About the Streetlight Director
Email: e.sullivan@peds.ufl.edu
Emily Marchi (she/her) initially began her involvement with Streetlight as a volunteer in 2009 during her time as an undergraduate student at the University of Florida. Partnering with chronically ill adolescents and young adults from diagnosis through cure or end of life transformed Emily’s perspective of quality of life, inspiring her to dedicate her life to helping young people find meaning through community. Inspired by the depth of the relationships forged through Streetlight’s model of palliative care, she joined the Streetlight staff upon her graduation and has led Streetlight as Program Director since 2014. Emily completed her Master of Health Education at the University of Florida. In her leadership role, Emily cherishes the opportunity to support and learn from her adolescent and young adult patients while mentoring Streetlight volunteers over their 2+ years of commitment.
About the Streetlight Patient Gaming Tech. Coordinator
Email: hunterross@peds.ufl.edu
Hunter Ross (he/him) began his introduction to Audio and Video over 12 years ago through the mediums of music production, videography and film making. Professionally, Hunter has worked with kids of varying ages over the span of a decade, whether that be as a Camp Counselor at Camp Crystal Lake or as a Behavioral Therapist working with children of the autistic community. Over the past few years, Hunter has found a way to blend his creative interests and technical skills with his love of caring for kids and young adults in a variety of forms such as video production for the City of Gainesville, working as Classroom Support for UF Health’s Colleges of Medicine, and being an Audio Technician for The Swamp at the home Gator Football games, all with a focus of leaving a positive impact on his community.
About the Streetlight Clinical Data Scientist
Andrew Walker, PhD, MS 
Drew Walker (he/him) began his involvement with Streetlight in 2013 as an undergraduate volunteer at the University of Florida. During this time, Drew developed a passion for connecting with and supporting patients, and working to help the program meet the needs of its diverse population of adolescents and young adults. After graduation, Drew served as Streetlight Assistant Director, while pursuing his Master of Science in Health Education and Behavior. In this time, he conducted a social network analysis of Streetlight patient-volunteer support networks based on volunteer chart records, and founded the Streetlight Gaming and Online Team. In Fall 2020, Drew moved to Atlanta,GA to pursue his PhD in Behavior, Social, and Health Education Sciences at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, and transitioned into his current role of Data Scientist. Since then, he has loved working with Streetlight’s team to conduct research which seeks to understand, optimize, and share insights about this unique program in hopes of empowering other healthcare centers to adopt Streetlight’s powerful model of peer support.
About the Streetlight Founder
Rebecca Brown, MDiv, CT
Email: RebeccaDeniseBrown@gmail.com
Rebecca Brown founded Streetlight in 2006, hired by the University of Florida Department of Pediatrics and Dr. John Graham-Pole to develop an adolescent palliative care support program in 2005. The name Streetlight is based on her thesis work in seminary at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. Rebecca is now a freelance consultant and lecturer on adolescent spiritual formation, death education and palliative care.
About the Streetlight Team
The Streetlight Team is a diverse group of 60+ UF students selected through interviews and recommendations who have undergone eight hours of special orientation on adolescent psychosocial and health issues, palliative care, end-of-life care, and the four primary disease populations we serve. Team members are aged 18 – 25, and most are pre-med or have relevant experience with chronic/terminal disease. Each team has a captain and is closely supervised by the director and assistant director with daily briefing, education, chart-writing, rounds and discussion.
