About #MEACTION
BOARD & ADVISORS

Beth Mazur
Board co-Chair
Beth is a technologist with extensive experience working to grow startup companies and non-profit organizations. She is interested in how to best use technology to empower people with ME and achieve health equality. Before developing ME and POTS, Beth worked as a developer and technical product manager for a wide range of organizations including HealClick, Grameen Foundation, and Jaspersoft. She was a member of the Voting Systems Task Force for the city of San Francisco which advised the city in the selection and development of a secure, transparent voting system. Beth co-founded #MEAction and earned her Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT. @rndNumGen

Jill Hinson
Board co-chair
Jill is an international business leader with twenty years combined experience in organization change, leadership development, and marketing. She is a founding member of ChangeFusion and supports a diverse range of clients to accelerate change, develop leaders, and build organizational effectiveness.

Michelle Pinedo
Treasurer
Michelle Pinedo is chief financial officer with AFS-USA, an organization that delivers meaningful intercultural experiences that empowers people to become globally engaged citizens. In this capacity, she is responsible for ensuring that all the support functions – Finance, IT, Human Resources, Logistics, and Operations – are performing at peak level.

Judy Gayer
Secretary

Jennifer Brea
Jennifer Brea is an independent filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She has an AB from Princeton University and was a PhD student at Harvard until sudden illness left her bedridden. In the aftermath, she rediscovered her first love, film. Her Sundance award-winning, Emmy-nominated feature documentary, Unrest, has screened in over 30 countries and had its US national broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens. She is also co-creator of Unrest VR, winner of the Sheffield Doc/Fest Alternate Realities Award. An activist for people with disabilities and chronic illness, she is a co-founder of #MEAction and served as Executive Director until 2021.

Ryan Prior
Ryan is a multimedia journalist and social entrepreneur. He fell ill with ME/CFS in 2007, at age 17. After graduating from college, he founded the Blue Ribbon Foundation to raise awareness about ME/CFS and built a team, setting off on a journey across the US as co-director, producer, and writer of the feature-length documentary film “Forgotten Plague.” During the film’s production, he was recognized as ProHealth’s 2014 ME/CFS Advocate of the Year. The film was released in 2015, and is available on Amazon Prime, iTunes, and Google Play. Since 2015, he has been working as a writer and producer for CNN, covering hundreds of stories ranging from the 2016 election to cutting-edge medical innovation. In 2019, he reported and wrote the CNN story with the highest overall reader engagement across the entire outlet. He has also written for USA Today and the Daily Beast, and is a five-time Stanford Medicine X ePatient Scholar. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Georgia, and was named to the school’s 40 Under 40 list in 2018. @r_prior

Robert M. Sklans

Jennifer England
Jennifer is Senior Director of Partnerships at Food Rescue Hero, a tech for good nonprofit that supports food recovery organizations across North America. Food Rescue Hero is the fastest growing food rescue network in the world. Her work at FRH grew out of the successful startup 412 Food Rescue, based in Pittsburgh, PA. Before her work in food recovery she ran Pink Coat Communications, a media consultancy working with advocacy groups, unions, and nonprofits helping them tell their stories to the media on a local and national stage. Jennifer has also dedicated herself to justice and the community through board service for a number of amazing organizations, including the League of Young Voters, Best Buddies Foundation, Grow Pittsburgh, New Leaders Council, Pittsburgh Food Policy Council and several board committees for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. She also co-founded the project On the Spot to supply feminine hygiene products for girls in local schools who struggle to meet this need.

Shaquile Coonce
Shaquile is a nonprofit expert with almost ten years of consulting experience working with over 150 organizations on strategic and business planning, merger negotiations, organizational culture, and executive search, executive coaching, leadership structure, team building, and change management. Shaquile is currently a consultant at DRG and Chief Financial and Operations Officer at the start-up, Euforeia Golf.
Shaquile experienced the sudden onset of ME in 2017 but was fortunate to be diagnosed within eight months of falling ill. The challenges she experienced during her first four years of having ME and the incredible resources she found through #MEAction as well as the millions being diagnosed with Long COVID spurred her to join #MEAction.
Shaquile holds a B.A. in Psychology from Purdue University and resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.