Leadership & Staff

2025-26 Board Members

Ms. Naana Danquah Jefferson

Chair (SLB)

Ms. Patricia Roberts

Treasurer (Quality Dialysis)

Mr. Biruh Workeneh, MD

Secretary (MD Anderson)

Ms. Medha Airy, MD

(Baylor College of Medicine, Nephrology)

Ms. Cynthia Barclay

(Quality Dialysis)

Ms. Lynn Blandford

(Sequitur Energy Resources, LLC)

Mr. Richard Blandford

(Four Bear Capital, LLC)

Ms. Sherrita Dorsey

(Novartis)

Ms. Heather Pendleton Jones

(Accenture)

Prof. Jordan O. Williams

(Texas Southern University)

Mr. David Wilson

(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

Nichelle Lewis, CHWI

Community Health Worker Instructor/Program Coordinator
nlewis@lupustexas.org

Jennifer Burke

CRM Administrator/Annual Fund
jburke@lupustexas.org

Jometra Hawkins, CHWI

Community Health Worker Instructor
jhawkins@lupustexas.org

Makenna Martinez

Social Media Coordinator

mmartinez@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).