National CMV Foundation Podcast

Danielle is the General Counsel at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership in Boston where she works with real estate developers, banks, government agencies, and non-profits to finance affordable housing developments in the Commonwealth. Danielle has extensive experience layering private and public financing sources and advising on an array of housing policy and corporate governance matters. She is a graduate of the Northeastern University School of Law (J.D.), the Boston College Lynch School of Education (M.Ed.), and the University of Michigan (B.A.), and is a former partner at the law firm of Nolan Sheehan Patten LLP. Danielle first learned about congenital cytomegalovirus when her goddaughter, Evelyn Spytek, was born with a congenital CMV infection which eventually led to significant hearing and vision loss, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, microcephaly, and much more. Danielle remains inspired by Evelyn every day, and is honored to carry out her legacy through the National CMV Foundation and tells Evelyn's story to anyone who will listen. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with her husband, Ben, and two sons, Oliver and Sebastian.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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