Kim Watkins, our Director of Advocacy, joined the MRF in July 2022.

She oversees our federal and state legislative and regulatory policy agenda and advocacy. Prior to joining the MRF, she served as the Policy and Advocacy Manager at the American Urological Association, harnessing the power of patients and physicians advocating together on behalf of urologic conditions such as prostate, kidney, and bladder cancers. In addition, Kim has been a strong advocate for children’s health through her work with the South Carolina Immunization Coalition, the Bradshaw Institute for Community Child Health and Advocacy, and as the founder of the parent-to-parent peer-led education group South Carolina Parents for Vaccines. Kim’s innovative approach to vaccine education and policy change attracted the attention of NPR, Kaiser Health News, and the CDC. In 2019, she was awarded the Childhood Immunization Champion Award and selected as the CDC’s national award spokesperson.

Kim has been featured on BBC One, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and Kaiser Health News.

Jennifer Schultz is an educator, speaker and writer with a background in digital marketing, social media management and event planning. After receiving both her bachelor's and master's degrees from Concordia University in St. Paul, MN, she is actively involved in the community she now calls home. In addition to teaching public speaking at her alma mater, she serves on the Athletics Committee of their Alumni Advisory Council and works as an Academic Coach at Athletes Committed to Students (ACES) where she works with middle school students form underrepresented communities, using sports to engage them in Math and social-emotional learning.

As a four-time melanoma survivor, Jenn is passionate about spreading melanoma awareness and educating her community on sun safety. She is certified melanoma educator through the Melanoma Research Foundation and has built a community of other cancer survivors, thrivers and warriors through her website jennpatrice.com and her podcast Company You Keep. 

Kristin is a successful marketing professional with over 22 years of experience in search engine optimization, project management and marketing communications.  She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and a Master’s Degree in Marketing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Terrilyn is a 7^th grad educator residing in Denver Colorado. She is a stage 4 cutaneous melanoma survivor and has been 27 years NED. Terrilyn has been an advocate, volunteer, and phone buddy with the Melanoma Research Foundation since 2016. Terrilyn began using tanning beds at the age of 15 and now chooses to educate teens and young adults about the harmful effects of the sun and indoor tanning.  

Jennifer Schultz is an educator, speaker and writer with a background in digital marketing, social media management and event planning. After receiving both her bachelor's and master's degrees from Concordia University in St. Paul, MN, she is actively involved in the community she now calls home. In addition to teaching public speaking at her alma mater, she serves on the Athletics Committee of their Alumni Advisory Council and works as an Academic Coach at Athletes Committed to Students (ACES) where she works with middle school students form underrepresented communities, using sports to engage them in Math and social-emotional learning.

As a four-time melanoma survivor, Jenn is passionate about spreading melanoma awareness and educating her community on sun safety. She is certified melanoma educator through the Melanoma Research Foundation and has built a community of other cancer survivors, thrivers and warriors through her website jennpatrice.com and her podcast Company You Keep. 

Kelly has traveled the world as an actress, model, international pageant titleholder & makeup/spray tan artist. She is now dedicating herself and work to the healing of the mind and body in the modalities of life coaching, writing, teaching of goddess yoga and hosting wellness retreats. She lives in the Atlanta area with her 3 kids, Ty, Micah and Ali, and 2 dogs, Buddy and Francisico. 

Starr is a 35-year-old stage 3B melanoma survivor. She lives in beautiful middle Tennessee about 50 miles south of Nashville. She works for a rural broadband communication provider that is working to bring high speed internet to underserved communities in Tennessee. In light of her diagnosis of melanoma in 2019, she believes it is extremely critical to inform and educate others about sun safety and early detection. 

Melanoma survivor 

Karen joined CSC in October 2019 and is the Senior Director and Patient Navigator of the Cancer Support Helpline. She has 30 years of oncology experience as a social worker and practice administrator in university health care settings as well as patient services, fundraising, and programs development in the nonprofit cancer advocacy space. At CSC Karen is a member of the Programs team and provides clinical oversight of the Cancer Support Helpline. In addition, Karen coordinates navigation services for patients and caregivers. Her special areas of interest include mental health in cancer, financial navigation, caregiver needs, addressing barriers to care, adult learning needs, and process improvement in health care. Karen is from the Philadelphia area and is married with two sons, two step-daughters, and two rescue dogs. For fun she enjoys hiking, cycling, reading, music, and spending time with family. 

Nigel Deacon is the co-founder of Ocumel Canada, an initiative of Save Your Skin Foundation in Canada. He retired from a career in public education in 2012 when he was diagnosed with metastatic ocular melanoma. He now devotes his time to improving outcomes for Canadian OM patients. Ocumel Canada was founded in January 2019 and you can find out more at ocumelcanada.ca. Nigel also is a member of the CURE OM Steering Committee.

Dr. Sara Selig is the Co-Founder and Director of the MRF’s CURE OM initiative. Sara initially became involved with the OM community when her husband, Gregg, was diagnosed with the disease in 2006, at the age of 34, when Sara was a fourth year medical student. At the time of Gregg’s diagnosis, Gregg and Sara became fierce advocates for Gregg’s care and the entire OM community as well. Sara continues to be a passionate advocate for the ocular melanoma field—working to accelerate research, promote collaboration, and support patients and caregivers through her leadership of the CURE OM initiative. She is currently Associate Physician in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Basil K. Williams Jr., MD is an ocular oncologist and vitreoretinal surgeon at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, where he completed his ophthalmology residency and vitreoretinal surgery fellowship and served as a chief resident and co-director of ocular trauma. During this time, he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and won the Fellow of the Year Award. He completed an additional fellowship in ocular oncology at Wills Eye Hospital, where he received the William Tasman Outstanding Fellow Teaching Award. He grew up in the Bronx, NY and received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Yale University. He then attended The Chicago Medical School where he was elected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Prior to joining Bascom Palmer, he was the Director of Ocular Oncology at the University of Cincinnati and held the Mary Knight Asbury Endowed Chair of Ocular Oncology.  

Dr. Patel is an Associate Professor, Fellowship Program Director, and Director of the Uveal Melanoma Program in the Department of Melanoma Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center.  She is also Chair of the SWOG Melanoma Committee.

In these roles, she serves as lead physician for the uveal melanoma trials at MD Anderson including numerous investigator-initiated and sponsored clinical trials as well as Project 3 Co-Leader for the Melanoma SPORE.  She is also national Study Chair of SWOG S1801 and S1404 trials, the largest melanoma trials investigating neoadjuvant and adjuvant checkpoint blockade for cutaneous melanoma.

She has authored over 88 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, more than 28 as first or senior author.  Her grant work focuses on translational research, for which she has received at least 8 independent intramural and extramural funding awards as PI from the NIH/NCI, DOD, Melanoma SPORE, and MD Anderson Institutional Research Grants and Multidisciplinary Research Program award.  The goals of Dr. Patel’s work are to translate the findings into effective monitoring and therapeutic strategies for patients with melanoma. 

Dr. Eric Wehrenberg-Klee is an interventional radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA where he is the Director of the Center for Image-Guided Cancer Therapy, as well as an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.  He is the primary investigator on multiple investigator initiated and industry sponsored trials evaluating the role of minimally invasive interventional procedures for the treatment of cancer.  His laboratory work focus on the immune response to local tumor therapies and their synergy with checkpoint inhibition and is sponsored by grant funding from the National Cancer Institute.  

Dr. Steven Katz joined TriSalus in 2018 as Chief Medical Advisor and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards. In September 2020, Steven became the first Chief Medical Officer of TriSalus. Previously, as a full-time academic surgical oncologist, he developed a reputation as a leader in solid tumor immunotherapy, cellular therapeutics, cancer biology, liver immunology and execution of immunotherapy clinical trials. His laboratory has focused on studying liver immunosuppressive cells and strategies for enabling immunotherapy in liver tumors. He also currently serves as Associate Professor of Surgery at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His clinical expertise is in surgical therapy and multi-disciplinary management of liver tumors, pancreas tumors, sarcoma and melanoma. 

Dr. Elena Hawryluk is a board-certified Dermatologist and Pediatric Dermatologist, and Associate Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School, where she serves as the Faculty Director of Pediatric Dermatology for the Harvard Combined Dermatology Residency Program. Dr. Hawryluk cares for patients at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital, and has a clinical and research interest in pigmented lesions and melanoma in the pediatric population. She has numerous publications and national and international invited presentations on the care of children with congenital nevi, pigmented lesions, and melanoma. 

Dr. Seynnaeve received her Bachelor of Science degree from University of Pittsburgh, graduating summa cum laude with a major in molecular biology and minor in chemistry in 2007. She received her Medical Degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine in 2011 having earned accolades including Alpha Omega Alpha and the Ferrari Pediatrics Scholar Award.  Dr. Seynnaeve then completed her Pediatric Residency training at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh from 2011 to 2014 having earned the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Residency Foundation Scholarship.  She pursued subspecialty training in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, completing her fellowship in 2017.  She obtained a Masters of Science Degree in Clinical Research at the University of Pittsburgh during her fellowship and also completed a post-doctoral T32 training program in skin biology and cancer at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute while conducting pediatric melanoma research, for which she also earned a CureRock Trainee Research Award.  Dr. Seynnaeve joined the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (PHO) as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 2017.

Dr. Seynnaeve cares for children with a broad array of hematology and oncology diagnoses, though has a specific clinical interest and expertise in pediatric melanoma. She is Clinical Director of the Pediatric Melanoma Center which she established as a multidisciplinary team approach at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to care for patients diagnosed with melanoma and associated melanocytic tumors.  She is active in collaborative research serving as Principal Investigator the first pediatric melanoma clinical trial to open at UPMC which also serves as the first US site to offer patient enrollment for an international, multicenter study.  She is also active in medical education serving as the Associate Fellowship Program Director of the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship program.