Board

Michelle Lee, MD, PhD, Chair

Michelle Lee is the Director of the Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Program at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, before she earned MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School. Then she completed internship/residency training at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She completed fellowship training in pediatric hematology-oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Michelle has developed clinical expertise in transplantation for non-malignant conditions including sickle cell disease. Her goal is to make transplant safer so that it can be utilized more readily as a treatment to cure children with sickle cell disease. More broadly, her interest is in improving transplant outcomes for persons of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, in particular those of African descent.

Jeffrey Kwasi Zuttah, MBA, Vice Chair

Jeffrey (Jeff) Zuttah is a business development professional for Quartet Health. At Quartet, Jeff is responsible for leading Quartet’s growth through partnership with the country’s leading regional health plans. 

In addition to his work at Quartet, Jeff is committed to his community. He is a passionate patient advocate for those with sickle cell disease, where, in 2017, he was selected as one of Black Enterprise’s 100 Men of Distinction for his advocacy work. Jeff is also a member of the Robert S. Brookings Society at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization whose mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national, and global level.

Jeff began his career in New York City as an analyst in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division before moving to Washington D.C. and serving as a Policy Advisor for the Obama Administration’s Treasury Department. As a Policy Advisor, Jeff structured and led Treasury’s investments in and support for the financial sector and advised senior Obama Administration officials on issues related to financial stability. Following his time at Treasury, Jeff joined the Carlyle Group in the firm’s U.S. Equity Opportunity Fund. 

Jeff graduated with a B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University and received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School with honors.

As a young child, Jeff Zuttah was diagnosed with sickle cell disease. Despite enduring repeated hospitalizations and painful sickle cell crises – Jeff was determined to overcome every challenge he faced. With the support of his family, including his mother—a pediatric nurse—friends and devoted medical team, Jeff has gone on to do extraordinary things, inspired by the limitations people set on him because of his condition. He could not have done it alone. This is his family’s story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw2pFNWSa1s 

John Horan, MD, MPH, Secretary

John completed a residency in pediatrics (University of Rochester Medical Center), a fellowship in pediatric hematology-oncology (Children’s National Medical Center and University of Rochester Medical Center) and a fellowship in blood and marrow transplantation (University of Rochester Medical Center). He is a member of the pediatric blood and marrow transplant program at Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is also Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard School of Medicine. John is also very active in the Children’s Oncology Group, where he helps lead studies in acute leukemia and in adolescent and young adult oncology. He splits his time between Great Barrington, MA (birthplace of W.E.B. DuBois, “the architect of the civil rights movement”) and Atlanta. While in Great Barrington he helps organize the W.E.B. DuBois Educational Series.

Shaun Byrnes, MBA, Treaurer

Shaun began helping STAR as a Senior Advisor in December 2017 after retiring from Prudential Financial.  His career spanned over 30 years in the Financial Services industry, with the last 21 years at Prudential, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Retail for PGIM Fixed Income (the public fixed income manager of Prudential).   He was a key contributor to the significant growth of PGIM’s long-term Retail Fixed Income Assets to over $100 billion at the end of 2017, up from $10 billion in 2008. His responsibilities encompassed retail business strategy & planning, new business development, product development & management, as well as client service.  Shaun’s prior roles at Prudential included heading Prudential’s Mutual Fund business, as well as heading Product & Marketing for Prudential Annuities, where he was part of the executive team that led the transformational $1.2 Billion acquisition of American Skandia that made Prudential an industry leader in variable annuity sales.

Greg Guilcher, MD

Dr. Guilcher is an associate professor of oncology and pediatrics at the University of Calgary. His clinical and research focus is hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) for non-malignant diseases. He also studies acute and late effects of oncologic and HCT therapies. He serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors and Clinical Operations for the Sickle Transplant Advocacy and Research Alliance and is the Co-Chair of the HCT Late Effects Taskforce for the Children’s Oncology Group. He is Program Director for Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the University of Calgary, volunteers in several roles with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and teaches regularly in Mbarara, Uganda. His career goal is to improve access to HCT for SCD in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ade Adesanya, MSc

Ade Adesanya, is the co-founder & president of Moving Analytics Inc, a telehealth company that is increasing access to cardiac rehab and helping patients recover faster at home through an innovative app-based virtual cardiac rehab program, Movn. Moving Analytics’ programs are developed in partnership with Stanford University, and are based on more than 30 years of published research.  Ade is also a lecturer of entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California. Prior to launching Moving Analytics, Ade helped researchers at the University of Southern California to commercialize their research into startup ventures. Ade grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and moved to the US to study electrical engineering at the University of Houston. He later earned a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Southern California and a certificate in finance from UCLA.  He was recently recognized as a top 30 under 30 in healthcare by Forbes magazine.

Monica Bhatia, MD

Dr. Bhatia is an associate professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center and serves as the section head for Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant (SCT).  She was first exposed to curative options for patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) during her fellowship training which helped to shape her clinical focus as a stem cell transplant physician.  She is the co-chair of one of the first STAR trials evaluating a novel therapy directed at decreasing graft versus host disease in patients with SCD after transplant.  Dr Bhatia’s research interests include improving the outcomes of patients with SCD receiving unrelated donor transplants as well as ways to decrease the complications during and after SCT.  Additionally, Dr Bhatia is part of an international trial studying the use of probiotics in preventing graft versus host disease in patients after SCT.  Her career goal is to one day be able to offer curative therapy to all patients with SCD safely with little to no long term side effects.  She considers herself extremely fortunate to be able to be a part of the care of patients with SCD.

Chuka Esiobu

Chuka is a venture capital investor at Define Ventures where he focuses on digital health and pharma IT. Prior to his role at Define, Chuka was an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners and also worked as an Associate Director at Evolent Health where he managed the strategic development and implementation of new value-based care initiatives. He began his career at The Boston Consulting Group focused on corporate development and strategy consulting across various industries. 

Chuka earned a B.A. degree from Harvard University with a concentration in Neurobiology, cum laude, and a secondary in Economics. He received his MBA from The Wharton School with a double major in Healthcare and Finance. As a bone marrow transplant recipient, he is passionate about STAR’s mission to cure sickle cell disease and is deeply honored to serve on the Board.   

Ann Haight, MD

Ann is associated professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and a pediatric bone marrow transplant physician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Service since 2001. A life-long southerner, she was born and raised in Louisiana, attended medical school at the Medical College of Georgia, then completed internship and residency at Arkansas Children’s Hospital followed by pediatric hematology/oncology/transplant and gene therapy fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Her greatest professional joy is through partnering with families facing the complex decision to seek transplant for sickle cell disease. Her other interests lie in bioethics, and she serves as a long-time Vice Chair for the Emory Institutional Review Board.

Kamor Olaosebikan, CLSSGB

Kamore is affiliated with Sickle Cell Disease Association of America Southern Connecticut Chapter (SCDAA of Southern CT), in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the Volunteer National Advocate Network Leader & Research Advocate Mentor for the National Sickle Cell Advocate Network of SCDAA.

Kamor is personally involved with Sickle Cell disease as he has cared for a child with sickle cell for more than sixteen years. He is actively involved in family empowerment activities and meetings. In addition to active participation in annual fundraising walks, Kamor regularly attends SCDAA National Conventions.

Kamor is involved in the health care community through public speaking, public health education, and healthcare services.

In addition, Kamor has educated the community by:

-Sharing personal experience of genetic counseling education

-Sharing personal informed decision education tips

-Sharing knowledge of self-advocacy and associated lessons.