Fia & Phill Richmond
Fia and Phill Richmond founded CNS Foundation in 2000 after spending years seeking answers to explain their son Palmer’s undiagnosed neurological condition. The Richmonds immersed themselves in the scientific community, becoming advocates for therapies that could ultimately lead to the regeneration of damaged brain tissue. They created CNS Foundation to function as a parent-driven non-profit research foundation to assist the scientific and medical communities in reaching this goal. While 18-year-old Palmer remains unable to walk, talk or feed himself, his love, warmth and affection have inspired the Richmonds to nurture and fight for others facing similar challenges.
Jeffrey D. Macklis
Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, and Professor of Neurology [Neuroscience] and of Surgery [Neurosurgery], Harvard Medical School; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Center for Brain Science, and Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard University
Charles D. Pacheco
Charles “Chuck” Pacheco is Director of Principal and Leadership Gifts at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the largest and longest-operating private cancer center in the world. Over the past 30 years, Chuck has served as a senior-level fundraiser at Columbia University, Harvard Medical School, Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Sciences (Claremont Colleges) and Cal Berkeley. He also worked closely with CNS Foundation co-founders Fia and Phil Richmond as the Foundation’s first Vice President for Development. A member of the State Bar of California, Chuck is a graduate of Stanford University and Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall).
Brad Margus
Brad Margus currently serves as CEO of Genome Bridge, a non-profit spin-off of the Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T., building a secure, cloud-based technology platform for aggregating genomic and clinical data to improve medicine. From 2009 to 2012, as co-founder and CEO of Envoy Therapeutics, Mr. Margus employed a unique technology to discover new compounds for brain diseases and then sold the company to a global pharmaceutical company. From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Margus was co-founder and CEO of Perlegen Sciences, a leader in analyzing genetic variation that identified diagnostic markers for disease risk and drug response. Mr. Margus has been a member of numerous government advisory committees as well as corporate and non-profit boards. Besides serving on the CNS Board, he currently serves on the Boards of Second Genome (a microbiome company) and Arvinas (a cancer company), as Chairman and volunteer President of the A-T Children’s Project, and as Co-chair of the Network for Excellence in Neuroscience Clinical Trials (NeuroNEXT) External Oversight Board at the NIH. He obtained his MBA from Harvard Business School.