Our Team
We are a passionate and dedicated group of individuals united by our commitment to curing epilepsy in children.
our team
Staff & Leadership
Executive Director
Shannon Abdul-Wahab
Shannon has spent over a decade as a leader in the field of epilepsy, serving as CEO, Executive Director, board member, and volunteer at local and national levels. Diagnosed with a genetic form of epilepsy at the age of four, she has persevered through hundreds of seizures, shaping her into a compassionate and service-oriented leader. Her professional journey includes roles such as CEO of the Brett Hundley Foundation and Executive Director of the Epilepsy Foundation of Orange County. From 2010 to 2018, she co-chaired the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles’ Walk to End Epilepsy, helping transform it into a nationwide event that raised nearly $1.5 million.
A passionate advocate for mental health and wellness, Shannon has also served on the National Board for the Epilepsy Foundation of America and made history as the first known individual with epilepsy to adopt a child from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is a Board-Certified Coach and Certified Grief Counselor, holding a bachelor’s degree in social work from Westmont College and a master’s degree in counseling from Loyola Marymount University. Shannon and her husband are proud parents of three children.
director of marketing and communications
Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones is a strategic marketing and communications leader with a deep commitment to advocacy, storytelling, and community-building. His journey in epilepsy awareness began with a short film about his own experience, revealing the power of authentic narratives to spark public understanding and inspire action.
In 2010, Nathan joined the Epilepsy Foundation of Los Angeles, where he helped transform the Walk to End Epilepsy into a nationally recognized movement—strengthening grassroots engagement and cultivating a network of passionate advocates. Concurrently, he began producing a series of powerful short films for the Care & Cure Institute’s annual fundraising events, collaborating with families, physicians, and fellows to showcase the program’s profound, lasting impact.
Most recently, at the Child Neurology Foundation, Nathan helped lead marketing campaigns that connected families to critical resources, amplified the voices of healthcare professionals, and strengthened fundraising strategies to drive meaningful change. His work reflects a steadfast commitment to ensuring that everyone in the epilepsy community—regardless of background—has access to expert care and the support they deserve.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of early intervention by a qualified specialist. Funding pediatric epilepsy fellows is the single best investment in the care and cure of epilepsy.
Andrew Gumpert
Co-Founder of Cure & Care Institute
our team
Board of Directors
MARK BORMAN
President
Mark Borman
President
Mark Borman is the founder of The Borman Group, LLC is a Los Angeles based real estate company that specializes in repurposing vintage industrial buildings in urban centers. Over the past 20 years, it has been engaged in more than 1 million square feet of project-level investment and revitalization. The Borman Group is vertically integrated with deep market knowledge in acquisition, design, construction, and property management capacities, and strives to maximize the value of an underlying property. Specific to the target market, Arts District of Los Angeles, The Borman Group is one of the longer tenured development companies, having redeveloped over 10 buildings, including this offering. In addition to his passion for real estate, Mark currently serves as a board member of IKAR, a non-denominational Jewish congregation and community founded in Los Angeles, various urban community and planning boards in Los Angeles and Kansas City , the Epilepsy Foundation of Los Angeles and is the co-founder of The Care and Cure Institute. He has a B.A. in Real Estate, Finance and Economics from the University of South Carolina.
ANDREW GUMPERT
Vice President
Andrew Gumpert
Vice President
Andrew departed Paramount Pictures in February 2023 after serving as Chief Operating Officer since 2017. During his tenure, he oversaw business and legal affairs, global distribution, strategic planning, corporate development, and studio operations, while also leading the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Before Paramount, he was President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations for Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group, where he drove strategic decision-making, secured co-financing deals, and negotiated agreements for major films like The Amazing Spider-Man and The Social Network. Earlier in his career, Andrew held key roles at Miramax’s Dimension Films, Interscope Film Productions, and Columbia Pictures, solidifying his reputation for expertise in business and legal affairs.
LOREN ZITOMERSKY
Secretary
Loren Zitomersky
Secretary
Loren Zitomersky is an accomplished entertainment attorney and dedicated advocate for epilepsy awareness. He earned his Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University School of Law in 2009 and currently serves as Associate Principal Counsel at Walt Disney Studios, where he oversees legal affairs for motion picture productions, including script clearances, location contracts, and talent agreements. Beyond his legal career, Loren is known for his unique fundraising efforts to combat epilepsy, a cause deeply personal to him due to the loss of his brother, Brian, to the condition. In 2018, he garnered national attention by running the Boston Marathon backward, aiming to break the Guinness World Record and raise funds for the Epilepsy Foundation.
our team
Professional Advisory Board
Amy Brin
MSN, MA, PCNS-BC
Amy Brin
CEO, Amy Brin Consulting
Amy E. Brin, MSN, MA, PCNS-BC is a bold, results-driven executive with over 20 years of experience transforming organizations, coalitions, and initiatives within the healthcare sector. With expertise spanning clinical practice, policy, and organizational leadership, she is known for building high- impact, operationally sound organizations that drive meaningful change.
A visionary strategist, Amy excels in executing profitable turnarounds, managing crises with precision and compassion, and rebranding not just organizations—but their reputations. She is a champion for innovative programs, unified advocacy, and cohesive teams, ensuring that organizations not only serve but elevate the communities they support. Recognized nationally as a charismatic yet trusted leader, she is a collaborative partner who delivers bold results with transparency and warmth.
Amy began her career as a board-certified pediatric advanced practice nurse, spending seven years at the bedside in pediatric and hospice care—an experience that shaped her ability to nurse organizations back to health through direct, intentional, and always-kind leadership. An internationally recognized convener, award-winning speaker, and published author, she was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services as a National Advisor to the NIH/National Institute of Neurologic Disease and Stroke. Amy serves on the Board of Directors for Courageous Parents Network and the Professional Advisory Board of Care and Cure Institute.
In 2025, Amy launched Amy Brin Consulting whose work challenges traditional leadership consulting by flipping the script: organizations thrive because of their leaders—not the other way around. She guides executives, boards, and teams through transformative growth, crisis navigation, and strategic reinvention—all while ensuring leadership remains deeply aligned with purpose and values. And if you ask Amy what truly matters? She’ll tell you there’s never a bad time for pizza, that aligning your work with your purpose is both freeing and terrifying—and that her greatest treasures in life are her sons, Ari and Roman.
Marc Levine
Marc Levine
Regional Director, ADL Central Pacific
Marc Levine is the Regional Director of the Anti‑Defamation League’s Central Pacific regional office, overseeing ADL’s work in Northern California, Hawaii, and Utah. Appointed in September 2023, he brings extensive leadership experience from both public office and the nonprofit sector.
Previously, Levine served five terms in the California State Assembly representing the 10th District (Marin & Sonoma), where he championed immigrant rights, civil liberties, and education initiatives. Before entering politics, he built successful technology businesses and held leadership roles in social-impact tech organizations.
Based in San Francisco, Levine leads ADL Central Pacific’s local advocacy, community outreach, and educational efforts to combat antisemitism and hate while fostering inclusive communities across the region.
Arthur Partikian, MD
Arthur Partikian, MD
Senior Physician and Director of Division of Child Neurology Los Angeles General Medical Center
Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology (voluntary)
Keck School of Medicine of USC
Dr. Arthur Partikian, MD is a board-certified pediatric neurologist with over two decades of experience and a specialization in epilepsy, serving as the Director of the Division of Child Neurology at Los Angeles General Medical Center (LAC+USC). He holds the title of Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics & Neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, where he also completed his residency and fellowship in pediatric neurology.
Dr. Partikian earned his medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (Class of 2002), and has since dedicated his career to providing expert care to underserved communities in Los Angeles. He is known for his commitment to compassionate neurology, leading care at a safety-net hospital while advancing access to pediatric epilepsy care in the region.
Deborah Holder, MD
Deborah Holder, MD
Program Director, Pediatric Epilepsy Guerin Children’s/Cedars Sinai
Dr. Deborah Holder is a pediatric neurologist specializing in epilepsy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She serves as the Program Director for Pediatric Epilepsy and also works as a staff physician in neurology. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, she was the Director of the California Children’s Services Special Care Center for Epilepsy and the Epilepsy Fellowship Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA).
Donald J. Phillips
MD, MPH, FACNS, FAES
Donald J. Phillips, MD, MPH, FACNS, FAES
Medical Director, CHOC Comprehensive Epilepsy Center & Neurodiagnostic Laboratories
HS Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Dr. Donald Phillips is a board-certified pediatric epileptologist and neurophysiologist at CHOC in Orange County, California. As an expert in pediatric epilepsy, Dr. Phillips cares for babies, kids, teens and young adults with a wide variety of epilepsy-related health conditions such as infantile spasms, Lennox Gastaut Syndrome (LGS), Dravet Syndrome and CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder. He specializes in medically complex epilepsy syndromes, surgical epilepsy, epileptic encephalopathy, tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) and pediatric intraoperative neuromonitoring.
Dr. Phillips is the medical director of the CHOC Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and neurodiagnostic/EEG laboratories, as well as the medical director of the CHOC Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) Center of Excellence. In these roles, Dr. Phillips has worked to facilitate high quality, accessible and comprehensive care for all patients and families living with epilepsy and TSC.
His research interests include developmental and/or epileptic encephalopathy with spike-wave activation in sleep (D/EE-SWAS), spatial transcriptomics, and epilepsy quality improvement (QI). Dr. Phillips is the site principal investigator for several clinical trials evaluating emerging pharmaceutical and medical device therapies for a variety of rare epilepsy syndromes.
Dr. Phillips earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biochemistry from University of Michigan and his master’s degree in public health from Boston University before obtaining his medical degree from University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He completed his internship, residency and a fellowship in pediatric epilepsy at University of California Los Angeles. He is a fellow of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society and the American Epilepsy Society, as well as a member of the Orange County Medical Association.
Sucheta M. Joshi, MD, MS
Sucheta M. Joshi, MD, MS
Medical Director, Comprehensive Epilepsy Program Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine of USC
Sucheta Joshi, MD, MS, FAAP, FAES is a Pediatric Neurologist and Epileptologist. She completed training at University of California San Francisco, Stanford University and University of Michigan School of Public Health. Dr. Joshi is Professor in Pediatric Neurology, USC KSOM, and the Medical Director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy program at CHLA. Her clinical interests involve difficult to treat pediatric epilepsy, EEG and EEG monitoring. Her clinical and scholarly interests also include improving access to epilepsy care for children in medically underserved areas using innovative methods for epilepsy care such as telemedicine and telementoring, and transition of adolescents with epilepsy to adult care.
She has served as the Medical Director, and is currently on the Advisory Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics National Coordinating Center for Epilepsy. She has been key faculty for development of several Epilepsy ECHO projects since 2013. Dr. Joshi is Secretary of the Board of the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium, an organization to foster multicenter research in Pediatric Epilepsy. She has served on the Executive Committee of the Child Neurology Society, AAP Section on Neurology, and as faculty for the AAP, American Epilepsy Society, Child Neurology Society and the International Child Neurology Association. She has mentored medical students, residents, fellows and social workers on research projects, lectured on epilepsy related topics at national and international meetings, published several peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters and is a reviewer for scientific journals.
Raman Sankar, MD, PhD
Raman Sankar, MD, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at UCLA Health - David Geffen School of Medicine UCLA
Prof Raman Sankar, MD, PhD, FAAN, FAES is the Emeritus Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics and Emeritus Chief of Pediatric Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Sankar obtained his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA and his MD from Tulane Medical School, New Orleans, LA. As such he has strong interest in the pharmacological basis of rational therapeutics and the impact of genetics on the development of new ASMs.
His laboratory research over three decades has focused on the susceptibility of the developing brain to seizure induced injury and reorganization, mechanisms underlying epilepsy associated comorbidities such as depression as well as attention deficit disorders and autism. His clinical research has involved collaborative studies on anti-seizure medications, and multimodal presurgical evaluation of children for epilepsy surgery.
Prof Sankar’s bibliography of more than 350 entries includes 165 plus articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as reviews and book chapters. He has co-edited several books on epilepsy. Dr. Sankar has served on numerous NIH review committees as well as those of several foreign organizations and foundations. He has lectured on the topic of epilepsy worldwide. He has served an extended term on the Commission on Neurobiology of the ILAE and has been a co-organizer of the Workshop on the Neurobiology of Epilepsy. Hereceived the Founders Award of the American Epilepsy Society, in recognition of outstanding lifetime achievement in the field of epilepsy, in December of 2018.
our team
Our Partners
We are proud to work alongside an incredible network of partners who share our commitment to finding a cure for epilepsy. Their support is instrumental in advancing research, providing specialized care, and empowering families.
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A Community Dedicated to Care & Cure
Your support strengthens this network, ensuring that every child has access to expert care and a brighter future.