The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) has welcomed four additions to its Board of Directors, further bolstering its commitment to supporting a community of people diagnosed with frontotemporal degeneration (FTD), their care partners, healthcare professionals, and FTD researchers.

FTD is the most common dementia for people under age 60, and is best known for being the disease Bruce Willis is currently living with. Unlike Alzheimer’s disease, FTD primarily affects one’s behavior, personality, language, and/or movement. Due to its symptoms and its relatively young age of onset, FTD’s impact on families can be devastating; it has no cure and no approved treatments.

The additions to the AFTD Board were announced during the 2023 AFTD Education Conference in St. Louis on May 5-7. Joining the Board are:

Julie Kelly (Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania), a private client advisor and managing director at Logan Capital Management, Inc. She has provided customized portfolio management to individuals and families for nearly three decades, and, beginning in 2020, has worked on the AFTD Board’s investment subcommittee. Her two best friends, identical twin sisters Cathy Pfeifer and Jeanette Ekstrand, died of FTD in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

Shoshana Derrow Krilow, Esq. (Arlington, Virginia), 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 has previously served as an advisor for AFTD advocacy initiatives.

Margaret Sutherland, PhD (Gig Harbor, Washington), 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.

Abrar Tanveer (Austin, Texas), a product operations analyst for Dispatch Health, a company that provides in-home medical services. Abrar has previously partnered with AFTD to raise funds in honor of his late father, Shakeel Tanveer, by running the Flying Pig marathon and half marathon in Cincinnati, his hometown. He also participated in a panel discussion on the diversity of the FTD caregiving experience at the 2022 AFTD Education Conference. Abrar is a 2017 graduate of the Ohio State University, and in 2018 earned a fellowship at Venture for America.

“AFTD’s Board has historically led this organization in ever more ambitious directions, all while maintaining focus on our mission to support those affected by FTD and drive research to a cure,” said AFTD CEO Susan L-J Dickinson, MSGC. “These diverse additions to our Board embody a range of skills – financial savvy, legal and medical expertise, creativity, and energy – that will lead AFTD to the next level. Most of all, they bring a passion for ending this disease.”

Additional changes to the AFTD Board were announced during the Education Conference. Kimberly Pang Torres of Johnson & Johnson was named Board Chair, replacing David Pfeifer, who remains on the Board. Fellow Board member Rita Choula, MA, of the AARP Public Policy Institute, was named Vice Chair.

ABOUT AFTD: The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration is the leading nonprofit devoted to helping families affected by FTD today, and driving research to foster accurate diagnosis, treatments, and a cure. Our volunteer-founded organization – driven by thousands of volunteers and donors – reflects a community’s determination to #endFTD.