Leadership & Staff

2024-25 Board Members

Ms. Naana Danquah Jefferson

Chair (SLB)

Ms. Cynthia Barclay

Treasurer (Quality Dialysis)

Mr. Biruh Workeneh, MD

Secretary (MD Anderson)

Mr. David Wilson

(Accenture)

Ms. Lynn Blandford

(Sequitur Energy Resources, LLC)

Ms. Medha Airy, MD

(Baylor College of Medicine, Nephrology)

Mr. Richard Blandford

(Four Bear Capital, LLC)

Prof. Jordan O. Williams

(Texas Southern University)

Ms. Sherrita Dorsey

(Novartis)

Ms. Heather Pendleton Jones

(Accenture)

Advisory Board

Ankur Kamdar, MD

Namieta Janssen, MD

Eyal Muscal, MD

Philip Waller, MD

Ms. Shanna Tedder

Ms. Ninfa Perez

Mr. Howard Stokes

Ms. Janell Long

Staff

Anne Marie Blacketer, CFRE

CEO

amblacketer@lupustexas.org

Amanda Crane

Event Manager
acrane@lupustexas.org

Jennifer Burke

Database Administrator/Annual Fund
jburke@lupustexas.org

Sara Schaeffer

Office Manager
sschaeffer@lupustexas.org

Kevin Blacketer

Volunteer CFO
kblacketer@lupustexas.org

Our Mission & Purpose

Advocate
Support for patients to have access to high-quality healthcare throughout their lupus journey, supporting their journey with referrals, appointment support, and direct patient advocacy.

We also work with state legislature to provide funding to support improved lupus patient counts to result in higher funding and access to appropriate care.

Educate
One of our top priorities is to educate community members and healthcare professionals (including community health workers) of the signs & symptoms of lupus to help shorten the time to diagnosis.

Cure
We work to help fund research toward finding a cure for lupus (more on our partnership with Hope Biosciences).