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Alison Malmon

Founder and Executive Director

Alison Malmon is the founder and Executive Director of Active Minds, and a sought after mental health expert. Alison formed the organization in 2003 as a 21-year-old, following the suicide of her brother and only sibling Brian. Wanting to end the silence that caused her brother to suffer alone and ultimately take his own life, Alison created a group on her campus at the University of Pennsylvania to promote open dialogue around mental health. Since then, Active Minds has grown into the country’s foremost mental health organization for students and young adults, with award-winning programs and a vibrant network of campus chapters located at more than 600 colleges, universities, and high schools nationwide.

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Laura Horne

Chief Program Officer

As Chief Program Officer at Active Minds, Laura develops innovative strategies and unique partnerships to empower students to help society embrace a comprehensive, public health approach to mental health. She oversees Active Minds’ evidence-based peer-to-peer approach and award-winning programmatic portfolio, including Active Minds’ nationwide network of more than 600 college and high school chapters, Send Silence Packing®, Active Minds Speakers, V-A-R®, among many others.

Prior to Active Minds, Laura provided technical assistance and training to a nationwide network of multi-sector community coalitions to implement health policy, systems, and environmental change and prevent chronic disease in schools, workplaces, and communities through her work at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. She also managed a public health communications portfolio at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Laura earned her Master of Public Health degree in community health sciences from Tulane University and her Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Loyola University New Orleans. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist through the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing.

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Lauren Cikara

Director, K-12 Initiatives

Lauren has spent her entire career advocating for youth and young adult programming in K-12 education, higher education, and community spaces. Most recently, she worked for the Colorado School of Public Health School recruiting schools to participate in the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey (HKCS), Colorado’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), and Smart Source. In this role, Lauren supported schools in administering the surveys and provided technical support to schools and community partners as they navigated using results to inform school and adolescent health work across Colorado. She is a strong advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusive school board policies and ensures the work she is a part of has an equitable and intersectional lens. Lauren’s background is in student leadership, health education and equity, policy and advocacy, and equity and inclusion.

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Amy Gatto

Director, Research & Evaluation

Amy is interested in the relationship between health and education. Blending together her experiences as a former high school teacher, higher education health educator, and young adult health researcher, she has found a niche in working to improve adolescent and young adult mental health. Amy is a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida in the College of Public Health, holds a Master in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Bachelor of Arts in Human Services from Elon University.

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Ashley Hill

Senior Manager, K-12 Partnerships

Ashley Hill is a human development professional with national and international experience building social and emotional competencies in adults, youth, and organizational processes. Her expertise lies in facilitating safe physical and emotional learning spaces by building cultural and self awareness that lead to the examination of implicit biases. She is joyful trainer of youth and adults in a range of content including sexual and behavioral health. She is most proud of her work designing partnerships, programs, and training content that moves youth serving organizations forward for Black, brown, and LGBTQ youth. At Active Minds, Ashley is responsible for developing and implementing strategies to strengthen and scale the nationwide impact of the Active Minds’ K-12 network; develops outreach strategies and partnerships between Active Minds and K-12 organizations, specifically supporting adult stakeholders (i.e. educators, parents, caregivers, etc.) in districts, schools, and national associations.

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Annie Hobson

Senior Manager, K-12 Student Leadership

Markie Pasternak

Senior Manager, Higher Education

Markie oversees Active Minds’ work in higher education, focusing on mental health support for college and university students, staff, and faculty. Markie is originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and received her bachelor’s in psychology from Marquette University. During her time at Marquette, Markie served as the Active Minds’ chapter president and was the president of the Student Advisory Committee from 2015 to 2016. Markie received her Master’s of Science in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Indiana University-Bloomington. Before joining the Active Minds Staff, Markie worked at Auburn University focusing on mental health programming and peer health education, and was the co-advisor for the campus’s Active Minds chapter.

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Jessica Mayorga

Chief Marketing Officer

Jessica (she/her) is emphatically a D.C. native and proudly the daughter of a Cuban-Chinese exile and a Colombian immigrant raised by her resilient grandmother. Having experienced social injustice first-hand since childhood, her career has been fueled by a commitment to achieve change and move the needle on injustice believing that one’s zip code, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and identity should never limit potential or access to success. Driven by deeply personal experiences, Jessica is committed to doing her part to eliminate cultural taboos and stigmas associated with mental health in communities of color.

Jessica earned a Master’s degree in Administration, Planning and Social Policy at Harvard University, an MBA in Marketing at Walden University and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. She resides in Maryland with her husband and two daughters while also co-parenting her remarkable multiple-special-needs son. During the NBA season, you’ll find Jessica glued to the television every time her beloved LA Clippers play.

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