Amy Verstappen has been a patient advocate and health educator since 1996, when her own challenges living with a complex heart defect led her to the Adult Congenital Heart Association, where she served as president from 2001 to 2013. She has served as an advisor to the Centers for Disease Control the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the International Society for Adult Congenital Cardiac Disease, and worked with congenital heart patient and professional groups throughout the USA and the world. Ms. Verstappen received a Masters in Education in 1990 and a Masters in Global Health in 2019.
Disty Pearson, Vice-President
Disty Pearson is the parent of a congenital heart disease patient and a physician assistant in adult congenital heart disease (CHD), recently retired. She has worked with CHD patients over the past 40 years, first in cardiac surgery and for the last 20 years with the Boston Adult Congenital Heart Service (BACH) at the Boston Children’s Hospital and the Mass General Brigham. She is a founding member of the ACHA Medical Advisory Board and is a member of the American College of Cardiology. Disty recognized early on the importance of the patient and family voice in all decisions affecting the care of patients and is dedicated to improving the lives of those affected by childhood onset heart disease throughout the world.
Shelagh Ross, Secretary
Shelagh Ross is the co-founder and past-president of the Canadian Congenital Heart Alliance (CCHA), a non-profit that supports and advocates for Canadians with congenital heart disease (CHD). She is a CHD patient with tetralogy of Fallot, and has undergone several surgeries and interventions. She is a medical and health writer/editor and website manager, and since 2004 has been a passionate advocate in the CHD community.
David La Fontaine, Treasurer
David La Fontaine graduated from Haverford College near Philadelphia in 1983. He has worked in community-based urban redevelopment, and currently heads a non-profit organization that develops affordable housing and mixed-use properties in partnership with local neighborhood leadership in Philadelphia. David is also committed to health equity and helping people with CHD and RHD access the care they need to live healthy lives.
Flavia Kamalembo Batureine
Flavia has lived with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) for 9 years, and is a member of the Rheumatic Heart Disease Support group in Uganda, under the Uganda Heart Institute. Through the support group, she reaches out to other patients, families or individuals to offer social support, counselling, advocacy and research. She is also a critical care nurse, working in a cardiac intensive care unit. She is dedicated to raising awareness about RHD and CHD so that patients can receive appropriate and timely care, as well as contributing to evidenced-based research to improve care of populations affected by CHD and RHD. Flavia was an active participant in the International Congenital Heart Leadership Summit in Barcelona in 2017, which led to the creation of Global ARCH.
Belen Blanton Altuve
Originally from Venezuela, Belen Blanton Altuve has lived in the U.S. for 30+ years. Born with tricuspid atresia, she had her first and only heart surgery in the U.S. In her 30s, Belen developed Eisenmenger syndrome, and her condition deteriorated to the point where she was not eligible for a heart/lung transplant. She joined the Adult Congenital Heart Association where she learned more about her defect, connecting with other CHD patients, as well as ACHD cardiologists and caregivers. Belen and her husband have created Fundacion Estrellita de Belen, a very active non-profit that provides cardiac care to low-income children in Venezuela. Belen has been working hard to help these children have the same fighting chance that she was fortunate to have early in her life.
Blanca del Valle
Blanca del Valle spent many years working in leadership roles in the financial sector, and more recently participates in health, culture, and citizenship initiatives. In 2008, she joined Kardias as its Executive Vice President, dedicating herself to improving access to quality care for children with CHD in Mexico. Since 2017, she has administered two emergency relief funds totaling more than $5 million. She currently heads Fondo de Inversión Social Kaluz comprised of Core Ciudades Vivibles y Amables, Fundación Kaluz, and Museo Kaluz. She is also the founder and treasurer of “Red de Donantes Ensamble”, a network of the most important donor institutions in Mexico. She seats in the board of several non-profit and for-profit institutions in Mexico and abroad, like Grupo Financiero Ve por Más, Fundación BBVA México, as well as the advisory board of Centro Mexicano para la Filantropía and Harvard´s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
Anu Gomanju
Anu Gomanju is a patient advocate for ending Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) and a person living with RHD from Nepal. She is dedicated to ensuring timely access to high-quality, affordable healthcare and advocates for meaningful engagement for people living with non-communicable diseases (PLWNCD). Anu volunteers as an RHD patient advocate for several national and global organizations in a variety of capacities. In addition to her role as a board member of Global ARCH, is affiliated with the NCDI Poverty Network, where she serves as the ‘Steering Committee Youth Advocate’ and as a member of ‘Voices for PEN-Plus.’ She is also involved with global health organizations such as the WHO, the World Heart Federation, and alliances of patient and family organizations representing Nepal and Asia. Academically, Anu is trained as a global health professional, and is the NCDI Poverty Network’s Voices of NCDI Poverty Advocacy Fellow Alumna (2021–2022). She is passionate about empowering individuals with chronic illnesses and is actively engaged in policy advocacy, health literacy, and research.
Grace Jerald
Grace was the first congenital heart patient in Malaysia to undergo the switch operation for Transposition of the Great Arteries. With a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the University of Malaya in Malaysia, Grace has held numerous positions in database management, event planning, and empowering and running volunteer teams. Throughout 2020 she has been a valued member of the Global ARCH communications committee. She is also a life member of Friends of IJN, a volunteer support group in the National Heart Institute Hospital. She currently works in Kingdomcity, a global Christian movement in multiple locations around the world.
Tendai Mayo
Tendai Moyo, born and raised in Zimbabwe, became a fierce advocate for CHD patients after she lost her baby daughter to the disease. Her vision was born out of grief and loss. Without the background or resources to take action, she joined Global ARCH for support and inspiration. Since then, she has founded Brave Little Heart Zimbabwe, and in 2021 officially established a cardiac ward at Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo. The new unit was established to improve access to specialist services and corrective care to children with heart conditions. She hopes for the units to be replicated across the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe, and for childhood heart disease to be included in the National Health strategy.
Lavinia Ndemutila Ndinangoye
Lavinia is a nurse, musician, and an RHD ambassador in Namibia. At the age of 9 she was diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease but for many years was lost to follow up. As a person with health challenges, Lavinia developed a great passion and desire to help and serve others, especially those with health-related issues. As a musician, Lavinia recorded the RHD awareness song “GET BACK YOUR CONFIDENCE”, which was launched during a local RHD campaign. She is currently running a project called ‘RHD IS NOT A DISABILITY’ to create awareness of rheumatic fever prevention.
Ruth Ngwaro
Originally from Kenya but now living in the United States, Ruth is an experienced, passionate, and well-respected public health advocate and professional. As a congenital heart disease (CHD) patient, Ruth founded the non-profit organization Kenya Mended Hearts Patient’s Association (KMHPA). Through her impressive leadership, the organization continues to successfully advocate for congenital heart disease and RHD rights, policy changes, and creating awareness in the community.
Amaya Sáez
Amaya Sáez, from Madrid, Spain, is the General Manager of Menudos Corazones Foundation, the leading CHD organization in Spain. She was also a co-founder and inaugural Vice-President of CardioAlianza, the first organization in Spain for people with cardiovascular diseases. Trained as a lawyer, she has been a part of the executive committee of the Pro Bono Spain Foundation since 2021, the entity that brings together the main law firms and is responsible for facilitating access to Law and Justice for NGOs. Amaya’s sister has a son with complex CHD.
Bistra Zheleva
Bistra is the Vice President of Global Strategy and Advocacy at Children’s HeartLink. She is an International development expert with close to 20 years of experience in program implementation and advocacy for improved access to care for children in need of pediatric cardiac services. She’s led collaborative efforts in many global and cultural settings with diverse groups of stakeholders and has depth of knowledge in all aspects of NGO management and health systems strengthening. Since 2003, her experience with Children’s HeartLink has taken her to many countries around the world making her a passionate advocate for the needs of children with heart disease.
Dr. Vikas Desai
Dr. Desai is a medical doctor who has been specializing in public health for 45 years. She is currently the Technical Director, Urban Health and Climate Resilience Center of Excellence in Surat City, Gujarat State, India. She is the Vice chairperson of the registered trust “national Institute For Woman and Child Development (NIWCD) ” and with her initiatives NIWCD launched “Child Heart Care Project (CHCP) ” in 2002. She is the technical facilitator of the activities of CHCP. In 2005 with CHCP advocacy program of free treatment of CHD of children from below poverty line was initiated by state Government which is now an activity transformed under Rashtriy Balsuraksha Karyakram (National Child Protection Program).
Dr. Jenkins is a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Her most important scientific contributions relate to understanding and improving variation in quality of healthcare using data analytics applied at the local, national and international level. She has led multiple national and international networks related to pediatric quality, including the American College of Cardiology NCDR IMPACT Registry and QNET national project, International Consortium for Health Outcome Measurement Overall Pediatric Health and Congenital Heart Disease Standard Sets, and the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Disease in low and middle-income countries. She served for over a decade as Chief Safety and Quality Officer for Boston Children’s Hospital, and in her current role, she is leading efforts to use applied AI with data generated directly from the clinical environment and electronic medical record to implement real-time interventions and iterative solutions towards a learning healthcare system. She serves on the International Advisory Board for Children’s HeartLink.
Dr. Colman is a Professor of Medicine and of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Toronto and Cardiologist and past Clinical Director of the Toronto ACHD Program, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network. He is a past president of the International Society for Adult Congenital Heart Disease, and past Medical Advisory Board member of the Canadian Marfan Association (now GADA), Canadian Congenital Heart Alliance, and the Adult Congenital Heart Association.
Dr. Mattos is currently the Medical Director of the Maternal-Fetal Cardiac Unit of the Royal Portuguese Hospital, President of The Heart Circle (CirCor), Director of Caduceus, and a researcher with the Keiso Asami Immunopathology Laboratory (LIKA) – UFPE. She received her medical degree from the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil, specialty cardiology training at the Royal Royal Brompton and Great Ormond Street Hospitals in the UK, and a PhD in biotechnology from the Federal University of Pernambuco. She is actively involved with the tele-auscultation – Multicope project at the University of Porto, Portugal, Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (ODDS) project at the Federal University of Pernambuco, and the Pediatric Cardiology Network, The Heart Circle, in Brazil.
Dr. Hamman is the past Head of Paediatric and Congenital Cardiology in the Ministry of Health of Namibia. He was Principal Investigator for Namibia in the REMEDY and RHD GEN studies on Rheumatic Heart Disease. He is on the Steering Committee for the World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery and was Chair of the 6thWorld Congress in Cape Town in 2013. He has served on the International Advisory Board of Children’s HeartLink and is Executive Chairman of the Hugo-Hamman Foundation. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he was previously South Africa’s Health Attaché at the European Union in Brussels and was the Director of Ministerial Services for the South African Department of Health. He is Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics in the University of Cape Town and in clinical practice at the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town.
Dr. Hasan is a pediatric cardiologist trained at Boston Children’s Hospital, and currently is Professor and Chair, Division of Cardio-thoracic Sciences at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, SIUT in Karachi, Pakistan. His areas of interest are quality outcomes in Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC )of congenital heart disease patients and use of precision analytics in LMIC.
Dr. Krishna Kumar is presently a clinical professor and head of the Department of Pediatric cardiology at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, Amrita University, Cochin, India. He is a member of the steering committee of the International Quality Improvement collaborative on congenital heart disease and has served as a member of the Rheumatic Fever, Endocarditis and Kawasaki Disease Committee (RFEKD) of the Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young of the American Heart Association (2017-2019). He also serves as an expert of the World Heart Federation Council on Neglected Diseases.
Dr. Oster is a pediatric cardiologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He holds Emory appointments of Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health. Furthermore, he serves as a medical officer at the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. He earned his MD at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and his MPH in epidemiology at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. After completing residency training in pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco, he underwent fellowship training in pediatric cardiology at Emory University. When not seeing patients, he serves as director of the Children’s Program to Evaluate and Advance Cardiovascular Health (PEACH). His research interests include newborn screening for congenital heart disease, long-term outcomes for patients with congenital heart disease, and the cardiac effects of COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Palacios-Macedo is Chief of Congenital Heart Surgery at the Instituto Nacional de Pediatría (INP) and Medical Coordinator of the ABC Medical Center/Kardias Congenital Heart Surgery Program in Mexico City. He is co-founder of the Kardias Foundation and serves as medical director. He obtained his medical degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and residency in Internal Medicine and General Surgery at the National Institute of Medical Sciences, in Mexico City.
Dr. Shidhika is a Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist and Head of Department, Ministry of Health and Social Services, in Windhoek, Namibia. She received her medical degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, followed by a Pediatric Fellowship and Cardiology Fellowship from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She also received a Master of Philosophy (MPhil.) in Pediatric Cardiology and is completing an Executive MSc. in Health Economics, Outcomes and Management in Cardiovascular Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Dr. Shidhika is a Founder and Trustee of the Namibia National Children Hearts Trust, an active academic writer, reviewer, and presenter, and is a member of numerous medical and non-profit associations and organizations.
Dr. Sivakumar is a Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgeon at the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Dr. Vervoort is a PhD Candidate and Vanier Scholar at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Toronto. He is Founding President of the Global Cardiac Surgery Initiative, a World Heart Federation Emerging Leader, and Advisor to the Global Surgery Foundation. His research foci include global access to cardiac surgical care, health economics, decision analysis, and cardiac surgical clinical trials. Dominique has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications and serves on the Editorial Board for multiple leading cardiac surgery and cardiology journals.
Dr. Zühlke is the Vice-President of the South African Medical Council, a pediatric cardiologist in the Dept. of Pediatric Cardiology at RXH and worked as the clinical co-coordinator of the ASAP programme, managing several large-scale RHD projects in South Africa and on the African continent- while completing her MPH and PHD in RHD studies. She directs the Children’s Heart Disease Research Unit, is a collaborator with the Institute of Health Metrics, and is co-author on several Global Burden of Disease publications. She is involved in research projects spanning CHD and RHD, HIV in adolescents, and cardiac disease in women of childbearing age. She has leveraged funding for several major research projects in Africa, with new collaborations internationally. Most recently, she was awarded the prestigious MRC/Dfid African Research Leadership Award, The FAHA Duckett Jones Lecturer and Young Heart Award, the UCT Vice-Chancellor Award for socially responsible research and has over 160 publications and 10 book chapters.
Kate is the Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Rheumatic and Congenital Hearts (Global ARCH). With a background in public health, international health, and U.S. value-based care, she has led multiple global initiatives, including the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Disease (IQIC) at Boston Children’s Hospital. Her work has taken her around the world, collaborating with healthcare centers focused on congenital and rheumatic heart disease. Kate is passionate about the transformative power of collaboration and patient advocacy, a mission that is deeply personal due to her own family’s experience with congenital heart disease. Under her leadership, Global ARCH is dedicated to uniting patient and family voices and fostering impactful collaborations that improve care access and equity for all affected by congenital and rheumatic heart disease. She is a proud mom to 2 amazing kids and a very cute dog. An avid traveler, she loves exploring new cuisines and connecting with people around the world.
Nahimeh Jaffar has worked as a certified Project Manager (PMP) in various fields, including Public Health, Biotech, and Pharmaceuticals, working within clinical settings such as hospitals and clinics. In addition, she worked with global communities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East, supporting various social impact projects. Ms. Jaffar has been involved in preventive health initiatives in collaboration with the Center for Disease Control (CDC, USA) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, USA).
Ms. Jaffar holds an MBA in Business Development from the Swiss Institute of Higher Management, Vevey, Switzerland, and a bachelor’s degree in Consumer Affairs from California State University, Northridge, USA.