Our Team

Lisa Anderson is a “mother on a mission” determined to help others avoid a long and excruciating journey toward a pheochromocytoma or paraganglioma diagnosis. After seeking answers for nearly 5 years that would explain her college-aged son’s debilitating symptoms (headaches, blood pressure swings, irregular heartrate, sweating, nausea, vomiting and extreme panic/anxiety), a suspicion of a pheochromocytoma tumor was finally discovered through incidental testing by a gastroenterologist who ordered an ultrasound to investigate a potential gallbladder issue. The time from diagnosis to tumor removal surgery became a whirlwind of searching PubMed articles about pheo, coordinating with the surgical team, cross-checking every well-intended medication, and caring for her precariously sick son who required 24-hour hospital care until the surgery date.

After learning a blood and/or urine test to check metanephrine levels when the symptoms first appeared could have signaled this adrenal tumor, Lisa has made it her mission to look for ways to raise awareness about this disease with health care providers. She has found a place with Pheo Para Alliance (PPA) to channel her energies. Throughout her more than 30-year career at the Fred Hutchingson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA, Lisa has had the opportunity to cultivate relationships with physicians, scientists, residents, fellows, administrators, and volunteers with whom she worked collaboratively to support cancer research with special emphasis on patient needs. She hopes to use her experience in health care administration and knowledge of health care systems to access an array of medical professionals and organizations to remind them to “think about pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma” so that others will not have to endure an unnecessary and potentially dangerous delay in diagnosis.

Lisa holds a BA in Spanish from the University of Washington, and a Masters in Teaching from Western Governor’s University. When she’s not happily volunteering with the PPA, she loves substitute teaching at the local elementary school, road trips, and playing golf with her husband and two sons.

Michael L. Campbell is the Chief Operating Officer of the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, CT.  Mark Twain wrote most of his well-known works from this house and spent more years there than he did in any other place.  Michael helps to keep the legacy of Mark Twain and his family alive by assisting 80 employees.  He has served the nonprofit community in the Greater Hartford area for nearly 40 years.  He was the Executive Director of SummerWind Performing Arts Center in Windsor, CT and was Chief of Staff for the Girl Scouts of Connecticut.  He also served as National Development Director for the US Naval Sea Cadet Corps in Arlington, VA, responsible for all advancement efforts nationwide for this youth development organization.   One of Michael’s favorite roles was Executive Director of the Hartford Children’s Theatre.  His duties there included development, finance, operations and the management of all programs that led the organization to receive the New England Theatre Conference’s award for best youth theatre production in New England.  Michael was a fixture at the Producing Guild, a premier non-equity theatre for over 15 years as Business Manager, Production Manager, Actor, Singer and Production Assistant.  He has served on many local, national, and international boards with experience in all areas of nonprofit governance and management.

Michael was diagnosed with a pheochromocytoma in the summer of 2021 and spent over a month in the hospital at the University of Connecticut Health Center.  His surgery was successful and he vowed to give back to community.  Michael has traveled to over 50 countries, is a former mountaineer and has served in uniform as a Lieutenant Commander acting as a mentor for the US Naval Sea Cadet Corps.  With his wife Rie and their three cats Shiraz, Zambezi and Colaba he lives in Canton, CT.

My name is Mark Pilkenton. I’m an executive in a managed IT organization.  I was pulled into the world of “rare cancers” with my own diagnosis of paraganglioma in March 2018, just days after my 39^th birthday.

Following surgery removing the tumor from my chest and after a year of healing, I wanted to become involved in a community with which I now belonged. After reaching out to the PheoPara Alliance to learn how to become involved, I was asked to consider being a part of the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) as a consumer reviewer.  After consideration, I decided to jump in head first. With the nomination letter and application completed, I was interviewed and accepted to fill the role of a survivor member on the review panel. I, alongside, researchers and other rare cancer advocates, were to review and provide feedback on grant applications requesting funding for rare cancer research.  With that, I was immediately given approximately two months to review several research funding requests and formulate my understandings and potential impact on the community at large to then share with various researchers, doctors and other scientists to discuss the proposed research. Though I learned quickly my understanding pales drastically in comparison with others on the board, my goal was to provide input from someone who has understood what staring into the face of hopelessness felt like. My input may not have come from a rich understanding of medical science, but feedback wrapped in the hope that ideas to overcome rare cancers offered a tremendous amount of hope for the future for all those impacted by rare cancer.

My time volunteering with this review panel has confirmed that I made the right career choice, primarily, but has also granted me insight into the world of medical research and how things get done. Grant requests for medical research go through an arduous process examining every detail major and minor. The individuals involved from conceptual creation to drafting, review to implementation, are interested in solutions and curing rare cancers. This offers hope for a future relieved of certain unknowns we have today. As a patient, I now more clearly understand that researchers are working very hard on finding answers to improve the lives of those living with rare cancer.  I look forward to more experiences with the CDMRP and am excited to represent my community of survivors with paragangliomas and other rare cancers.

In the spring of 2020 I joined the Board of Directors for Pheo Para Alliance.

Teena is a Veterinary Pathologist at Veterinary Diagnostics (VDx), in Davis, CA. She works in both the diagnostic pathology service and preclinical research. Teena graduated as a Veterinarian from Murdoch University in Western Australia in 1994, and spent the next 8-10 years working as a clinical veterinarian before making the leap into the pathology field, which she loves. Teena grew up in Tasmania, Australia, and moved to the US in 2004 to complete her pathology residency at UC Davis, fell in love with an American, and never left Davis. She has two young boys, a dog, and two cats, and loves hiking, and being outdoors with her family. Teena first came across the Pheo Para Troopers after her Mum was diagnosed with an abdominal paraganglioma in 2015. Her Mum was subsequently found to have a SDHB mutation, that Teena’s sister, and three of her nieces, and nephew also have. After what would have been her Mum’s 70th birthday in 2021 (she passed away in 2019 from a brain tumor), Teena decided to become more involved in the Pheo Para Alliance. She and her youngest son, Elias, started fundraising in Spring 2021, and Elias, who competes in Ninja Warrior, took it upon himself to “train” Teena to become a Ninja Warrior too! Apparently, you can teach old dogs new tricks. It’s been an amazing journey, which culminated in the Inaugural Pheo Para Ninja Warrior Competition that was held in September 2021 in California. Together they raised just shy of $10,000, and are looking forward to continuing their awareness and fundraising campaign into 2022 and beyond.

Linda Rose Krasnor is currently a Professor Emeritus at Brock University, which is located in southern Ontario, Canada.  She is a developmental psychologist, with particular research interests in social development and youth engagement.  In addition to her teaching and research responsibilities, Linda served as President of the Brock faculty union and was active in the University Senate, serving terms as Chair of the Senate’s Governance and the Planning, Priorities, and Budget Advisory committees.  Since becoming involved in the Pheo Para Alliance, Linda has been part of the peer support initiative, helping to develop the peer support training module and facilitating the monthly peer support calls.

Although asymptomatic, in 2009 Linda was assessed for pheocromocytoma/paragangliomas following the diagnosis of multiple paraganglomia in three close family members.   Linda’s testing indicated bilateral neck paragangliomas, which subsequently were determined to be glomus vagale tumors.  One was been surgically removed in 2016, with accompanying vagal nerve damage resulting in a paralyzed vocal cord and Horner’s Syndrome.  With further surgery and extended speech therapy, Linda’s voice has recovered and she is being monitored yearly for growth in the remaining tumor. Linda and her family have the SDHD mutation.

In her role as a Board member, Linda is looking forward to helping advance the important and much needed educational, support, and empowerment functions of PPA and to strengthen its critical role in promoting research into prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.  She is specifically interested in increasing our understanding of the socio-emotional implications of living with pheo/para, especially for children and youth.

Linda received her B.A. in psychology from Boston University and her M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Waterloo.  In addition to her work with PPA, Linda volunteers as a leader of adult and children’s bereavement groups for Hospice Niagara.

Shonna was diagnosed with a bladder paraganglioma in 2019 after many years of extreme symptoms in which doctors dismissed as such things as stress, fatigue, panic attacks or POTS.  Given her research and health education background, she knew that these diagnoses were not accurate and so she continued to push for further testing.  She visited multiple doctors who did not believe her when she suggested that she had a pheo/para in her bladder and so she struggled to get the CT that she requested.  She finally had a doctor truly listen and order the CT scan she needed in July of 2019 after five trips to the ER in one week.  Her surgery took place in November of 2019 at the NIH.

Eli has been working in medical sales for 20 years in the US as well as internationally.  Currently, he is a Vice President of an infertility company based in Sweden for North and South America.  He has a BS in Biochemistry and an MBA and previously did research in fetal alcohol syndrome, breast cancer and polymer chemistry.  In 2013, he was diagnosed with Reversible Cerebral Vasoconstriction Syndrome (RCVS) after experiencing his first of many cerebral adrenal events.  Physicians were unknowingly treating the symptoms of a pheochromocytoma instead of the underlying disease itself.  Like many other patients, the symptom management was unsuccessful.  Eli continued to experience cerebral events throughout the years.  In 2018, while training at a gym, the cerebral events occured in a much higher frequency to where he needed immediate attention to his illness.  A friend suggested searching PubMed and finding who published the latest paper on RCVS and flying to wherever that physician was for an evaluation.  Serendipitously, the latest research was a physician in Denver, 2 miles from his business.  Even more fortuitous, this neurologist had already diagnosed a pheochromocytoma in his lifetime and suspected a pheo on the first visit.   Coincidence or Providence?  Eli is estimated to have had a pheo for 10+ years slowly growing inside him.  It was ultimately characterized as a Stage III Metastatic Pheochromocytoma.  Having previously survived childhood Acute Lymphatic Leukemia, Eli knew the kind of determination it would take to beat this.  It took two complex surgeries to remove it all.  He is grateful for the team of physicians and healthcare providers at the University of CO that helped him finally achieve remission status in 2019.  Without them, and the strong support of his sister and close friends, he would not be able to be the father that his only son deserves today.  Eli now hopes to help others like him find the support and resources they need to in order to treat their pheo or para illness.

Heather Steinman, Ph.D., MBA, is Vice President for Business Development and Executive Director of Technology Transfer at The Wistar Institute, the nation’s first independent research institution devoted solely to biomedical science and a world leader in cancer, immunology, virology and infectious disease research.

Dr. Steinman brings more than 18 years of experience in technology transfer and commercialization of early stage-life science discoveries. She previously served as Director of the Penn Center for Innovation, Perelman School of Medicine Office at the University of Pennsylvania. There, she played an essential role in supporting Penn’s UPstart program. Before that, Dr. Steinman spent more than a decade in roles of increasing responsibility as a technology licensing professional in the Office of Technology Management at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Dr. Steinman holds a doctorate in biomedical sciences from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and an MBA from the university’s Isenberg School of Management. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Baldwin-Wallace College with dual degrees in biology and psychology in the honors program.

Dr. Steinman is passionate about bringing her own experience with cancer research to find answers for pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma patients, such as her husband.