Joaquin Carcaño

Joaquin was born and raised in South Texas, an area known as the Rio Grande Valley, along the Texas-Mexico border. After graduating from Edinburg High School, Joaquin moved to Austin, TX where he attended the University of Texas at Austin and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Biology in 2011. During his time in Austin, Joaquin was active with Global Medical Training, a student organization focused on international and humanitarian medicine for the underserved and traveled to Nicaragua with a team to participate in free community health clinics, GlobeMed – a network of college chapters which partners with grassroots organizations across the globe in order to address health disparities and advocate for global health equity, received his EMT license as part of the Longhorn EMS program, and was a volunteer hospice worker at Doug’s House of Project Transitions – a residential hospice for those in the final stages of AIDS-related illnesses.

After graduation, Joaquin joined the U.S. Peace Corps and served from 2011-2012 in rural Andean Peru as a Community Health Promoter. Activities he was involved in included facilitating a teen health promoter program in the local high school, and dental, nutrition, and vaccination campaigns in partnership with the town health center. Following their Peace Corps service, Joaquin moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and began working at UNC-CH’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Disease as a Social Research Assistant on the HRSA SPNS project, NC-LINK. He was tasked with building and launching the statewide HIV care referral call center. This work included updating the statewide HIV medical care provider and support service directory, facilitating trainings and providing ongoing consultation of the call center staff, and promoting the call center services across the state.

Joaquin has continued working with UNC-CH’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Disease following his time with the NC-LINK project. He is now Project Coordinator of Enlaces por la salud, a statewide initiative providing linkage and retention services as well as a 6-session educational program via personal health navigators for the state’s Mexican men and transwomen community. In this role, he oversees the navigators and outreach staff based out of the two community partners in the Triangle and Charlotte metro area, designs and implements intervention materials, facilitates communication between community and university based staff, and provides ongoing project support as dictated by the Health Resources Services Administration, the UCSF Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center staff, and general intervention needs.

The issues that most interest Joaquin are improving access to quality healthcare for the marginalized and underserved, the intersection of health and human rights, immigration, reproductive justice, and Latino community advocacy.

He spends his free time with his 3 year old Golden Retriever-Greyhound named Moose.