Who We Are

The ASAP board of Directors currently is served by patient volunteers who are donating their time, skills and experience in collaboration with clinicians.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Sarah Gorman

Board Chair

MyApnea.Org Steering Committee, Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Panel

Sleep Apnea Patient

Sarah Gorman is an attorney, retired after a full career in private practice, and later as in-house counsel with the General Electric Company. She earned degrees in Mathematics and Law at Cornell University and has held multiple positions in various Bar Associations, as well as local elected public office.

A lifelong sufferer from sleep apnea, she wasn't diagnosed and treated with PAP until the age of 56, and found it a life altering (and lifesaving) event. As a result, she has become actively interested in the field of sleep apnea patient advocacy and research. Sarah has served in various capacities in patient-driven organizations working to further sleep apnea recognition, diagnosis and treatment.

Kathy Page

Board Vice-Chair

MyApnea.Org Steering Committee, Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Panel

Sleep Apnea Patient

Member of Public Advisory Board - American Thoracic Society

Kathy is retired after 24 years working for an electric cooperative. She was diagnosed several years ago after a sleep study for another health issue and has used CPAP therapy ever since. Because of the struggles she had with her therapy, she focuses much of her time on adherence and advocacy.

Kathy serves on the board of MyApnea.Org and is one of the founding members of ASAP. She has participated as a patient representative in PCORI grant funding. She also been active in various NIH meetings on sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome and has participated in three FDA grant processes as a patient specialist. She Participated in drafting “Sleep Apnea & Women” for the Society for Women’s Health Research. Kathy is currently in her second term as a member of the Public Advisory Roundtable for the American Thoracic Society.

Laura DeFelice

Secretary

Former manager of the Connecticut Center for Sleep Medicine at Stamford Hospital, DeFelice began her healthcare career in 1987 in dermatology. In 1989 she became the office coordinator for the laboratory at St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Stamford, CT. In 1996 DeFelice transferred into Pulmonary and became secretary for both sleep and pulmonary. In 1998 Stamford Hospital bought St. Joseph’s, and DeFelice moved to the coordinator position under the direction of Dominic Roca, MD, Ph.D. Under his tutelage, they built the program that exists today. DeFelice studied under Dr. Roca, went to conferences, took classes, and built a program from an apnea center to an accredited sleep disorder center. The center grew under her management to a six-bed facility, including four exam offices. Staff included six doctors, three mid-levels, and an office staff of five clerical assistants and two medical assistants. DeFelice’s strengths include organization, multi-tasking, patient relations, and PAP therapy support.

Susan Jackson Redman

Treasurer

Susan has 20 years of experience working with the largest U.S. and multi-national banking and capital markets companies. Most recently, Susan served as the Chief of Staff of Deloitte and Touche’s Banking and Capital Markets practice, actively overseeing the strategy development and execution for a $1.5B portfolio.

Susan has spent most of her career developing and executing marketplace strategies, managing talent to ensure the correct strategic resource structure, and writing and producing market-leading articles about the industry's critical trends. She has led several global projects related to the current financial environment in the areas of M&A, business operations, regulation, risk management, and governance.

Before Deloitte, Susan worked at General Electric in global risk management. She also graduated from one of General Electric’s prestigious leadership programs.

Susan holds degrees from Indiana University and Northwestern University. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and two small children. Her interest in sleep disorders is quite personal with family members living with apnea, and she is intent on increasing parents’ knowledge of children's sleep health.

Monica Mallampalli, PhD

Mark Hanson, MEd, MRelEd

Founding Member & Board of Directors
MyApnea.Org Steering Committee, Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Panel

American Academy of Sleep Medicine: Member

Sleep Apnea Patient

For twenty-five years Mark directed software development programs, managed customer commitments, was corporate security officer, led customer satisfaction initiatives and ombudsman for Computervision/PRIME/PTC. Earlier he was a cryptographic analyst with the USASA, a reading specialist in the Boston Public Schools, and a technical writer. A bassoonist, Mark also served on the boards of the Metropolitan Wind Symphony and Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. He founded the Boston Festival of Bands, and MWS Continuum series.

Mark’s focuses on process improvement, especially for Pathways to Healthy Sleep (ASAP).
A CPAP user for the over eight years, he worked with a research team at Brigham & Woman’s Hospital providing peer support for CPAP patients, and grant proposals focused on sleep SA.

Dr. Monica Mallampalli is a scientific thought leader and women’s health advocate. As a trained biomedical scientist, Dr. Mallampalli brings a unique perspective to health – from science and research to policy and advocacy. She enjoys combining her understanding of complex scientific issues with strong analytic and problem-solving skills to offer solutions to advance scientific, advocacy, and educational goals. Over the years, Dr. Mallampalli has built strong alliances with several stakeholders, including patients, advocacy groups, researchers, clinicians, federal agencies, policymakers, and biopharmaceutical companies.

She has co-authored several publications for scientific journals and magazines, including policy articles and advocacy reports on various topics related to sex differences and women’s health. Some of these publications have been instrumental in impacting policy and research.

Previously, Dr. Mallampalli served as the Vice President of Scientific Affairs at the Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR). She was the chief architect and subject matter expert for women’s health and sex-based biology programs. Prior to SWHR, Dr. Mallampalli worked as a Health Policy Analyst and a Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health. She was also a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Department of Cell biology. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Utah in Human Genetics and received a Master of Sciences with a Biochemistry concentration from Osmania University in India.

Susan Redline, MD, MPH

Founding Member & Board of Directors

MyApnea.Org Steering Committee Co-chair

Dr. Susan Redline is the Peter C. Farrell Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Programs in Sleep and Cardiovascular Medicine and Sleep Medicine Epidemiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She is a sleep medicine physician and has led many national research projects aiming to understand the causes and consequences of sleep apnea and clinical trials addressing the role of sleep apnea interventions in improving health, cognition, and behavior in children and adults. Dr. Redline believes that patient-centered research has promise to make research more responsive to patient needs while improving the likelihood of generating data that makes a difference for patients, their families, and health care systems.

Raymond Merrell

Board of Directors

Sleep Apnea Patient

Ray was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) in 2011. Ray lived with sleep disorders long before being diagnosed at age 54. He started participating in clinical studies at medical research institutions in Boston and New York in 2016. Setting an example, he encourages patients to participate in clinical studies in the drive for researchers developing and testing disease-modifying therapies.

Committed to being an active sleep disorder advocate, Ray became a member of the Advocacy Committee of the American Alliance for Healthy Sleep (AAHS) prior to its dissolution in 2020. He is a patient representative with AASM’s RBD Task Force updating the 2010 Clinical Practice Guideline for Management of RBD, and he also serves as an UpToDate Peer Reviewer for RBD.

Ray is a career Environmental Health & Safety Professional across multiple industries, starting with American Cyanamid and its chemical unit spin-off Cytec Industries for 25 years, Sequa Corp. and now with GAF. He is a life-long NJ resident and graduate of Rutgers University with a BS/MBA and MS from New Jersey Institute of Technology.

ADVISORY BOARD

Judith Owens

Dr. Judith Owens is Director of Sleep Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a Professor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School. She is an internationally-recognized authority on pediatric sleep and the author of over 175 original research and review articles in peer-review journals, chapters, and books on the topic. Her particular research interests are in the neurobehavioral and health consequences of sleep problems in children, sleep health education, and cultural and psychosocial issues impacting sleep.

Previously, Dr. Owens was the Director of Sleep Medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC (2010-15) and Director of the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic and the Learning, Attention, and Behavior Program at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. She received her undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown and a Master’s in Maternal and Child Health from the University of Minnesota. She completed pediatric residency training at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and fellowships in Behavioral Pediatrics at Minneapolis Children’s Medical Center and in Child Psychiatry at Brown University. She is board certified in Pediatrics and Sleep Medicine.

Nancy H. Rothstein

MBA

The Sleep Ambassador®

Alliance of Sleep Apnea Partners (ASAP) Advisory Board

MyApnea.Org Steering Committee

Sleep Apnea Patient

As The Sleep Ambassador® and Director of Sleep Health with Resonea, Nancy inspires a new respect for sleep and its impact on all aspects of work, life, and well-being. Through consulting, public speaking, media engagements, and other venues, Nancy reflects her dedication to educating and raising awareness about the importance of sleep to live at your best, as well as her commitment to prompt action to address sleep disorders. Nancy consults on Sleep Wellness to Fortune 500 corporations, the travel industry, universities/schools, and organizations, offering education, training, and strategic solutions to empower people to make lasting shifts to optimize their sleep quality and quantity.

Ellen Auerbach Grody

PMP

Alliance of Sleep Apnea Partners (ASAP) Founding Member currently serving on the ASAP Advisory Board

Ellen Auerbach Grody is an active non-profit volunteer! Ellen is involved in the Greater Boston Food Bank as a member of the Innovative Development Council, the League of Women Voters as the Vice President of the chapter, and a Board member of the West Suburban YMCA. Also, Ellen fosters rescue dogs from Last Hope K9, a dog rescue organization. She is committed to improving the state of the world through continuous improvement. Ellen holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Michael Twery, Ph. D

Michael Twery, Ph.D., works with government agencies, healthcare organizations, non-profits, and businesses as a consultant for biomedical research and public health. As an NIH Health Scientist Administrator, Dr. Twery provided oversight of sleep, circadian and respiratory neurobiology research programs supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) since 1996. He was appointed director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR) in 2006 and served as a point of contact for inter-agency coordination of federally funded sleep activities and scientific research ranging from basic neurobiology and genomics to clinical trials until he retired from the federal government in 2020. He chaired the NIH Sleep Research Coordinating Committee. He was the NIH Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board (SDRAB) executive secretary, a Federal advisory committee representing sleep disorder patients, health care providers, and biomedical researchers on needs and opportunities for sleep research. Dr. Twery successfully established national objectives for Sleep Health in the DHHS Healthy People 2010 initiative and the 2020 and 2030 updates. In 2015, Dr. Twery was presented the Mark O. Hatfield Public Policy or Advocacy Award by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM).

Dr. Twery received his Ph.D. training in Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was a member of the research faculty at the University of Texas Medical Branch and a Senior Staff Fellow in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Experimental Therapeutics Branch at NIH before joining the NHLBI.

Dr. Michael Grander

Dr. Grandner is a licensed Clinical Psychologist certified in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, Director of the Sleep and Health Research Program, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Medicine, Nutritional Sciences, and Clinical Translational Science at the University of Arizona. His clinical work focuses on non-medication treatments for sleep disorders. His research examines the relationship between sleep and obesity, diabetes, heart disease, daytime functioning, and longevity. His work has received awards from the Sleep Research Society, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, American Heart Association, and other organizations. He is the author or co-author of over 175 academic publications. He has served on grant review panels for the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health, both the mental health and sleep and wellness task force for the NCAA, and the mental health consensus committee for the International Olympic Committee. He is a frequent consultant and speaker on sleep health and has been invited multiple times to the US Congress to discuss the role of sleep in health and functioning. Dr. Grandner’s work has been featured in television, radio, and print media, in over 50 countries. Learn more about his work at michaelgrandner.com.

Ziva Mann

Based in Boston, Ziva is a lead assessor and manages developmental programs at Ascent Leadership Networks. Ziva would describe herself as thoughtful and socially conscious, and perpetually curious. After a decade in education and community building in New England, she joined Cambridge Health Alliance as part of a transformation team, redesigning healthcare processes, policies, and structures for team-based, patient-centered health. There, she designed a nationally recognized, award-winning program for stakeholder engagement in healthcare redesign, and supported multi-disciplinary improvement teams at the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard’s Center for Primary Care. Ziva has also served as a faculty member for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, the Gold Foundation, and the core team for grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and PCORI. Her work for RWJF and IHI has supported the development of generative, collaborative leaders, working for health, wellbeing, and equity in their communities.

A pragmatic idealist, Ziva’s approach begins by studying organizational context, human dynamics, and the resources and capacities of all affected, both inside and outside of a company’s walls. Her coaching philosophy pairs planned skill building with flexible, just-in-time support, and resilience.

Ziva has a BA (magna cum laude) from Barnard and a slightly random MA from Harvard. Author of a number of books and articles, she is a founding member of the 100 Million Healthier Lives initiative leadership team and serves on the National Hemophilia Foundation’s board of directors.

Jan Palmer

Jan has been in the dental field since 1982. In 1999, Jan started in the medical insurance industry to maximize insurance benefits for Dental Sleep Medicine. Jan trains dental teams to properly understand medical insurance, including the treatment of OSA with oral appliance therapy to maximize the patient’s benefits. Lecturer at the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine’s annual meetings, Mastery program on insurance reimbursement for oral appliance therapy.

Jan works at Sleep Apnea Dentists of New England, putting theory into practice daily while concurrently national speaking engagements and educating dental teams nationally.