About Us › Our Staff and Interns › Emily Coles
Emily Coles
Head of Communities
Diabetes Hands Foundation | Berkeley, CA
Contact Information:
emily2@diabeteshf.org
TuDiabetes.org, EsTuDiabetes, LinkedIn
Emily Coles (our second Emily!) was diagnosed with type I diabetes at the age of 3, and has spent her life working to understand, manage and thrive with this user-unfriendly disease.
She received a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1996, and then moved to the Bay Area and began working in public health. In the following years she worked and volunteered for the AIDS Health Project, Iris Center women’s health outreach program, San Francisco Department of Public Health AIDS Office, and Stop AIDS Project. In 2000 Emily returned to school, and the following year attained a Masters degree in Epidemiology from Stanford University.
Professional life as an epidemiologist proved not to be a good fit, and after working at UCSF for a short time Emily left to pursue a career teaching dance. She ran her own dance business for several years, but could not get public health out of her system, and so began seeking ways to combine her personal experience with diabetes and her professional and academic background in public health.
In 2011, Emily joined Diabetes Hands Foundation as Program Manager to help develop and grow our many programs in both English and Spanish. She is now responsible for our online communities, TuDiabetes and EsTuDiabetes.
