Kevin Steen

Co-Founder

Kevin is an international LGBTQ human rights defender who founded Rainbow Street in 2014. The Board hired Kevin as Rainbow Street’s first employee in 2019. Prior to Rainbow Street, he earned a BA in Linguistics at USC and went on to work at Google on the company’s speech language technologies. He speaks five languages, including Arabic. Kevin is an avid amateur birdwatcher and photographer. He lives in Berkeley, CA with his husband.

HG

Program Manager - Shelter & Case MAnagement

DK

Program Manager - Outreach & referrals

TB

Clara Hill - Co-founder, Board Chair

Clara has served on Rainbow Street's board since she co-founded the organization in 2014. As a professional fundraiser, she is proud to serve an organization that meets at the intersections of her expertise and passions: fundraising, grassroots activism, friendship, and international queer liberation. By day, Clara works in independent school advancement. She holds a B.A. in International Relations, a M.S. in Nonprofit Leadership, and lives in Oakland, CA. 

Doug Haldeman, PhD

Douglas C. Haldeman, PhD, is Chair of the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at John F. Kennedy University. He has worked extensively with the American Psychological Association on policy and guideline development, as well as having served on a number of APA Boards and Committees. Doug currently serves as Chair of the Board of the American Insurance Trust and is a Past President of the California Psychological Association. He is developing mental health programs for LGBT asylum seekers who are fleeing countries where same-sex behavior is criminalized. His upcoming edited volume on efforts to change sexual orientation and gender identity, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts: Evidence, Effects and Ethics will be published by Harrington Park Press in March, 2020.

Mohammad Mertaban, MD

Mohammad was born in Tripoli, Lebanon, and raised in sunny Southern California. He moved back to Lebanon during middle school and high school but went to college at UCLA, where he studied psychobiology and French. He started his career in Healthcare IT, and eventually decided to go to medical school at the University of Vermont. He attended Pediatrics Residency at UCSF and is now a Pediatric Hospitalist at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center with Stanford Childrens Hospital. Mo is a proud father of two daughters, Layelle and Amelie, who both participate in Pride Clubs at their respective schools. Mo joined Rainbow the Board of Directors at Rainbow Street in 2020 and is excited to dedicate part of his life to advocate on behalf of one of the most marginalized LGBTQ+ population in the Middle East.

Rami Hosein, MD - Treasurer

Rami was raised in California and travels to the MENA region often to visit extended family. He completed both his undergraduate and medical education at UC Davis. He then earned a Master in Public Health degree from Harvard. He is currently in his final year of Internal Medicine training at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Oakland and plans to stay in the Bay Area to work as a hospitalist. Rami worked with underserved refugee communities in Za’atari refugee camp in northern Jordan as a health policy student and is deeply eager to be a part of Rainbow Street because he recognizes the vulnerability and the resiliency of the LGBTQ population it serves. When Rami is out of the hospital, he enjoys catching up with friends and family, traveling, and hiking the Bay Area’s scenic trails. 

Sara Steenhouse - Archivist

Sara has been honored to serve on the board of Rainbow Street since 2014 and has proudly supported its work since the very beginning. As a member of the LGBTQ community she has marched, advocated, contributed, collaborated, and spoken up for safety, dignity, and equity around the world. As an ordained Christian Minister with a Social Work degree Sara has pursued a professional life dedicated to seeking justice and developing spirituality in community. Having worked in several non-profit settings, she brings experience in leadership and organizational administration to her service with Rainbow Street. Sara enjoys living in Vallejo with her spouse Felicia, their four children and two pets. 

Sophia Kass

Sophia Kass is a transgender woman of color from Lebanon, the Middle East. In 2015, She came to the USA as an international student at UC Berkeley, and has since settled as an asylum seeker in the Bay Area. Even though she successfully worked in pharmaceutic sales and marketing for 5 years in Lebanon, two main reasons drove her to drop everything and pursue this life altering move: her HIV diagnosis in 2013 and her kidnapping while coming back from a Beirut underground gay club in 2014. Today, Sophia works at the Transgender Law Center and in her free time keeps up with Trans issues in the MENA region where the transgender community is heavily marginalized and under a lot of pain and suffering.

Chris Warfield

After many years of volunteering with trans advocacy groups in the Bay Area, Chris was thrilled to hear about Rainbow Street’s critical work and began collaborating with Rainbow Street in the spring of 2018. Originally from Boston, Chris moved to the Bay Area in 2008 to pursue a masters degree in sexuality studies from San Francisco State University and later a certificate in teaching English as a second language. A lifelong linguaphile, Chris currently teaches English to refugees and has recently begun studying Levantine Arabic.