Gov. Jay Inslee recently announced the reappointment of Lori Wada and made the following appointments to the Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs (CAPAA).

Dr. Tam Dinh is the Director of Field Education and an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Saint Martin’s University. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of diversity and cross-cultural mental health, military social work, and religion/spirituality. Prior to her academic work, Dr. Dinh worked for more than 10 years with individuals and families in clinical and community settings. This experience ranges from being a case manager at SafeFutures, where she worked with both gang-involved youth and their families to provide holistic and integrated culturally-competent case management services, to her last nonacademic position at the City of Seattle Human Services Department where she engaged at an administrative, organizational, and social policy leadership level.

Dr. Dinh lives in Mercer Island, Washington with her husband, Stephen, and three boys, Sebastian, Oliver, and Gabriel.

Dr. Lakshmi Gaur came to the United States on an Indo-American exchange program, completed her doctoral degree in Human Genetics, and proceeded to work in molecular biology over the last three decades. She is currently the Laboratory Director at Ascendant Laboratories.

Dr. Gaur has been an active member in the community for more than two decades and has served in various capacities as a volunteer, committee member, and board officer with the India Association of Western Washington since 1994, including serving as President, Vice President, Secretary, and director of the youth program. Previously, she collaborated with the University of Washington’s South Asia Studies department around the visit of the late APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India to Washington State. She has also promoted Indian cultural heritage through programs at the Northwest Folklife Festival and Asia Pacific Cultural Center.

Dr. Gaur resides in Redmond, Washington and is a single parent of two boys who both graduated from the University of Washington and are currently working at Amazon.

Dr. Ka`imi Sinclair is an Assistant Professor at Washington State University – Spokane Health Sciences campus. She has a PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan, School of Public Health, and a Master’s in Public Health from the University of New Mexico. For two decades, she has conducted grant-funded diabetes prevention and diabetes self-management research with racial and ethnic populations across the United States. Dr. Sinclair’s work focuses on culturally adapting health programs and offering them in communities to make them more accessible to underserved populations.

In Hawai`i she worked with Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities. Since moving to Washington three years ago, she has become actively involved with the NHPI community in the Puget Sound region, building a community-academic partnership with several NHPI-serving organizations including the Asian Counseling and Referral Service, the International Community Health Services, and the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, of which she is a member of the Board of Directors. Dr. Sinclair is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Migrant Clinician’s Network and a co-chair of the Pacific Islander Health Board of Puget Sound.

Dr. Sinclair resides in SeaTac, Washington and is an avid paddler of outrigger canoes and a member of the Seattle Outrigger Canoe Club.