BRAIN TUMOR NETWORK - Key Persons
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Alexandra spent nearly a decade as a medical social worker at The Mayo Clinic in Florida, primarily dedicated to the oncology and transplant departments. She was inspired to pursue a career in social work after becoming the primary caregiver for her mother, who received a double lung transplant. Alexandra is passionate about helping patients and families navigate difficult situations and empowering them along their journey.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Anna spent 11 years as a nurse within the Duke University Health System, serving in various oncology-focused roles. Most recently, Anna dedicated five years to the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke Cancer Center as a Service Access Nurse, where she ensured that new patients had efficient and comprehensive access to the breadth of services the center provides. Anna hails from a family of healthcare professionals, with a passion for health equity and service to others instilled in her at a very young age.
Prior to joining BTN, Brittany provided palliative care as a Nurse Practitioner in Jacksonville, Florida. Brittany also spent six years as an Intensive Care Unit Nurse at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, gaining extensive experience caring for patients with a wide variety of conditions and cancer diagnoses. When Brittany was a child, a family member passed away from cancer, and she was inspired by the stories her family told of the compassionate caregiving team. This evolved into a passion for supporting oncology patients and their caregivers.
Job Titles:
- Neuro - Oncology Nurse Navigator
Before joining the BTN team, Cassie served as Mayo Clinic Jacksonville's first brain tumor nurse navigator, eventually playing a key role in the development of a specialized high-grade brain tumor navigator position to provide targeted services to patients with advanced brain tumors. Prior to Mayo Clinic, Cassie worked with several non-profit organizations across the United States, including a community service agency in Hamtramck, Michigan that provided food and clothing for the city's extensive homeless population. Cassie was inspired to become a nurse after witnessing the care and compassion her grandmother received from her nurses during her battle with dementia.
Clay Tousey graduated with honors from Harvard University, ultimately receiving his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He has spent the last decade in his legal practice providing counsel and direction to numerous small and large charitable organizations with legal and tax-related issues. In addition to serving as a Board Member for BTN, Clay also serves on the board for Wolfson Children's Hospital in Northeast Florida, which feeds his passion and dedication to helping families navigate the complex healthcare system during critical periods in their lives.
Dan Ryan has over 20 years' experience in business leadership, serving as Managing Director for the Spring Bay Companies, a venture capital firm based out of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for the past 15 years. Dan is an avid volunteer, also holding board positions at Divine Mercy House and the Sontag Foundation in Jacksonville. This has fostered Dan's passion for helping others and given him a deep awareness of the special challenges faced by brain tumor patients. Dan's sophisticated business perspective is vital to operations at Brain Tumor Network.
Job Titles:
- Health Information Assistant
Hayley obtained her degree in Political Science from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. While completing her education and post-graduation, Hayley completed an internship with the City of Jacksonville in Florida, where she supported the city's nonprofit grant recipients, as well as with Jacksonville Legal Aid, where she assisted with legal research and case preparation. Hayley was driven to help others after the death of her brother at age six. Her mother is also a breast cancer survivor.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director, the Sontag Foundation
Hilary Keely oversees development and execution of all strategic objectives and programming for The Sontag Foundation, a brain cancer research nonprofit based in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Prior to joining The Sontag Foundation, Hilary was Chief Legal Officer for the Nemours Foundation in Jacksonville, Florida. Hilary dedicated over 12 years of her prestigious career in various capacities with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including Acting Chief of Staff of the Indian Health Service, a $6 billion integrated healthcare system, and as a Senior Attorney in the Public Health Division of the Office of the General Counsel.
Jenna joined BTN after dedicating five years of her career to navigating lung cancer and mesothelioma patients for a health consultant in Orlando, Florida. During her tenure, Jenna was an outspoken advocate for her patients, providing accessible patient education and promoting awareness of patient navigation in medical care. Prior to that, Jenna served as Director of Nursing Services and School Nurse at the PG Chambers School, a private New Jersey school for children with special needs, and worked as an RN in a pediatric primary care office in New Jersey. Jenna's personal diagnosis with a rare disease spurred her passion for patient navigation, fueling her desire to provide a personalized and compassionate experience for her patients.
A graduate from the University of North Florida, Jenny Lyn has spent the past seven years providing direct patient care to various patient populations, including oncology, hematology, and bone marrow transplant. At Mayo Clinic Florida, she collaborated with research coordinators and was the infusion nurse for several clinical trials. Coming from a family of nurses, Jenny Lyn developed her love for nursing, especially oncology patients, after caring for her father, who passed away from lung cancer. She is passionate about educating and empowering patients and is honored to serve the brain tumor community.
Job Titles:
- President & CEO, Madison IAQ
- Senior Strategy and Operating Executive
Jill Wyant is a senior strategy and operating executive with over 25 years of experience leading Fortune 500 businesses in the industrial and healthcare sectors. She previously served as the Executive Vice President of Innovation and Transformation at Ecolab, the world leader in water, energy and hygiene technology and services with over $12B in sales.
Jill's career reflects a track record of driving innovative strategies to capture new growth and profit, spearheading breakthrough innovation, driving manufacturing excellence and operational efficiency, and leading transformational M&A. She also brings a broad perspective on international business and global expansion as well as experience driving enterprise-wide digital transformations. Jill has a passion for building mission focused teams and has deep sustainability expertise.
Jill has held domestic and international sector leadership roles with an expat assignment in Switzerland. In her previous role as the Executive Vice President and President of Global Regions at Ecolab, she had ownership of a $5 Billion P&L with 25,000 employees and was responsible for the vision, strategy and general management skills to shape the next phase of growth for the company internationally. She laid out a sweeping strategy to revitalize Ecolab's International organization into a major growth engine for the company and in two years, doubled topline growth.
Previously, Jill was Executive Vice President and President of Ecolab's Global Food & Beverage, Global Healthcare and Global Life Sciences businesses, a $2.5B P&L. Other leadership roles held at Ecolab include Executive Vice President and President of the Global Food & Beverage sector, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Food & Beverage in North America and Latin America, and leading Food & Beverage in Asia Pacific. Jill joined Ecolab in 2009 as Vice President of Global Strategic Planning. Prior to Ecolab, she held multiple leadership positions at General Electric.
Jill serves on the board of Dow (NYSE: DOW), a leading materials science company ranked 78 th on the Fortune 500. She is a member of the board of directors of the Brain Tumor Network and serves on the Break/Through fundraising committee of The Greater Twin Cities United Way. She has served on the board of directors of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and the Greater Twin Cities United Way. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and The Committee of 200 (an organization of the world's most successful women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders).
Jill earned an MBA degree with highest honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of St. Thomas with bachelor's degrees in international marketing and Japanese studies. She has attended Harvard Business School's Executive Education.
Job Titles:
- Health Information Coordinator
A graduate of the University of North Florida's Brooks College of Health in Jacksonville, Florida, Julia completed an internship at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville focused on patient experience and service recovery. While completing her degree in Health Administration, Julia also studied abroad in Beijing, China. Julia was compelled to begin her career in healthcare after her father's open-heart surgery and subsequent lengthy hospitalization. Watching the nurses care for her father with such grace and compassion inspired her to choose a career path focused on helping others along similar journeys.
Karey's experience includes over 20 years as a nurse with Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, co-developing the health system's Epilepsy Clinic and pioneering the first Clinical Epilepsy Nurse role. Prior to joining BTN, Karey served as Mayo Clinic's Clinical Nursing Supervisor specializing in epilepsy and onco-epilepsy patients with brain tumors and as an Epilepsy Research Nurse, where she coordinated several multi-phased drug and device studies. After working alongside her father in his independent pharmacy during high school and college, Karey developed a passion for disease processes and the way medication works in the body to treat illness, eventually leading her to become BTN's resident clinical trial and research specialist.
Job Titles:
- Community Volunteer / Founding Board Member
Bringing with her more than four decades of social work experience, Kay Verble was Brain Tumor Network's first Executive Director. After meeting Rick and Susan Sontag in 2002, she joined the Sontag Foundation as its first executive director, serving in that position for over 18 years. Kay was instrumental in the early days at BTN, helping patients and their families overcome the same obstacles that Kay and Rick faced during Susan's battle with brain cancer. She spent the remainder of her career guiding, mentoring, and educating patients and families as they navigated their brain tumor diagnoses. Kay retired in 2019, but as a Board Member, her unique historical perspective and invaluable guidance are assets to BTN's daily operations.
Job Titles:
- Neuro - Oncology Nurse Navigator
Prior to joining BTN, Kelly was an Oncology Nurse at a community cancer center in Jacksonville, Florida, where she helped to coordinate and provide outpatient clinical care and navigation for cancer patients undergoing treatment. Additionally, Kelly has experience as an Emergency Department Nurse in multiple New Jersey emergency departments, which led to a unique patient experience shaped by critical thinking and efficient clinical skills. Kelly is a cancer survivor. This provided the catalyst for her to pursue her degree in nursing and feeds her passion for advocating and empowering for cancer patients at Brain Tumor Network.
Job Titles:
- Manager, Patient Navigation
Kendra's nursing career spans nearly a decade, having spent over four years as a Chemotherapy Infusion Nurse at Cancer Specialists of North Florida in Jacksonville, as well as two years as an Oncology Nurse at Baptist Health System in Northeast Florida. Prior to becoming a nurse, Kendra specialized in digital marketing and web design for global recruitment giant Monster.com and managed membership services for a national technology research and advisory company. Kendra was the caregiver for her brother after his terminal cancer diagnosis. This experience drove her to change careers from digital marketing to nursing.
Dr. Kent New earned his MD/PhD at Georgetown University Medical School in Washington, D.C., focusing his research on viral gene and cancer therapies in the brain. He subsequently completed a neurosurgery residency at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, during which time he focused research efforts on immunology of brain tumors. Dr. New was an Assistant Professor in Neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida for three years and was on staff at St. Vincent's Brain and Spine Institute in Florida, where he oversaw research efforts prior to his retirement. In his role on the BTN board, Dr. New assists in the evaluation of patient cases and clinical trials.
Prior to her role as Director of Operations, Laura was Director of Navigation Operations and a Nurse Navigator at BTN. Laura brings with her over 20 years' experience, including over 10 years at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, first as a Neuro-Surgical Operating Room Nurse, and later becoming the Perioperative Nurse Instructor. In this role, she provided targeted training and education to nurses assigned to the surgical department to ensure excellence in patient care. Laura's son was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease at age 5, and patient navigation was not available for her family following his diagnosis. This experience inspired Laura to become a nurse navigator, ensuring that other families had access to the very services her family needed years prior.
Megan recently graduated from the University of North Florida with a bachelor's degree in Health Administration. Prior to joining BTN, she provided administrative support in a busy medical practice focused on integrative medicine. Fostering a lifelong passion for advancing quality healthcare, Megan is currently pursuing her master's degree in Health Administration at the Brooks College of Health at the University of North Florida.
Job Titles:
- Neuro - Oncology Nurse Navigator
Prior to joining BTN, Meghan worked in Health Care Administration, coordinating programs for brain tumor and other cancer patients and their families, eventually developing a love for patient care and earning her nursing degree. She spent nearly a decade with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts in various oncology roles, many of which worked directly with brain tumor patients. Meghan's affinity for nursing stems from her desire to make a difference in the lives of patients and their families.
Job Titles:
- Neuro - Oncology Nurse Navigator
Molly's extensive neuro-oncology nursing career began at Johns Hopkins as a Pediatric Oncology Nurse. She ultimately earned her master's degree in Nursing and began working with some of Johns Hopkins' most prestigious researchers as a Senior Research Nurse for Phase I trials for solid tumors. After over a decade with Johns Hopkins, Molly stepped into a clinical case management role supporting cancer patients with targeted navigation for a private company, which ultimately led her to pursue a neuro-oncology nurse navigation role with Brain Tumor Network. Hailing from a family of nurses, Molly is passionate about increasing access to quality healthcare and strives to build meaningful relationships with her patients.
Job Titles:
- President / the Sontag Foundation / the
- President of the Sontag Foundation
The Sontag Foundation developed a network of relationships with healthcare providers throughout the United States who specialize in brain tumor treatment. This cadre of experts serves as the foundation of Brain Tumor Network. Our network continues to develop as the field continues to grow. Neuro-oncology nurses and social workers tap into these ever-expanding connections to provide personalized information and navigation at no cost to individuals with brain tumors or their caregivers.
Rick Sontag is President of The Sontag Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing brain cancer research and home to one of the nation's most prestigious and competitive brain tumor research grants. Rick also manages a venture capital firm. In 1994, Rick's wife, Susan, was diagnosed with brain cancer, and Rick personally navigated her through diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. When Rick sold his company, Unison Industries, to General Electric in 2002, he set along the path that inspired the formation of Brain Tumor Network. Rick sees BTN as fulfilling his dream of providing brain tumor patients with objective, viable advice when they are faced with the uncertainty that comes with a brain tumor diagnosis.
Job Titles:
- Florida State University / Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Sarah began her social work career after graduating with her MSW from Florida State University in 2014. She has worked in different areas within medical social work, specifically at Mayo Clinic in solid organ transplant and later at Nemours Children's Health in the pediatric Hem/Onc division. Sarah is passionate about advocating for and supporting patients and their families throughout the continuum of a life altering diagnosis.