Elena Jeannotte

Vice President, External Relations

Elena Jeannotte joined NCCS in the summer of 2015 and currently serves as the Vice President of External Relations. She is responsible for developing and guiding the overall strategy and implementation of development, communications, and marketing for the organization. Elena has nearly 20 years of experience in fundraising, constituent engagement, program building, and partnerships in the health care field. Prior to joining NCCS, she worked for Georgetown University Medical Center as Senior Director of Constituent Relations and Events and was responsible for a fundraising and engagement program for Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Elena also founded and served as president of a small non-profit organization focused on supporting esophageal cancer research at Johns Hopkins.

Elena’s passion for working in the field of cancer research and advocacy stems from serving as a caregiver to her parents, both of whom battled cancer. Their experiences as patients inspired Elena to start her career in the cancer field. She considers her role at NCCS, and her drive to support cancer survivors, as a way to keep the memory of her parents alive each and every day.

Woulita Seyoum

Senior Director of Finance and Operations

Woulita Seyoum joined NCCS in 2007 and serves as Senior Director of Finance and Operations.

Prior to joining NCCS, Woulita served as Director of Finance at Point-Of-Purchase Advertising International (POPAI), a trade association for the point of purchase advertising industry. She too has a very personal connection to cancer with her father’s diagnosis, treatment, and end-of-life journey. Woulita is a graduate of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and lives with her husband and two teenagers in Maryland.

Debbie Lewis

Director of Development
Debbie joined NCCS in the summer of 2021 and serves as the Director of Development. Her responsibilities include expanding and leading the individual giving program. She has nearly 10 years of professional experience developing and executing dynamic fundraising strategies in progressive and highly visible leadership roles while at University Hospitals Health System and as an Executive Consultant for Raising Results LLC.

Debbie’s passion for working in the field of cancer research and advocacy stems from serving as a caregiver to her daughter, who battled cancer, and her own personal journey with cancer. Her experience as a caregiver inspired Debbie to start her professional career in the philanthropy field. She considers her role at NCCS, and her drive to support cancer survivors, as a way to keep the memory of her daughter alive each and every day.

Debbie also founded and served as president of a small non-profit organization focused on supporting pediatric cancer research at her local children’s hospital. She is also involved with several other non-profits that support children and adolescents’ health and community and leadership development.

Philip Dufour

As President of The Dufour Collaborative, one of the nation’s premier experience design firms, Philip Dufour brings his signature style to every event. With formal training in graphic design and professional experience spanning government affairs, corporate relations, and event production, Philip marries strategic and diplomatic sensibilities with a finely-tuned design aesthetic to create experiences that move, delight, and unite people.

Prior to creating Dufour & Co, Philip co-founded the J Street Group, LLC in 2005. This followed his tenure as Director of Development and Events for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, where he led a 10+ person staff in creating, planning, and managing high-visibility development events, raising more than $8 million annually, attracting major celebrities, and garnering extensive media coverage.

Taylor Ferrell

Taylor Ferrell joined the NCCS Board of Directors in 2019. Taylor was appointed to serve on the NCCS Board Finance Committee in 2022.

He is an environmental attorney with the Department of Justice. He formerly worked in the Pentagon and in the White House under President Obama. A cancer survivor, he lives in Washington, DC with his wife and daughter.

Ben Fishman

Ben Fishman joined the board of NCCS in 2017. He is a foreign policy and national security specialist who served at the White House from 2009-2013.

Laurie Isenberg

Board Chair

Laurie Isenberg joined the NCCS Board in 2016 and has served as Board Chair since 2022. As a two-time breast cancer survivor, Laurie was inspired by Ellen Stovall, her husband’s cousin, to work as a patient advocate. She has worked with the UCSF Center of Excellence for Breast Cancer Care, where she served in a marketing advisory capacity at BreastCancerTrials.org, a matching clinical trial service for anyone touched by breast cancer. She is currently working with a team at the UCSF Cancer Center who are building integrated survivorship care resources across various cancer programs.

Laurie is a strategic marketing and branding consultant helping both social enterprises and for-profit companies with their launch, branding and repositioning plans. She began her career in acquisitions and strategy for the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation in NYC and was the Director of Strategic Planning for D&B’s subsidiary, ACNielsen Worldwide. She subsequently co-founded SPINS, a marketing research firm for the natural consumer products industry. Laurie has worked with Prophet Brand Strategy and other consulting firms; her work includes developing a brand strategy for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (formally The Breast Cancer Fund), a research and policy organization that works to remove cancer-correlated toxics from consumer products.

Laurie earned her B.A. in Economics at the University of Colorado and her M.B.A. at The Wharton School of Business.

Michael L. Kappel

Finance Committee Chair

Michael L. Kappel served NCCS as the acting President & CEO and continues to serve the organization as a board member and Chair of the Board Finance Committee, representing NCCS at conferences and other meetings ensuring the voice of the survivor remains at the center of health policy reform and quality improvement. He retired in 2011 as the Senior Vice President, Government & Industry Relations for McKesson Technology Solutions. He served as an advocate for healthcare policies that enable improved care through the use of information technology. He was responsible for developing McKesson Technology Solutions’ responses to emerging legislation and regulatory initiatives. He previously served as Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning where he was responsible for product direction and long-range strategic planning.

Kappel is active in a number of the healthcare industry’s information technology organizations. He was elected a Commissioner for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology where he previously served as co-chair of the Network Certification Workgroup, the Certification Process Workgroup and the Advisory panel. He is past chair of the Policy Committee of the National Alliance for Healthcare Information Technology and currently serves as a member of the Leadership Council of the eHealth Initiative and the steering committee of Connecting for Health. He currently is a member of HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association which he helped to found in 2004 and where he has served as a past member of the Executive Committee.

Kappel brings to this position more than thirty years of experience in healthcare information technology development, strategic planning and business development. During his career, Kappel has served in numerous positions in private industry. Prior to rejoining McKesson in 2002, he was executive vice-president of ProVation Medical Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prior to joining ProVation Medical Inc., Kappel was chief executive officer of MedSpecialists, Inc., a start-up company that was acquired by ProVation in 2001. Kappel also held numerous leadership positions over 16 years with McKessonHBOC and HBO & Company.

Kappel earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of William and Mary and a master of business administration degree in finance and healthcare administration from Cornell University.

Lisa D. T. Rice, S.M.

Vice Chair

Lisa D. T. Rice is an influential advocate for multiple causes—including quality cancer care, women’s health and empowerment, and palliative and hospice care. She is a political strategist and social media activist, driven by the principles of accountability, transparency, and ethical behavior.

Lisa first connected with Shelley and NCCS in 2015, the year after two dear friends died of metastatic cancer. Those tragic, premature deaths drove Lisa’s search for a meaningful policy role in the cancer advocacy community. Due to her mother’s advanced Alzheimer’s, Lisa was already responsible for all medical decisions when, in 2014, her mother received a cancer diagnosis – her second in 31 years. With Shelley’s encouragement, Lisa wrote her first post for the Cancer Policy Matters blog in 2016. Read about the very tough decisions faced and bold actions taken on her mother’s behalf here. Later that year, Lisa wrote a second post for the NCCS blog, her tribute to a childhood friend killed by metastatic breast cancer.

A sought-after communications expert and recent cancer survivor, Lisa has represented the caregiver’s perspective on Cancer Care Planning (2018 NCCS CPAT symposium) and Overtreatment & Overdiagnosis (2018 NCCS Cancer Policy Roundtable) panels. Lisa supports other survivors and advocates with one-on-one coaching, teaching them how to deliver succinct, compelling stories to policymakers about cancer’s personal impact. She also accompanies survivors on constituent visits to their members of Congress. She has actively advocated for NCCS policy efforts on Capitol Hill in both the U.S. House and Senate since 2016.

Lisa serves on the boards of directors of Unite America (investing in the infrastructure of political reform) and the Newcomb Alumnae Association. A fourth-generation quilter, she is dedicated to preserving this art form and teaching the next generation of makers.

Lisa holds a B.A. degree in American Studies from Newcomb College of Tulane University and an M.S. degree in Management from the MIT Sloan School. A native Washingtonian, Lisa lives in the District with her husband, Tom Thompson.

Julia H. Rowland, PhD

Secretary of the Board

Julia H. Rowland, PhD is a long-time clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of psychosocial aspects of cancer. Dr. Rowland re-joined the NCCS Board of Directors in 2017, having previously served on the board before joining the federal government. She has worked with and conducted competitively funded research among both pediatric and adult cancer survivors, and published broadly in psycho-oncology, including co-editing with the late Dr. Jimmie Holland the ground-breaking text, Handbook of Psychooncology.

Dr. Rowland received her PhD in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in psychosocial oncology. While at MSKCC, where she held joint appointments in pediatrics and neurology, Dr. Rowland helped to develop and was the first Director of the Post-Treatment Resource Program, an innovative resource designed to provide a full range of non-medical services to patients and their families after the end of treatment. In 1990 Dr. Rowland moved to Washington, DC to become founding Director of the Psycho-Oncology Program at Georgetown University and the Lombardi Cancer Center.

Nine years later, in September of 1999, at the urging of Ellen Stovall, she was recruited to the National Cancer Institute to become the first, full-time Director of the Office of Cancer Survivorship (OCS). As OCS Director Dr. Rowland helped build the visibility of the Office and created numerous governmental and non-profit partnerships to advance public awareness about and funding for research addressing the health care and quality of life needs of the growing population of cancer survivors of all ages, and their families. After 18 years in this role, Dr. Rowland retired from service at the NCI in September 2017 and assumed the role of Senior Strategic Advisor at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, a small non-profit organization that has been providing integrative support services to cancer patients and their families in the heart of Washington, DC, for over twenty years.

Eleanor Winter

Eleanor Winter has been a part of the cable television industry for twenty five years. She presently serves as Senior Vice President at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Prior to joining NCTA, Eleanor worked for two United States Senators, Senator John Stennis from Mississippi and Senator Paul Simon, from Illinois. She then moved into the public relations world at the firm, Cribben, Miller and Moses.

In 2015, she was inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame. She currently serves on the Board of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship and the Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. She also serves as a mentor for young men and women in the cable industry through the WICT mentorship program.

Eleanor was born and raised in Mississippi and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ole Miss.