National CMV Foundation Podcast

Meet John Spytek, Co-Founder of the National CMV Foundation

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.

Meet Jameka Hill, Senior Director, Clinical Trial Health Equity at Moderna

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.

Meet Megan Nix, CMV parent & author

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.

Meet Kadesha Thomas Smith, CMV parent and Founder/CEO of CareContent, Inc.

Kadesha Thomas Smith is the founder and CEO of CareContent, Inc., a digital strategy agency that helps healthcare organizations take a content-first approach to website redesigns, content marketing initiatives, and online engagement. Kadesha has more than 10 years of experience in healthcare communication. Before that, she completed a Peace Corps assignment managing a teen clinic in Nicaragua. She has an undergraduate degree in journalism from Florida A&M University and a Master of Public Health from Tufts University School of Medicine. Outside of CareContent, Kadesha and her husband are active members in Christian ministry and parents of two high-energy little ones.

Meet Alyson Ward, senior researcher at Utah State University & the Director of Quality Improvement at the National Center for Hearing Assessment & Management

Alyson Ward is a senior researcher at Utah State University and the Director of Quality Improvement at the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management. Ms. Ward has a master’s in public health, is a certified IHI Quality Improvement (QI) Advisor and is currently seeking her PhD in Psychology. For the past 20 years, her career efforts have demonstrated commitment to improving public health through education, research, policy development, evaluation, and grant development from the community to national levels. Ms. Ward’s positions and interests provide her with broad and valuable experiences in public health. She has been the lead on several large projects and contracts such as evaluating state grants, conducting state and national needs assessments, serving as a QI advisor for outside organizations, and serving as the Co-director for the CMV Public Health and Policy Conference. Ms. Ward currently serves on multiple advisory committees including the Family Leadership in Language and Learning, the Catalyst Center, and Genetic Alliance. She has presented at multiple national and international conferences and published articles and book chapters on issues related to children who are deaf or hard of hearing, including CMV. Ms. Ward is currently working on an E-book chapter with Dr. Karen Fowler on CMV and considerations for Early Hearing Detection and Intervention programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet Tami Hoffman, LMSW- CMV and Late Onset Hearing Loss (LOHL) Parent

Join the National CMV Team as they speak with CMV parent, Tami Hoffman, LMSW, during Late Onset Hearing Loss (LOHL) Awareness Week. Tami is the proud mother of Ryder, who was diagnosed with LOHL. Listen in as she shares her family's journey through LOHL. 

Meet Kenya Simmons, CMV Foundation Intern

The National CMV Team had the privilege of speaking with Kenya Simmons, a dedicated intern with the Foundation. Kenya Simmons is a Master’s in Public Health graduate student with a concentration in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Florida International University. She began her internship journey with the National CMV Foundation in August of 2021. Her interest in infectious disease, health education, and health equity is what led her on this path with the Foundation. Upon completing her internship, she hopes to continue her journey in Maternal and Child Health focusing on providing infectious disease health education to mothers, children, and families.

Meet Dr. Megan Pesch from the National CMV Foundation and the Congenital CMV Developmental Follow-up Clinic

Dr. Jenks and Khaliah chat with Dr. Megan Pesch, President-Elect of the National CMV Foundation during Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month. Dr. Pesch is an Assistant Professor of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Michigan where she is the Director of the Congenital CMV Developmental Follow-up Clinic. Tune in to learn more about how CMV can cause developmental disabilities, navigating care after a developmental disability diagnosis, and how the Foundation is working to increase awareness of developmental disabilities.

Meet Samantha Banerjee from PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy

Learn more about one of the National CMV Foundation's partnering organizations, PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy, in this episode featuring Samantha Banerjee. Samantha is the Executive Director of PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy, an action-oriented nonprofit founded by bereaved families and dedicated solely to eradicating preventable stillbirth in the US. Since her daughter's cord accident just two days before the due date of her otherwise blissful first pregnancy, Samantha has been devoted to educating expectant parents about stillbirth risk and changing the way prenatal medicine is practiced so that no other parent is left with the devastating “what-ifs” that torture so many stillbirth families. Through grassroots awareness-raising and strategic, top-down medical reform, PUSH is taking big, bold action on a national scale to ensure that more parents and babies make it home safe together. Learn more at pushpregnancy.org 

Meet Lisa Eickel - CMV Community Alliance Chair for Virginia with the National CMV Foundation

Lisa Eickel is a Speech-Language Pathologist who has spent most of her professional career working with birth to elementary school-aged children.  Her professional passions include working with early communicators, children who are non-verbal, and those that use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to communicate.  She has served as the CMV Community Alliance Chair for Virginia with the National CMV Foundation for two years.  Lisa is a mom to three feisty and fun little boys (1, 4, and 6 years old).  Her four-year-old son, Owen, was born with congenital CMV in 2017. Lisa lives in Ashburn, Virginia with her husband of 9 years and can be found cheering on the James Madison University Dukes, enjoying Virginia's wineries, or trying to find some serenity with a good book when she isn't wrangling her tribe of boys.