CYGNUS - Key Persons
Ms. Ruffino, has more than 30 years of experience in management consulting, organizational development, and strategic planning. She has served as a senior government official at the federal and state levels and is experienced in assisting Corporate Directors and Officers in developing programs and activities designed to enhance employee and organizational performance. Her work at Cygnus includes providing human capital, organizational development, health systems policy, research and development, management consulting, and technical assistance services to our clients.
Her recent contract work for Cygnus includes serving as Project Director for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' (NIAID) Office of Workforce Effectiveness and Resources project. She oversaw a staff of some 40 Executive Leadership Coaches, Facilitators, and organizational development professionals that provided strategic, programmatic, and operational support. She supervised the development and execution of more than 200 offerings to support NIAID's missions and goals; support included design and development of formal course presentations, one-on-one executive coaching services, organizational consulting services and interventions, program evaluation, focus groups, and needs assessment services.
Previously, Ms. Ruffino served as the Cabinet Director and head of the Department of Aging for the State of Rhode Island, as Human Resources Officer for several large and small corporations, and directed large-scale change management projects, including a $90 million technology project for a major financial institution with more than 400 participants in 52 locations. She has extensive healthcare policy, research, and development experience as the Executive Director of a successful nonprofit healthcare delivery system demonstration project with 3 major commercial insurers, and as the Chief Operating Officer of a nonprofit clinical laboratory accreditation organization. In the latter position, she was responsible for the development and implementation of a Web-based accreditation system for tracking and monitoring physician office and hospital laboratory compliance with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requirements.
Ms. Ruffino received her M.A. in Psychology from Columbia University and her B.A. in Sociology from Hood College. She also holds a Senior Executives in State and Local Government certificate from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, as well as the Babson Executive Education certificate for Human Resources Executives.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Operations
Brian Dickerson is the Vice President of Operations for Cygnus and serves the vital role of both corporate management and creative oversight for the company's corporate, government, and nonprofit clients. As an Architect by trade and owner of his own firm, he provided award-winning projects to numerous commercial and government clients nationwide before joining the Cygnus Team. His personal philosophy is building through innovation and creative problem solving that has allowed him to help guide and shape Cygnus' overall direction and form long-lasting relationships with our clients.
Mr. Dickerson's background in achieving strong client satisfaction in both of his business ventures, makes him the ideal person for handling our Corporate Monitor activities and Project Administration to support the company's commitment of advancing new developments in healthcare through our four main practice areas, provided to a broad range of federal agencies and other clients.
Brian's 30 years of experience gives him the unique perspective and capability of helping us maximize our efforts on behalf of our clients. Successfully managing more than $250 million in highly complex and award-winning projects has given him the knowhow to handle the resources of this small-business wisely and efficiently, not just for day-to-day operations but for long-term allocation of company funds, so that contract deliverables are always met on time and within budget and client satisfaction is always at the forefront.
His genuine interest in providing good quality service and furthering the company mission to support critical research and knowledge-sharing in the healthcare world has ensured the success of Cygnus into the start of its fourth decade of addressing critical health challenges. Mr. Dickerson's more recent development interests have been working with area nonprofits and universities to catalyze the expansion of substance use disorder treatment services for homeless veterans and underserved communities.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Advisory Board
Dr. Ron Schoenfeld has an exceptionally distinguished career in science and academics, having served as a Senior Science Advisor for the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, in which capacity he reviewed the Surgeon General's Reports, represented the Office at interagency and intergovernmental meetings, and supervised Visiting Senior Fellows and Summer Interns.
He has also held a series of prestigious leadership posts at NIH as the Deputy Director of the Office of Science Policy at the National Institute of Mental Health and a Senior Research Investigator at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research. This follows a number of years serving as a Professor at Harvard Medical School.
He brings with him a range of knowledge in public health research, administration, and scientific review and a broad knowledge on various scientific topics of public health importance with specialized foci in neuroscience, pharmacology, psychiatry, psychology, brain and behavioral science, and general medicine.
Dr. Schoenfeld holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Chicago, and a B.S. in Pharmacy from Columbia University.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Co - Founder
- President
As President, Chairwoman, and co-founder of Cygnus, Helen Dickerson has served as Corporate Officer and Monitor for innovative health and social research and communications contracts for a spectrum of government agencies. Ms. Dickerson has provided more than a quarter century of sound vision and expert leadership and has substantial experience in a range of real-world practice gained through oversight of more than 260 Federal Government contracts. Under her watch, Cygnus has performed a full range of information collection and analysis, technical assistance, scientific data collection and analysis, scientific database development and maintenance, management integration of health IT and policy systems, and auxiliary management support services for a large range of clients in the health arena. This work has contributed to the managed evolution of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) health information efforts in new technologies, structure, staff realignments, policy initiatives, and review.
Ms. Dickerson has overseen the creation of inventive marketing programs to enable communication between audiences and stakeholders, and provided her experienced vision to focus expectations, shape new methods of dialogue, integrate teams, and manage training objectives. She is a graduate of the Illinois State University College of Education.
As the Corporate Comptroller, Ms. Ndrenkia utilizes her strong background in accounting and financial systems management to help Cygnus in the day-to-day fiscal operations of the company. A member of the Alpha Chi National College Honor Scholarship Society and a Recipient of the Dean's Graduate Honor List Certificate, her background in electronic engineering required a high degree of math skills, so it was no great leap for her to eventually...
As the Administrative Director, Monique Murray has served in a number of vital roles at Cygnus, including, Project Administrator, Production Manager, and Program Manager. She brings with her a background in survey development, data collection, and retreat facilitation, as well as extensive experience in managing projects and proposal development for Cygnus' four practice areas, covering scientific and technical, human capital management and...
Ms. Lafe has a distinguished career as a senior management and communications executive providing expertise in communications, publishing, digital media, management consulting, and business expansion and transition strategies for academic, research, federal and nonprofit markets. She currently provides governing leadership for Cygnus' health communications practice and has more than two decades of successful experience leading a variety of enterprises. She is expert in identifying and implementing efficiency measures, leveraging new information and technologies, and helping businesses and government achieve top- and bottom-line results via increased market visibility and growth. Ms. Lafe also possesses a list of capabilities and accomplishments gained from leading publishing and communication initiatives for a range of clients and target audiences, which includes her position as the Division Director and Associate Publisher for Time Life Books where she led innovations to expand product lines and the market reach of one of the world's pre-eminent publishers.
Her grounded experience and agile knowledge base in communications and publishing, and product and program administration has enabled her to be a driver of creative and efficient business initiatives and innovations. She has consistently delivered growth in highly competitive business markets, developed successful teams to meet new demands, discovered new methods and products to reach a variety of stakeholders and difficult-to-reach audiences, and negotiated and built lasting partnerships.
In her recent work directing a range of health communications services at Cygnus, her ability to forecast industry trends and capture new opportunities has been pivotal to meet the challenging missions of our healthcare clients and their stakeholders. As Cygnus' Director of Health Communications she oversees a staff of scientific writers, editors, graphic designers, video producers, meeting planners, web developers, content strategists, and more-all of whom share her passion and desire to improve healthcare. She provides the management and vision to help Cygnus translate evidence-based research into communication for the world's scientific community, policy makers, practitioners and patients, underserved populations, and the general public.
Ms. Lafe received her M.S. in General Business Management from the Harvard Business School.
Sherrie Aitken-Wain is a part of the Scientific and Technical Services Practice Leadership for Cygnus. She plays a vital role in aiding the company in both the type of work we focus on, as well as assisting in the development of proposal content that falls in her area of expertise. As a Ph.D. in Public Administration, Policy and Evaluation Research, she has been managing large-scale research and evaluation projects for numerous government departments, agencies, and the Executive Office of the President of the United States for more than four decades and is a nationally recognized authority in management, development, implementation, and evaluation of high-profile health prevention programs.
A perfectionist, perfect to excel at qualitative analysis, Dr. Aitken-Wain is doing what she does best. Her background in policy analysis, has allowed her to work on issues ranging from Civil Rights to the Head Start Program. Working for local, state, and U.S. Federal Government, her clients have included the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the State of Tennessee; and her enterprises have involved managing more than 75 projects for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and more than a dozen NIH Institutes. She has conducted longitudinal evaluations for the National Cancer Institute, feasibility evaluations for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, designed and managed the National Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System for more than 20 years.
Dr. Aitken-Wain helps empower clients fulfill mission-critical goals and meet organizational objectives; and her work has garnered her national attention in Congress and the media. Her most recent efforts have been in outreach and developing frameworks for healthcare learning systems and logic models for underserved communities.