Kenneth M. Farber is a graduate of Clark University, with a Juris Doctor from the Fordham University School of Law. He has spent 40 years in the non-profit world, working with and for voluntary health agencies and private foundations.
Ken began his career at Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), in several different positions, including 10 years as Director of Sponsored Research and nine years as Executive Director.
After his work at JDRF, Ken served as Executive Vice President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, founded by Israel’s first Prime Minister and located in the biblical city of Beer-Sheva, Israel.
In 1999, when Robert Wood Johnson was starting a lupus-based research organization, Ken returned to the United States to help get the new organization, the Alliance for Lupus Research (ALR), off the ground, serving as President of the ALR. Ken consults for and sits on the boards of several health-related organizations, including the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation headquartered in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Under Ken’s leadership, the ALR re-dedicated itself to its credo of supporting research into the cause, cure, treatment, and prevention of lupus and its secondary complications, and in 2016 merged with the Lupus Research Institute and S.L.E. Lupus Foundation. Today, the Lupus Research Alliance gives more money to lupus research than any non-governmental organization in the world.
Debra Rose joined the Lupus Research Alliance in 2002 when it was the Alliance for Lupus Research (ALR). She currently is the Chief Finance and Administrative Officer and has overseen Finance & Operations for her entire tenure. Debra oversaw the legal and operational merger process involved in bringing together the Alliance for Lupus Research, the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation and the Lupus Research Institute to become the Lupus Research Alliance.
Prior to joining the Lupus Research Alliance, Debra was the Finance Officer for the Western Washington University Foundation in Bellingham, WA where she was responsible for the Foundation and Alumni office accounting. She moved to NYC in 2002 where she immediately joined the Alliance for Lupus Research.
Debra graduated Magna Cum Laude from Western Washington University with a BA in Accounting earning the Outstanding Graduate Award in accounting. Soon after graduation, Debra earned her CPA license in WA state and went on to also become a Certified Management Accountant.
Andrea J. O’Neill is the Executive Director of the Lupus Research Alliance responsible for managing a multi-faceted fundraising program, generating more than $25 million annually to support lupus research programs. In addition, Andrea oversees the communications and marketing initiatives to assure an integrative and collaborative philanthropy and communications group.
As a member of our executive leadership staff team, Andrea brings substantial knowledge and experience gained from a highly productive 14-year history working with the lupus community to help shape and implement the strategic vision for the Lupus Research Alliance. Prior to this position, Andrea served as the Director of Development and Operations for the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation and the Lupus Research Institute. In addition to leading the fundraising initiatives, she oversaw the pre-merger process involved in uniting these two organizations with the Alliance for Lupus Research. Before joining the lupus community, she was Vice President for Development and Institutional Advancement at The HealthCare Chaplaincy for five years. Andrea holds a BS degree from Syracuse University and a certificate in fundraising from Columbia University.
Albert Roy is the Executive Director for the Lupus Research Alliance’s Lupus Clinical Investigators Network (LuCIN) and brings more than seventeen years of non-profit and medical research experience to the organization. Previously, Mr. Roy was Chief Executive Officer of Lupus Therapeutics, a non-profit, venture philanthropy organization that brought patients, scientists and investors together to hasten new lupus treatments. Prior to that, Mr. Roy was Vice President of Operations and Research Programs at CureSearch for Children’s Cancer, a multi-million dollar public charity whose mission is to support targeted and innovative children’s cancer research. CureSearch served as the fiscal, administrative and philanthropic agent for the world’s largest pediatric cancer clinical trials research network, the Children’s Oncology Group (COG). During his tenure there, Mr. Roy managed a clinical research portfolio exceeding $50 million per year, and coordinated the formation of the COG through strategic partnerships with more than 200 academic research medical centers throughout North America to conduct Phase I, II and III pediatric cancer clinical trials. Mr. Roy received his Bachelor’s Degree from Ithaca College and Master’s Degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Teodora Staeva is the newly appointed Research Director at the Lupus Research Alliance. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing the organization’s research portfolio and operations, including the development of a research strategy and leading its implementation, as well overseeing all research initiatives, partnerships and collaborations.
Until September 2017, Teodora was Assistant Dean for Research at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) where she was responsible for managing the strategic planning efforts related to research, building and overseeing institutional programs facilitating faculty research, development and recruitment, and leading and managing intra-campus as well as inter-campus collaborations with Cornell University and WCM’s Tri-Institutional partners, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Rockefeller University. Prior to joining WCM, Teodora worked at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (currently known as JDRF) where she was Director of Immune Therapies for nine years. She obtained her PhD in Immunology from Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University, and her BS, with honors, in Biology and Neuroscience from Macalester College.
