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Board & Staff

Board of Directors

 

Joanna Heitz
President

Joanna Heitz attended her first trichotillomania support group meeting during the summer of 2000, and joined TLC’s Board of Directors in early 2002. Joanna stepped into the role of Treasurer in 2005, working closely with Christina, TLC staff, and her fellow board members to ensure TLC’s fiscal health and growth. In 2009, Joanna became President of the Board of Directors.

Joanna has been working in the nonprofit sector since 1995, making her way from southern California to Colorado to New York City, and has development and programmatic experience in women’s and reproductive health, arts and culture, youth and recreation services, and homeless family services. She is currently a fundraiser in New York City. Joanna holds an MS with a concentration in Nonprofit Management from the Robert J. Milano School of Management and Urban Policy of The New School University, and a BA degree in English from The Colorado College. She loves being a “nonprofiteer” and feels very lucky to be able to use her skills to help further the education, treatment, and visibility of trichotillomania and related disorders through TLC.

Jacki Abrams (Farhood)
Secretary

Jacki Abrams (Farhood) is a practicing physician who specializes in pathology.  She first learned about TLC 5 years ago when her daughter, now 18, began to pull her hair.  Recognizing that, despite her medical education, she knew very little about trichotillomania and that the psychiatrist her daughter was seeing at the time knew even less, she turned to TLC for help.  While attending the yearly conferences with her daughter she became increasingly involved with the mission of TLC and works to spread awareness and understanding of BFRB’s and the only organization solely dedicated to those who suffer.

 

Deborah M. Kleinman

Treasurer

Debbie has been a member of the Board since 2004, and serves as Chairperson of TLC's Development Committee. Debbie's professional background is in nonprofit management. She currently is a full-time volunteer in the community, and serves on several other Boards, including the Greater Hartford Association for Retarded Citizens and Hebrew Health Care. Debbie resides in Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband Steve, and has two stepdaughters and two granddaughters. Debbie is an avid skier and gardener. She has had trich since she was 12 years old.

 

Nancy J. Keuthen, PhD
Scientific Advisory Board Chair

Nancy J. Keuthen, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School and staff psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital where she serves as the Co-Director of the Trichotillomania Clinic and the Chief Psychologist in the OCD Clinic. She sits on many editorial and scientific advisory boards, including the Trichotillomania Learning Center and the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation. She is currently Chair, and previously Vice-Chair, of the scientific advisory board of the Trichotillomania Learning Center.

Dr. Keuthen has pioneered considerable research in trichotillomania, skin picking, body dysmorphic disorder and OCD, and authored many scholarly research papers and chapters. Dr. Keuthen has maintained broad research interests in the field of trichotillomania, including its longitudinal course and naturalistic treatment outcome, its phenomenology and psychosocial impact, the role of brain structure and function and neuropsychological profiles in the disorder, and its relationship with other obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders. She has been involved in both pharmacological and cognitive-behavioral treatment outcome studies of trichotillomania and skin picking. In addition, she has been instrumental in the development and validation of numerous assessment instruments for both trichotillomania and pathological skin picking. Recently she launched a genetics investigation of trichotillomania and is also investigating the efficacy of an augmented cognitive-behavioral treatment protocol for trichotillomania that includes affect regulation and relapse prevention skills.

Dr. Keuthen is the author of the popular book Help for Hairpullers. She also co-authored Internet-based treatment programs for both trichotillomania and skin picking. She has authored many articles for the lay public and other medical professionals. She routinely presents at national and international conferences and local workshops on these topics and has been interviewed on local and national television as an authority in her field.

 

Amy Buckman

Amy Buckman has had trichotillomania since the age of 8, and became a member of TLC in the mid-1990s. After her six-year-old daughter started showing signs of trich, Amy took on a more active role in the organization, attended her first TLC Retreat in 2010 and joined the TLC Board of Directors in January, 2011. Amy’s professional background is in investment management and equities research. She received her B.S. in Applied Economics and Business Management from Cornell University and worked for Goldman Sachs and Pequot Capital Management before becoming a full-time mom and local volunteer. She lives in Westport, CT with her husband and 3 young children. Amy is currently co-chairing TLC’s 20th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign and hopes to further increase awareness of and fundraising for trichotillomania.

 

Dana Marie Flores

Dana Marie Flores is a passionate and caring member of the TLC community. Dana has been a skin picker for her entire adult life and most of her childhood as well. Dana brings a life’s understanding and experience to the community for those that are seeking someone that’s been there and experienced what the TLC community is all about from both sides, as a follower and now a leader. Like most, at one point, Dana believed she was the only person in the world with skin picking issues. Dana finally found TLC in 2005 and has attended every conference and retreat since. She volunteers for TLC, presents classes at conferences and retreats and is active in her local support group, all while working full time in the mortgage business, raising her two teenagers and Papillon.

David Perlman

David Perlman became involved with TLC as a father whose family has been affected by trichotillomania since his daughter began pulling in the second grade. Trich has also completely changed his professional life. It started the day that his daughter’s therapist said, “If we could only warn kids before they pull, make them aware of what they are doing or about to do, then habit reversal therapy could work.” A few weeks later he handed her the first prototype of what was to become his Aware Enhancement and Monitoring Device (AEMD). His team has completed the first phase of their NIH-sponsored research, are busy working on Phase II and have great confidence that the device will be available to the public in a few years. David’s Board experience comes from his involvement in the Ark, a nonprofit music venue in Ann Arbor. His service on the Ark Board includes two terms as president, finance committee member, a twice ex-president and co-chair of its Charter Members Board.

 

Nancy Perlman

Nancy Perlman joined the TLC Board in 2007 as both a mother and aunt of girls with trich. (Her brother David Perlman is also a TLC Board Member). Much of Nancy’s professional experience is in non-profit management. She was the Executive Director of the Center for Women in Government for many years. Running the Center, dependent on grants and donations for survival, made Nancy particularly sensitive to the financial challenges faced by TLC. The special challenge Nancy has taken on as a Board Member is to help TLC build an infrastructure for the future. “Our community had gotten used to taking from TLC but, unfortunately, not used to giving to it.” When Nancy joined TLC as a member in 2004, the staff included only an Executive Director (Christina) and a part-time Assistant (Alice). “We have made strides in the last few years: We now have five full-time TLC employees coordinating our immensely varied programs and services.” Nancy wants to see TLC do even more and she hopes you will join us in making this possible.

Erin Sheepo

Erin Sheepo has been on the Board of Directors since 2000. Her interest in TLC comes from her own struggles with hair pulling and skin picking. Erin is involved in the development of the website and online resources. She also leads the San Francisco support group which has been meeting weekly since 2003. Erin graduated from Bowdoin College and works at Dow Jones & Company. She is married with two young boys.

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Staff

Jennifer Raikes
Executive Director

Jennifer began as a TLC volunteer in 1995 by writing an educational pamphlet for hairdressers.  Over the next decade, she became an integral part of TLC’s operations, serving as president of the Board for many years before becoming Executive Director in 2009.    Prior to joining TLC's staff, Jennifer studied history at Swarthmore College and worked for a decade as a producer and researcher of numerous award-winning documentary films for PBS.  She produced and directed the documentary, Bad Hair Life, about living with trichotillomania, which aired on public television in 2005.  The film was inspired by her own experience growing up with trichotillomania, and shares the intimate stories of pullers of all ages.

Jennifer has frequently represented TLC in the print and broadcast media, appearing on Good Morning America, 20/20, Fox News, The Insider, Sally Jesse Raphael, and local news programs. She is proud to have been one of the founders of the New York City Trichotillomania Support Group, and has made many of her closest friends as part of the TLC community.  Jennifer lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two young daughters.

 

Christina S. Pearson
Founding Director

For the last eighteen years, Christina Pearson has devoted herself to improving the lives of people suffering with trichotillomania, skin picking, and related disorders. Learn more about Christina's incredible journey, and how TLC became the resource it is today.

 

 

Alice Kelly
Membership Services, Accounting Manager

Alice Kelly has worked for TLC for 11 years, first as a part-time bookkeeper, and now as Membership Services Coordinator and Accounting Manager. She spends much of her time maintaining TLC's financial records.  She is also responsible for oversight of all aspects of TLC's membership services, treatment referral listings, and overall database management.  She's happy to be working in a field that promotes awareness and healing for so many people.

 

Leslie Lee
Program Coordinator

As Program Coordinator, Leslie is the Editor of TLC's quarterly InTouch newsletter, manages TLC events, including the Annual Conference, Retreat and One-Day Workshops, and travels to promote TLC's mission at various other professional organizations. She also acts as the Creative Director for TLC, overseeing website development and the creative branding of TLC. Her previous experience as an Office and Communications Manager for an award-winning, internationally renowned Downtown revitalization group fostered her desire to work in the non-profit sector, and TLC fit the bill as a community-building organization that helps improve the quality of people's lives. Leslie lives in Santa Cruz, CA, with her husband and her two sons, where she spends most of her free time in the ocean or in the garden with her family.

 

Dana Hickerson
Administrative Support

Dana Hickerson has played various integral roles in TLC's development since its inception. She has known and worked with Christina Pearson for over 30 years, first running a small telecommunications business together and then getting involved with TLC, initially as a founding board member to support Christina's vision. Today Dana works part-time for TLC providing much needed administrative support. Dana handles order processing, membership fulfillment and general mailing services.

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