Board of Directors
Skillman, NJ
Kimberly is a Supply Chain Professional at Johnson & Johnson with over 15 years of experience in the health care industry. Throughout her career, she has held leadership positions in Procurement, Planning and Distribution within the J&J Pharmaceutical and Consumer Products segments. Kim’s mom, Jackie, was diagnosed with bvFTD in February 2017, just a few days before her 61st birthday. Shortly after Jackie’s diagnosis, the Pang Torres Family became an active AFTD grassroots fundraising team through the Philadelphia Marathon and Food for Thought campaigns. With a passion for people and community, Kim hopes that her work on the AFTD Board will help to provide hope for other families facing an FTD diagnosis. Read our Spotlight On... Kimberly Pang Torres.
Beltsville, MD
Rita is the Director of Caregiving with the AARP Public Policy Institute, where she manages and provides content expertise on family caregiving initiatives, specifically focused on identifying and supporting the needs of multicultural family caregivers. Rita’s mother was diagnosed with behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD) and passed away in October 2020. Rita understands the balancing act that people with loved ones affected by FTD must take on— having served as her mother’s caregiver for several years, while working full time and parenting two young children. She joined AFTD’s Board in 2021. Read our Spotlight On... Rita Choula.
Wyndmoor, PA
Julie is a Private Client Advisor and Managing Director at Logan Capital Management in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. She has more than 20 years of investment experience in the areas of client investment services, portfolio management, business development, and strategic planning. Prior to joining Logan in 2009, Julie held various positions in the financial services industry including BNY Mellon’s Private Wealth Management Group, Summit Bancorp and American National Bank in Chicago. She is a graduate of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Originally from the Chicagoland area, Julie attended high school with her two best friends, identical twin sisters who both eventually died of FTD. In 2021, she joined the AFTD Board’s Investment Subcommittee, and became a full-fledged Board member in May 2023. Read our Spotlight On... Julie Kelly.
Gail Andersen | Recording Secretary
Jacksonville Beach, FL
Gail is retired from Procter & Gamble after a 31-year career. Most recently, she served as Associate Director of Innovation. Gail’s husband died in 2012 at the age of 56 with bvFTD and ALS. Ms. Andersen brings important experience in strategic planning and project management to the board. She served on AFTD’s Task Force for Families with Children, and she and her children have held several fundraisers for AFTD. She is very interested in research. Ms. Andersen served as AFTD’s Board Chair from 2016-2020.
Laurel, MD
Halima is assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. Dr. Amjad earned her medical degree from Drexel University, followed by residency in internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital and fellowship in geriatric medicine and gerontology at Johns Hopkins University. Her career focuses on the care of people living with dementia, informed by her own father’s diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia in 2009. She currently sees patients at the Johns Hopkins Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center. Dr. Amjad’s NIH-funded research focuses on improving the care of individuals with dementia; her research interests include understanding outcomes in undiagnosed dementia, optimizing timely diagnosis and care, and improving health services provided to patients and families living with dementia. Read our Spotlight On... Dr. Halima Amjad.
Media, PA
Kyle is a portfolio manager at Quorus with years of experience in finance and investment management. Before joining Quorus, Kyle was the head of investment strategy at a financial-technology startup backed by First Round Capital and a senior strategy analyst at the Vanguard Group. Kyle first found AFTD in 2019, after his late mother’s FTD diagnosis. To honor his mother, a frequent volunteer for various organizations, Kyle started volunteering for AFTD, serving on the AFTD Board’s Investment Subcommittee. He joined the Board in 2024.
Perkasie, PA
Helen-Ann is the founder of AFTD. Her husband, Craig, was diagnosed with FTD at age 44 in 1978 and died seven years later. In order to increase research funding for frontotemporal degeneration and to provide information and support to those coping with FTD, Ms. Comstock formed the AFTD in 2002 and served as its board chair until 2010. Ms. Comstock continues to spearhead the organization’s international efforts and serves on the Executive and Governance Committees. The Comstock Respite and Travel Grant Program is named in her honor and the foundation she has laid for the organization. Read our Spotlight On... Helen-Ann Comstock.
Jill S. Goldman, MS, MPhil, CGC
Katonah, NY
Jill is a professor and certified genetic counselor at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, specializing in FTD and other neurodegenerative diseases. Throughout her almost 25-year career, she authored many peer-reviewed papers on genetics and genetic counseling for neurodegenerative diseases, as well as the 2015 textbook Genetic Counseling for Adult Neurogenetic Disease: A Casebook for Clinicians. Jill founded and for many years led two support groups for caregivers of people facing FTD, and created the “A Friend for Rachel” program at Columbia, which pairs pre-medical students with persons living with early- to moderate-stage dementia. Jill served on AFTD’s Medical Advisory Council for 10 years and supported the creation of AFTD’s Manager of Genetic Initiatives position before joining AFTD’s Board in 2024.
Kristin Holloway
Washington, DC
Kristin is a communications professional with more than 10 years of experience as a strategist for high-growth technology companies. In addition to having experience in technology public relations, her expertise includes media and analyst relations, campaign management, strategic and crisis communications, project management and technical content creation. In April 2017, her husband Lee Holloway, a gifted technology pioneer who co-founded the web security and performance company Cloudflare, was diagnosed with behavioral variant FTD. To honor Lee’s legacy, Kristin and the Holloway family established The Holloway Fund for Help and Hope at AFTD in 2019. Kristin is passionate about raising funds to help others as they navigate their FTD journey, as well as supporting cutting-edge research to advance treatments.
Shoshana Derrow Krilow, Esq.
Arlington, VA
Shoshana is a senior vice president of public policy and government relations at Vizient, a healthcare performance improvement company. Prior to joining Vizient, she was director of health and clinical affairs at the University of California’s Office of Federal Governmental Relations. She has also worked on Capitol Hill as a health policy advisor to members of Congress, and at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Smith Barney. Her father, a geriatrician, was diagnosed with FTD in the late 2000s, at age 58, and died in 2018. Shoshana found AFTD early in her father’s FTD journey and has served as an advisor for AFTD advocacy initiatives. She joined the AFTD Board in 2023.
San Francisco, CA
Jary is a licensed neuropsychologist and currently is affiliated with the Neuropsychology Service at the University of California, San Francisco/Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (UCSF/ZSFG) and the Cognitive Neuropsychology and Electrophysiology (CNE) Laboratory at VA Northern California, where he has also served as the Chair of the Institutional Review Board (human research ethics board) since 2012. He previously served on the AFTD Board from 2010-2017, and was Board Chair from 2013-2016. Jary’s brother, who was diagnosed with FTD in 2006, died in 2013. Read our Spotlight On... Jary Larsen, Phd.
Joseph Marquez, M.D.
Seattle, WA
Joseph is a urologist and founder and head of the Department of Urology at a large multispecialty practice in Seattle, WA. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz and his M.D. from Northwestern University, and he completed his internship and residency in urology at the University of Minnesota. Joseph has been recognized for pioneering many emergent technologies and techniques for urologic and prostate treatments. FTD has had a significant impact on his life, affecting a loved one who passed away in 2017. He joined AFTD’s Board in 2021.
Kathy Newhouse Mele
New York, NY
Kathy has been an elementary school teacher and a teacher of English as a second language. Currently she is chair of the Angel Shine Foundation, which supports dance education. Other interests in the nonprofit world include National Dance Institute, providing dance classes in the New York City public schools; The Paper Bag Players, a children’s theater group; and Citizens Committee for Children, a city and state advocacy organization. She is passionate about supporting AFTD because her mother suffered from primary progressive aphasia (PPA) for more than 15 years, and an unrelated uncle passed away from PPA as well.
Donald E. Newhouse
Lambertville, NJ
Donald E. Newhouse and his brother Samuel I. Newhouse Jr. (known as Si) were senior executives at Advance Publications and Newhouse Broadcasting Co. Donald retired in 2019. He became a member of the Board of the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1983. The ANPA changed its name to the Newspaper Association of America and Mr. Newhouse served as its Chairman from 1993 to 1994. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the Associated Press in 1988, and served as Chairman of the AP’s Board from 1997 to 2001. He served on the Syracuse University Board of Trustees, and is an Honorary Trustee. Mr. Newhouse was married to Susan Marley in 1955; she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) in 2003, and died in 2015. Si Newhouse was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in 2014 and died in 2017. A generous donor and committed AFTD volunteer, Mr. Newhouse has played a pivotal lead role in AFTD’s Hope Rising Benefit since its inception in 2016.
Westport, CT
Kristin is a Director at the Washington, D.C. think tank FasterCures, a subsidiary of the Milken Institute. Kristin has primary responsibility for FasterCures’ innovation portfolio of projects and activities, focused on best practices in the funding and conduct of medical research, and innovative collaborations to advance treatments and cures for a range of diseases and conditions. Her work focuses on best practices in the funding and conduct of medical research, as well as fostering innovative collaborations to advance research. Kristin’s father was diagnosed with FTD and passed away in 2007. She joined the AFTD Board’s Research Committee in 2019 and became an AFTD Board member in 2021. Read our Spotlight On... Kristin Schneeman.
Valerie L. Snow, Esq.
Philadelphia, PA
Valerie is an attorney at a nonprofit civil legal services organization that provides free legal representation to eligible clients. Her work focuses on assisting individuals with disabilities. She also educates public and professional audiences and advocates for systemic reforms. Previously, Valerie spent several years representing older adults facing or under guardianship, a legal proceeding that implicates fundamental civil rights and self-determination. Valerie’s father was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) when she was 18, and he passed away 10 years later, in 2020, at age 68. Valerie began volunteering with AFTD in 2023 and joined AFTD’s Board in 2024.
Margaret Sutherland, PhD
Gig Harbor, WA
Margaret is a program manager at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Neurodegeneration Challenge Network. She previously served as program director at the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) from 2007 to 2019, where she worked with AFTD and FTD researchers to advance research on non-Alzheimer’s dementias and design and support the NIH-funded ALLFTD natural history study. Before her role at NINDS, Dr. Sutherland was a senior research investigator at the Children’s National Medical Center and an assistant professor of pharmacology at George Washington University, both in Washington, DC, and an assistant research professor in the pharmacology department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology and received postdoctoral training at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
Austin, TX
Abrar Tanveer was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently resides in Austin, Texas. Since graduating from Ohio State in 2017, he has been working in the health tech startup space, his interest sparked by a 2018 fellowship at Venture for America. Outside of work he enjoys running, skiing, going to concerts, and generally spending time with his friends and family. He joined the AFTD Board in 2023. In 2022, Abrar partnered with AFTD to raise funds in honor of his father Shakeel Tanveer by running the Flying Pig half marathon in Cincinnati, a year after he ran the full Flying Pig marathon as part of a different AFTD fundraiser. Read our Spotlight On... Abrar Tanveer.
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