Who We Are

Kati has been the fearless leader of the Health in Education (HiE) Unit since March 2021, where she provides an overall vision and leadership for improving belonging and wellness of students and staff in Oregon’s K-12 education system. Kati loves spending her time at work dreaming the potential of how our society can be more equitable before working to construct that reality. Kati has a track record of creating equity-driven transformation in systems, including leading development and implementation of a Memorandum of Understanding between ODE and OHA signed in 2021. Before her role with ODE, she spent over 12 years at the Oregon Health Authority as a Health Promotion Strategist creating meaningful dialogue about how Oregon talks about the Social Determinants of Health and elevates voices of communities. The website that she led development of, PlaceMattersOregon, is still fostering conversations about how place affects our health and inspiring collective action that will make a healthy life available to all Oregonians. Kati is thriving when she is planning strategies or translating complex information into easy-to-understand expectations for members of the public, school districts, and leaders.

When Kati isn’t leading the HiE unit, she’s creating things with her hands; spending quality time with her family in their Portland home; or spending quality time with herself. Kati’s infinite talents extend to crochet, beadwork, metalworking, chainmail, cooking, and baking. Kati is at her happiest and most relaxed when she, her daughter, son, and husband are enjoying the simple things in life like a car trip or a movie, everyone is safe, and there isn’t anything to worry about.

Bhagavati has grounded the HiE Unit since she started as the first School Community Health Strategist in April 2023. In her role, Bhagavati weaves together the health and education systems by creating alignment both within ODE and across agencies with ODHS and OHA, connecting dots between the K-12 system and coordinated care organizations (CCOs). Bhagavati excels at sparking conversation, identifying alignment opportunities, and operationalizing action steps, all fluidly tied together with her strong project management skills. Her true passion is building workforce retention system strategies through employee wellness initiatives, which starts by bringing her expertise as a yoga teacher to any meeting she participates in. Before joining the HiE team, Bhagavati designed workforce resilience strategies with the Oregon Department of Human Services to support workforce recruitment and retention for the long-term care sector with Aging and People with Disabilities (APD). Prior to that, Bhagavati worked many years with the Oregon Health Authority, both in the Transformation Center, where she provided technical assistance on CCO strategy, and in public health with the Women, Infant and Children (WIC) Program, where she helped promote health behavior change for families and state and local employees. Bhagavati’s proudest accomplishments involve systems alignment – at the structural, interpersonal and individual level. Aside from breaking down silos and supporting cross pollination between systems and offices, Bhagavati supports teams and individuals in their journey towards holistic wellness via creating somatic toolkits and by offering yoga for state employees. Bhagavati has accrued a massive community of practice since she began humbly teaching yoga back in 2009 during her time in OHA and now connects state employees across Oregon on a weekly basis virtually for a free yoga offering in the comfort of their hOMe.  

At the end of the day, Bhagavati’s favorite job is being a mom to her teenage daughter. To address her own well-being, you can find Bhagavati filling her cup with yoga in all its forms, tending to her garden, adventuring in nature with her family, and nurturing her own personal and spiritual growth. Bhagavati conscientiously practices healing modalities through breathwork, meditation, chanting, and other purification practices to cultivate the energy that she graciously shares with the world through her work and commUNITY.

Remy is one of the two School Community Health Strategists in the Health in Education Unit, where she has been since September 2024. Remy is a public policy nerd who loves translating input from communities into collaborative strategies for government agencies. In her role with the Health in Education Unit, she works to implement a Full Service Community School framework within state government by creating connection and collaboration between offices in ODE, Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS), and Oregon Health Authority (OHA). Since 2016, she has been working on becoming an expert in “social determinants of health”; or, the housing, food, economic, healthcare, or other supports an individual needs to be a thriving part of their community. Before coming to ODE, Remy worked as a Senior Health Policy Analyst with OHA; and she spent several years at the Department of Early Learning and Care building coordination between state government agencies to support the social determinants of health for families with young children, including co-authoring Raise Up Oregon: Second Edition. Remy is operating at her best when she is supporting others to feel safe in sharing their feelings and experiences to translate to policies that create meaningful change in families’ lives.

On a more personal note, Remy loves spending as much of her free time as possible outdoors, with friends, doing WAY TOO MANY hobbies. Music, photography, gardening, large culinary endeavors, sewing, DIY, drawing, watercolor, ice hockey, biking, running, swimming, and cross-country skiing are her main interests, and she tries to combine as many as possible at once. Remy has been involved in community radio since 2009, broadcasting in South Carolina, Georgia, New Zealand, and now Oregon, where she has served on the board of XRAY 107.1 FM since 2021. She and her partner live in southeast Portland with their two beautiful dogs Good Boy Tempeh and Dilly Dally Tally; three poison dart frogs Ed, Edd, and Eddy; and one diabolical cat Moby.

Arden has been the Mental Health Project Coordinator with the HiE unit since July 2021, where she is instrumental in supporting anything that has a tangible positive effect on mental health in schools. Between tracking data and budgets for the Community Care Development Project, problem-solving with district and school staff, building winning grant applications ($5.1 million for this work!), or working on guidance for best practices, Arden is the workhorse pulling HiE toward goals supporting mental health in schools. Before she graced the HiE unit, Arden was a high school social studies teacher for several years where she learned the true complexity of student and staff mental health needs. This background makes her an invaluable advocate for staff and students while supporting ODE’s work. Arden is operating at her strongest when she’s creating detailed and actionable project management spreadsheets; or strengthening relationships with folks she can support through potential problems or solutions.  

When Arden is resting and conserving her energy, you can find her engaging in several relaxing activities such as birdwatching with her family;  training for the American version of the Great British Bakeoff; or crocheting oversized blankets. Arden lives in Salem and calls the Pacific Northwest her home. 

Jeremy has brought his levity and talent to the HiE unit since November 2022, and we can’t remember a time without him (nor do we want to). As the Mental Health Public Affairs Specialist, Jeremy takes care of communication design and administrative support for the mental health programming of HiE, notably the Community Care Development Project.  

Jeremy excels at translating words into high-impact visuals and is in his element when designing frameworks and models for the unit. Jeremy is famous for spinning a vague idea into a succinct visual framework that can be utilized by diverse audiences, from mental health providers to cross-agency partners and beyond. Before coming to ODE, Jeremy built his skills working for a nationwide campaign consulting agency, where he developed and ran digital campaigns. 

On the weekends, you’re likely to run into Jeremy with his friends at a community theater seeing a horror movie, grabbing tea together, or at a local venue watching live music. Jeremy leverages his joy of large cooking endeavors to cultivate the community around him and enjoys sharing his bounty of fermented hot sauces or making dinner for friends. As a lifelong Oregonian, Jeremy loves looking for his favorite new restaurants, thrift stores, and coastal destinations. Jeremy lives in Portland and is forever grateful for the rainy weather.

The HiE unit has been lucky enough to have Jasmine since August 2023 and would probably crumble without her steadfast planning skills. Jasmine is the process-oriented oil that keeps the Unit running well, and she has a deep expertise in creating administrative to-do lists that she relishes in checking off. Jasmine brings her empathetic and organized ways to HiE meetings where she is loving learning more about building and supporting health initiatives in education. Before coming to ODE, Jasmine honed her organization skills in the private sector, where she has overseen and implemented new document control systems in high-pressure environments and been the glue that holds together small teams. Jasmine is thriving when she is using her hands, burying her head in new information, and researching questions she wants to know the answer to. Jasmine is particularly passionate about environmental conservation and welfare and is always looking to thread that interest into everything she does.  

When Jasmine isn’t carrying the HiE unit across the finish line, she is using her hands in more tangible ways or using her feet to walk long distances through forests. No crafts are off-limits, and she loves producing useful works of art for her home like macramé or a mushroom-shaped ottoman. In true form, she also loves planning, whether it’s an elaborate travel itinerary or her personal budget. Jasmine grew up surrounded by poppies just outside of Sacramento, CA but currently calls Albany home, where she lives with her partner and three cats. (And yes, she has built a custom catio!)