Sarah E. Lesko, MD, MPH
Executive Director, Board President
Sarah Lesko is the Executive Director and Board President of Bras for Girls. She is committed to making sports and body movement accessible and welcoming for all; she believes in the power of sports to improve health, happiness, and equity.
Bras for Girls is the perfect blend of Sarah’s training, expertise, and passions. After a collegiate running career, Sarah became a Family Doctor, practicing in the Community Health Center setting. Feeling the frustrations of the limitations of allopathic medicine, she returned to get her Masters in Public Health to be able to focus on community-based needs. In 2015 Sarah took a hiatus from practicing medicine to work with Oiselle, the women’s athletic apparel brand based in Seattle, WA.
In 2017, Sarah helped start Oiselle’s Bras for Girls program and shepherded its growth as well as its transition to a non-profit in 2021. Sarah is honored to serve this organization to help ensure that every girl has access to a well-fitting sports bra.
Sarah earned a BA in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, an MD from the University of Pennsylvania, completed her residency in Family Medicine at USCF, and earned an MPH from the University of Washington. Sarah also coached middle school track and cross-country and witnessed first-hand how a sports bra can change a girl’s trajectory. Small supportive interventions have a big impact.
Onika Jervis
Board Vice-President
Inspired by her volunteer work as a girls running coach, Onika began her career in the non-profit sector over 10 years ago as the executive director of youth sports development organization in New Orleans. In this role she was able to fuse her love of running, community organizing and working with parents to support the emotional and physical health of children.
Currently, Onika Jervis serves as Vice President of Advocacy at GirlTrek, the largest health movement and nonprofit for Black women and girls. Skilled at leveraging the support of community partners and local governments and fondly known as Organizer Onika, she has mobilized a record number of women to join the movement: say "yes" to adopting a daily life style of walking 30 minutes a day as a form of radical self-care. As result of her direct efforts she was instrumental in GirlTrek reaching its milestone goal of one million members in 2020.
Committed to advancing the holistic health and daily joy of girls in the US and across the diaspora, Onika looks forward to leveraging her community connections to ensure that girls who need it the most can have access to Bras for Girls.
Onika is a former Higher Education Administrator with a track record at Xavier University, Barnard College, SUNY New Paltz and Morgan State university. Onika is a proud 30 year member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. A 2X marathoner who enjoys strolling the oak-tree lined streets of New Orleans and looks forward to Mardi Gras each year.
Carolyn Gardner
Board Secretary
Community building is at the heart and soul of Carolyn’s identity. As an avid runner, she has run numerous road races from the east coast to the west coast. After moving to the West Coast from Chicago, she found a new love of spending time in the mountains, hiking and trail running. She has a passion for bringing athletes of all ages and abilities together to uncover their joy of movement while helping athletes supportively reach their goals.
Carolyn has spent many years in the running community serving five years on the Associate Board for Girls on the Run - Chicago, as a core community influencer/pacer for the Nike Chicago Running Community, and as Chicago women’s run club leader. Upon moving to Los Angeles, Carolyn joined the Oiselle Volée and served as a local Volée leader, creating opportunities to bring together women in sport in the Southern California region. Carolyn enjoyed the Volée community experience so much that in 2020 she relocated to Seattle to join the Oiselle team to manage the Oiselle Volée program until early 2023. Carolyn relocated back to Santa Monica, California in early 2023
Carolyn spends her work days in Residential property management in Los Angeles. In this role, she manages the day to day financial, structural and interpersonal needs of luxury high rise properties. With over 18 years of experience in both Chicago and Los Angeles, overseeing hundreds of large scale condominium properties, with multi-million dollar budgets, she mastered skills in developing strong relationships between Board members and shareholders while executing the needs of the property.
Jinghuan Liu Tervalon
Board Treasurer
Jinghuan Liu Tervalon is a mother runner based in the unceded Tongva land (modern-day Los Angeles). Her love of running started after she became a mother in 2007; she started training with the Fortius Altius Citius Training (FACT) group after her second child was born in 2016. You can see her running on the road, trail and track in the Pasadena/Altadena area. She is a firm believer that anyone can be a runner, no matter your size, ability, background, or history.
She works as an insights and strategy professional at the Coca-Cola Company. During her free time, she also contributes stories for Runner's World and Women's Running magazine. Her project of writing a series of Asian American Pacific Islander runner profile stories was a runner-up at the Brooks Runfulness Project in May 2021.
Jinghuan also serves as a local leader for Oiselle Volée, and on the advisory board of Running Industry Diversity Coalition. She is part of a pilot program Running with Purpose, a coalition that enables advocacy through running with Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel. Her life's purpose is to make running more accessible to her community: AAPI runners, women of color and immigrants. Through Bras for Girls, she hopes that a small yet powerful item like a well-fitting running bra can help a girl get into running (or any other sports), and stay in it for as long as they can.
Atsuko Tamura
Advisor
Atsuko serves as an advisor to Bras for Girls. Atsuko brings a wealth of experience, heart, operations and financial knowledge, plus organizational chops to the team. AT’s past work experience includes roles such as SVP Marketing and Strategy, CFO & VP Finance at REI, CEO of evo, and serving on several non-profit boards for organizations that resonate with her heart. In her current role, she serves as President of Oiselle.
Having been a competitive swimmer and coach of young athletes, Atsuko is not only passionate about youth access to sports, but she brings the highest level of integrity and compassion to all of her personal interactions with community members, colleagues, and collaborators.