Board of Directors

Jerri is co-founder and former president of JBS International, Inc., a consulting firm that works to strengthen health care, social service, and education systems in the United States and internationally. Her career has focused on vulnerable populations, expanding their access to and options for quality health care. Her work engages policy makers and program leaders in strengthening federal, state, and community health care policy and service delivery.

Chandana Banerjee, M.D., M.P.A., is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Supportive Care Medicine, specializing in hospice and palliative care. She developed the City of Hope Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship. She also established the Cancer Pain Rotation for Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship, which is now part of the core curriculum for the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Hospice & Palliative Medicine fellowship program. Dr. Banerjee also developed and directed the End of Life Symposium which was held at City of Hope in September 2019 and has now been endowed for multiple years. She is the physician lead for Schwartz Rounds at City of Hope and serves as chair on the End of Life Option Act Subcommittee. She also serves on the Continuing Medical Education and the Ethics and Quality of Life committees.

Leslie Jennings Rowley is a respected organizational engagement leader and content producer with a background in building new programs and sustaining key initiatives for mission-driven organizations. She began her career in the creative arts world – supporting the mission of San Francisco Opera by creating immersive experiences for established donors and the culturally curious alike. She then spent nearly twenty years in the educational travel industry, where she created and managed experiential learning programs for the likes of National Geographic, Lindblad Expeditions and the Smithsonian Institution, causing Princeton university to ask her to build Princeton Journeys, which became one of the preeminent alumni travel programs in the U.S. under her tenure. Upon the creation of the University’s Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science & Public Policy she became its inaugural administrative director, linking academic insights in the behavioral sciences to real world issues. She continues to provide high-level communications and engagement strategy to the university and other organizations. Leslie holds an A.B. in Economics and Geography from Dartmouth College, an M.B.A in international business and a Ph.D. in media psychology and launched an organization, Hereafter Partners, that aims to make conversations about death, dying, and aging more normalized and accessible for younger cohorts of society.

Elaine Charney, J.D., is an attorney who worked as an Administrative Law judge and Director of the Bureau of Driver Safety for the Michigan Department of State. She was also employed by the Department of Homeland Security as Program Manager of Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC, and as Assistant Federal Security Director for the Southwest Florida International Airport. Charney spent 25 years working with the Michigan Legislature to pass many traffic safety laws including major drunk driving reforms. Governors of both parties appointed her to serve on several Michigan boards and commissions. Elaine was also a volunteer professor and Chair of the Faculty Council at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada.. She served as the first woman President of the Ingham County Bar Association, Vice President of the Michigan State Bar Foundation, President of Mid-Michigan Women’s Lawyers Association and Chair of the Michigan Bar Association Annual Convention for years

In retirement, Elaine has become a watercolor and mixed media artist. She teaches art at the local college and her work can be seen at www.elainecharney.com.

Jill Gordon is the CEO and co-founder of KidSnips, Chicagoland’s leading children’s hair salon chain with $4.5 million in sales and more than 90 employees. Gordon has served as a board member of Planned Parenthood of Illinois since 2017, and she currently serves as chair of its Investment Committee and a member of its Finance and Strategies committees. She formerly served on the board for 20 years and was board treasurer for 10 years of Tuesday’s Child, a local, behavioral intervention program for at-risk, highly-stressed families from all income levels. She has been co-chair of CARE Chicago Women’s Initiative since 2005, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds, advocacy, and creating awareness for the large international, humanitarian organization CARE. Gordon graduated with a B.S. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1979 and received an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Business School in 1980.

Dr. Jeff Gardere is a board-certified clinical psychologist. In addition to having a private practice in Manhattan, he is an Associate Professor and Course Director of Behavioral Medicine at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine and an Adjunct Associate Director of Training at The PsyD Program at Touro University-New York. He is also an author of three books.

In addition to being a respected academician, Dr. Jeff has been a contributor to the FOX Network, the Today Show, MSNBC, and CNN. Dr. Jeff was the host of VH1’s Dad Camp, has appeared on the Love and Hip Hop and Housewives reality show franchises, and was recently a contributor and substitute anchor on the nightly newscast, Chasing News, on WWOR- TV, NJ.

Dr. Jeff recently starred in the documentary film, Mental Health in Color. Dr. Jeff has also coproduced the documentary films:

• You Are Not Alone, Black Gay Men and Depression
• Erasing Family; Parental Alienation and the Effects on Children
• When Harlem Saved a King, The Assassination Attempt on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Satheesh Gunaga, DO, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, administrator, and educator. He received his Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and received his Osteopathic medical degree from Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, East Lansing. He has spent the last 14 years practicing and teaching Emergency Medicine (EM) as part of Envision Healthcare within the Henry Ford Health System in the Detroit Metropolitan area. Ten of those years he spent as the associate EM residency director, training the next generation of EM physicians, before transitioning in 2019 to his current roles as Vice Chair of the Department of EM, EM Research Director, and Division Head of EMS at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital. He serves as the ED Medical Director at Henry Ford Health Center Brownstown and actively leads research around sepsis resuscitation, stroke care innovations, and acute coronary syndrome biomarkers. Throughout his medical career he has had a passion for palliative care and serves on the City of Hope: End of Life Symposium’s Steering Committee. In 2021, Dr. Gunaga joined our Healthcare Advisory Committee and is one of the physician leaders for Compassion and Choices’ National Emergency and Palliative Medicine Initiative, which is proactively exploring collaborations, research, and outreach opportunities to improve earlier access to palliative care options in EDs across our country.

Nancy is a counseling psychologist and educator who has worked with adolescents in underserved Chicago schools. She is currently the vice president of the Civic Leadership Foundation’s board, whose program helps students develop the skills and experiences necessary to become engaged civic leaders. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA in organizational and counseling psychology from Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Nancy has served on many strategic planning committees in both secondary schools and colleges in New York and Chicago. She and her husband, Bob Hoyt, have been involved with Compassion & Choices for more than a decade.

Irene founded Jackson-Brown Associates, LLC in 2005, doing business as The Art of Eldercare, an applied gerontology practice, based in Washington, D.C.  As the company principal, she provides consultative services from a holistic, client-centered approach.

Her book, Eldercare as Art and Ministry (2020), embodies her thinking about caregiving and recognizes caregiving‘s creative dimension that requires imagination, perseverance, and knowledge.  A life-long learner, Irene has enhanced her professional capacity through study, learning, and training, including through the Washington School of Psychiatry where she is a faculty member; the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and the Georgetown University Medical Center’s Herbert B. Herscowitz Mini-Medical School Program.

Her career is intentionally hybrid.  Mid-career, she was a senior consultant at NTL Institute for Applied Behavior Science and a staff officer at the national headquarters of the Episcopal Church.  Her early career was in academia, as an assistant professor at Yale and Howard University.

A third-generation Washingtonian, she earned an undergraduate degree with honors from Howard University, which included a junior year exchange at the University of Rochester.  Her graduate degrees are from Smith College (MAT) and Wesleyan University (Ph.D.).

Joél Simone Maldonado aka The Grave Woman is a licensed funeral director, embalmer, pre-planning specialist, award winning deathcare educator, sacred grief practitioner, and proud founder of The Multicultural Death & Grief Care Academy.  She specializes in educating  professionals about the importance of Cultural Competency,  Inclusion and Diversity in end of life, death and grief care.

Joél has worked in the death care industry since 2010 and also has over 15 years experience in the health care industry.  She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Compassion and Choices, is co-chair of the boards Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee and volunteers with the organizations African American Leadership Council.

Her passion is educating  through having open and honest conversations about the multicultural nuance of death and grief care through the use of her courses, podcast, YouTube channel and social media platforms.  Joe’l is dedicated to continuing to enhance and improve her personal cultural intelligence, competency and skills through participating in and completing various post collegiate entrepreneurship, development and leadership programs including earning her CQ certification through the Cultural Intelligence Center. 

The Rev. Madison T. Shockley II is the pastor of the Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, CA. He brings to Pilgrim Church a wealth of experience from his work in the religious, political, non-profit, and media environments. Originally ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1979, he joined the United Church of Christ in 1990 when he accepted the call to the Congregational Church of Christian Fellowship, UCC, in Los Angeles. Madison was called to Pilgrim Church (as the first African American pastor of this predominantly Anglo congregation) in 2004. Beyond the pulpit, Madison was a grassroots candidate for the Los Angeles City Council in 1999 and 2003. In 1998 he began writing commentary for the Los Angeles Times and in 2005 became a contributor to the award winning website, Truthdig.com on a wide range of topics including religion, race, politics, reproductive choice and popular culture. A native of Los Angeles he was educated at Harvard College and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He holds the Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and has done advanced graduate work at Claremont Graduate University in New Testament Studies.