National CMV Foundation Podcast nationalcmv

Listen in as we chat with Dr. Dave Fabry, Starkey's Chief Hearing Health Officer and Jake Spano, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility with Starkey. Dedicated to delivering the best hearing experience possible, through the innovation of custom hearing aid products and a passion for helping people, Starkey is reinventing the hearing aid. In this episode, learn about Starkey's new hearing aids, advances in hearing technology, hearing education and resources, and Starkey's commitment to corporate social responsibility.
 

Vanessa Colleran is an educator who lives in Oxford, MA with her husband, Peter, and sons, Sam & Julian. Vanessa is also the mother to Logan who was born with cCMV and passed away from the disease at 4 months old. Since then, she has become an advocate for cCMV prevention and awareness. Vanessa is the vice president of the Massachusetts cCMV Coalition (MCC). She also serves on the Community Advisory Board for the CMV Transmission and Immune Tracking (TransmIT) Study, a research collaboration between UMASS Chan Medical School and Moderna Inc. In 2023, Vanessa ran the NYC Full Marathon on behalf of the National CMV Foundation as a Compete4CMV team member. 

Danielle is the General Counsel at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership in Boston where she works with real estate developers, banks, government agencies, and non-profits to finance affordable housing developments in the Commonwealth. Danielle has extensive experience layering private and public financing sources and advising on an array of housing policy and corporate governance matters. She is a graduate of the Northeastern University School of Law (J.D.), the Boston College Lynch School of Education (M.Ed.), and the University of Michigan (B.A.), and is a former partner at the law firm of Nolan Sheehan Patten LLP. Danielle first learned about congenital cytomegalovirus when her goddaughter, Evelyn Spytek, was born with a congenital CMV infection which eventually led to significant hearing and vision loss, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, microcephaly, and much more. Danielle remains inspired by Evelyn every day, and is honored to carry out her legacy through the National CMV Foundation and tells Evelyn's story to anyone who will listen. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with her husband, Ben, and two sons, Oliver and Sebastian.

John and his wife, Kristen co-founded the National CMV Foundation in 2014 to educate families about congenital CMV, a virus that ultimately claimed the life of their 21-month old daughter, Evelyn, in 2014.The couple are also parents to Jack and Thomas.  Professionally, John enters his first season as Assistant General Manager and eighth with the Buccaneers, having spent 20 total seasons in the NFL. Prior to being promoted to Assistant General Manager, Spytek spent two seasons as the Vice President of Player Personnel. In addition to the Buccaneers, John's experience in the NFL includes scouting for the Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns, and Denver Broncos.

Jameka Hill is the Senior Director, Clinical Trial Health Equity at Moderna.  Within this role she is leading patient advocacy and clinical trial diversity efforts to deepen patient advocacy and community health partnerships with organizations working to meet the needs of medically underserved populations, while also embedding into Moderna’s operating model patient focused initiatives and processes that ensure historically underrepresented groups and vulnerable populations are included in the drug development process and represented in Moderna clinical trials.
For over 20 years, Jameka has focused exclusively on improving access to clinical trials as a care option for women, older adults, racial and ethnic minority groups, patients living with rare diseases, and vulnerable populations including pregnant women and pediatrics. Jameka is an avid health literacy and community engagement advocate who strongly believes in the importance of collaborating with internal stakeholders and external thought leaders to improve heath equity around the world.  
 
Jameka completed her B.S. degree at the University of California, Berkeley in 2001 and joined Moderna in July 2020.

Megan Nix is a CMV mother, nonfiction writer, and author of the recently released medical memoir, Remedies for Sorrow. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Brain, Child Magazine, and elsewhere. Megan has served as a Community Alliance Chair for the National CMV Foundation and holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She lives between Colorado and Alaska with her husband and their five children.