western New York. Humanitarian crises, including those in Ukraine and Afghanistan, drove more clients to the organization than ever before and regularly put IIB’s mission and services in the headlines.
With the current presidential administration altering the legal and policy landscape, Rizzo-Choi’s experiences as a refugee and asylum law expert, combined with her background as a former television journalist, have made her a leader in communicating the impacts of these government actions.
Before becoming IIB’s executive director, she served on its Board of Directors for six years. She was also executive director at The Pro Bono Project, Louisiana’s largest pro bono legal services organization, and the National Pro Bono Counsel at Human Rights First in Washington, D.C., a leading organization in international and national refugee law and policy.
At the beginning of her legal career, Jennifer Rizzo-Choi served as Legal Director at Journey’s End Refugee Services, where she founded its immigration legal services program.
A West Seneca native, Jennifer Rizzo-Choi earned her MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and her Juris Doctor from the University at Buffalo School of Law, where she teaches Refugee and Asylum Law as an adjunct professor.
Ms. Rizzo-Choi serves on the Board of Advisors of the NYS Institute on Immigrant Integration Research & Policy, a unit of the Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public policy research arm of the State University of New York.
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION TEAM
Betsy Constantine is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, where she is championing transformative, long-lasting change in Western New York. For more than a century, the Community Foundation has enhanced and encouraged long-term philanthropy, connecting people, ideas and resources to improve lives in Western New York. Today, it continues to leverage the strength of community, convening and working alongside hundreds of partners to create a vibrant and equitable Greater Buffalo region where every individual thrives.
Betsy joined the Community Foundation in 2009, and in 2011, she was promoted to the newly- created role of Vice President of Giving Strategies. She was named Executive Vice President in 2017 as part of leadership succession planning, where she led the Community Foundation team that works side-by-side with clients to understand what inspires their unique charitable giving and ensure those wishes are carried out today, tomorrow and forever.
Nationally, Betsy works with the Council on Foundations where she trains incoming community foundation professionals around the country. She also works with CF Leads, a national network of community foundations, to advance the practice of community leadership. Locally, she has served on numerous boards including: Say Yes Buffalo; Child & Family Services; Elmwood Franklin School; WNY Women’s Foundation; and Buffalo Niagara Partnership.
Prior to joining the Community Foundation, Betsy spent 11 years working in New York City in financial services. She received her B.A. in Economics from Franklin & Marshall College and M.A. in Social Work from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Ba Zan Lin is the Community Impact Associate Vice President, at the Community Foundation. In this role, he manages a portfolio of grantmaking programs focused on the goals of advancing education, racial/ethnic equity, the environment and arts and architecture. His responsibilities include oversight of various grant processes and philanthropic service relationships.
Prior to joining the Community Foundation, Lin was a Research Associate at Via Evaluation, a Buffalo-based grant writing firm for nonprofit organizations. Previously, he worked as an Environmental Education Manager at Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, an organization dedicated to protecting regional waterways, and as an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Science at Erie Community College. A native of Burma, Lin also served as a Program Director for the Burmese Community Support Center.
Lin received his B.A. in Environmental Studies, Education and Policy and M.S. in Adult Education from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He serves on the Board of Directors of Burmese Community Services and Partnership for the Public Good and is a Co-Chair of the Buffalo Burmese Water Festival.
Cara Matteliano is the Vice President, Community Impact at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo. She is responsible for working with external partners to achieve the Community Foundation’s goals of advancing education, racial/ethnic equity, the environment and arts and architecture. Cara focuses on working with partners from philanthropy, government and the community to ensure healthy housing for families and protect children from lead poisoning.
She is responsible for the creation and management of several locally and nationally recognized initiatives. Cara facilitates the Buffalo and Erie County Lead Safe Task Force created to carry out the recommendations from the Community Lead Plan, an analysis of Buffalo’s lead poisoning data which offered solutions for reform. She brought the national Green & Healthy Homes Initiative to Buffalo, a public/private partnership to improve homes for families living in low-income neighborhoods.
Cara co-chairs the Erie County Complete Count Committee to ensure every resident is counted in the 2020 Census. She also co-chairs Engage New York, a state-wide network of foundation leaders who have adopted an action agenda that advances equity, social justice, civic and community participation to improve the lives of all New Yorkers.
With expertise in grant making and program development, Cara joined the Community Foundation after more than two decades of experience in nonprofit leadership positions. Prior to her work at the Community Foundation, she was the Executive Director of Cradle Beach, a nonprofit facility offering education and respite to children with disabilities and from low-income neighborhoods.
Cara received her B.A. and M.A. in Speech Communication from the University of Maine. She completed executive education courses in governance and leadership at Harvard University. Cara is an ordained Elder at Deerhurst Presbyterian Church and serves on the board of Buffalo Therapeutic Riding Center.
Emily Wyckoff is the Chief Philanthropy Officer at the Community Foundation. In this role, she oversees the Client Relations, Gift Planning and Communications teams, which promote the Community Foundation’s goals of advancing racial/ethnic equity, education, the environment and arts and architecture. Emily is dedicated to working with clients, understanding their philanthropic intentions and assisting them with their charitable giving. Additionally, her extensive experience in communications enables her to lead marketing and public relations efforts aimed to raise awareness about the Foundation and its mission of connecting people, ideas and resources to improve lives in Western New York.
Prior to working at the Community Foundation, Emily was Senior Director for Development and Strategic Partnerships at Say Yes Buffalo, where she was responsible for comprehensive strategic planning, implementation, management and oversight of all fundraising and donor relations activities for Say Yes Buffalo Scholarship Fund and Say Yes Buffalo, oversight of the Internship and Career Pathways Program, and supervising multiple teams. Previously, she was a contributor and editor for Rachaelray.com, a contributor to Buffalo Magazine, Grants Manager and Development Director for King Urban Life Center, and Event Director for PUCCS Charity Hockey Tournament and Jog for the Jake. Prior to that, she ran her own communications business.
Emily earned her B.A. in English from College of the Holy Cross. She is a 21/64 Certified Advisor, and graduate of Leadership Buffalo and Harvard Business School Club of Buffalo Not for Profit Management Development Program. Emily served on the boards of King Urban Life Center, Maria M. Love Convalescent Fund, Elmwood Franklin School Parent Council and Buffalo Seminary Alumni Association and is on the 5K Committee for Girls on the Run.