TMS MastCellCon On Tour-Raleigh
Join us in Raleigh, North Carolina on November 13th and 14th to learn about mast cell diseases and to connect with other members of our community.
Meet Our Speakers
Keep reading to learn all about our esteemed speakers.
Judith Emmel
Board Chair
Mrs. Judith Kain Emmel recently retired after 37 years of service to her country with the National Security Agency (NSA). Starting there in 1984, she was trained in Farsi and served as a senior linguist in a 24-hour watch center, providing real time support to US Military Forces deployed overseas. She was the only female, non-military person to work this critical environment.
Most recently Mrs. Emmel was appointed by Governor Hogan to be a Commissioner on the Maryland Commission for Women.
Mrs. Emmel is a graduate of Rutgers University and holds a Public Administration Management Certificate from the University of Southern California. She and her husband reside outside Annapolis, MD and Myrtle Beach, SC, and they are avid golfers. She is extremely proud of the many firsts she has accomplished and continues to mentor and give back to women to help them achieve their dreams.
Dr. Anne Maitland
Anne Maitland's career is driven by curiosity about the neuro-immune axis and its dysregulation in disease, as seen in patients with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and heritable disorders of connective tissue, such as Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes (EDS). She witnessed the HIV and asthma epidemics in her hometown in the 1980s, sparking her interest in neuroimmune dysregulation. Now, she focuses on mast cell activation disease and its overlap with EDS, autonomic neuropathies, and post-acute syndromes like Long COVID, which affects 7% of the US population. Dr. Maitland collaborates with other experts at the Medical University of South Carolina EDS Center to provide innovative care for complex medical disorders. She also serves on committees addressing mast cell activation disease, health care disparities, and integrative medicine. Dr. Maitland is a Fellow of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. She is also a past Chair of the Allergy/Immunology Work Group of the National Medical Association.
Click this link for Dr. Maitland's full bio.
Session: When Conditions Overlap: Navigating MCAS, POTS, and EDS
Shonna Snyder, Ph.D.
Shonna earned her Ph.D. in Health and Kinesiology from Purdue University. Her bachelor’s and master’s degrees are also in the health education field. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES). She is a co-author of the text Core Teaching Practices for Health Education.
Shonna was diagnosed with a bladder paraganglioma in 2019 after many years of extreme symptoms in which doctors dismissed as such things as stress, fatigue, panic attacks or POTS. Given her research and health education background, she knew that these diagnoses were not accurate and so she continued to push for further testing. She visited multiple doctors who did not believe her when she suggested that she had a pheo/para in her bladder and so she struggled to get the CT that she requested. She finally had a doctor truly listen and order the CT scan she needed in July of 2019 after five trips to the ER in one week. Her surgery took place in November of 2019 at the NIH. Because of her rare disease experience, she is happy to be giving back to the rare disease community through her work at TMS.
Session: Power in Participation: Introducing the Mast Cell Disease Patient Registry
Amanda Crofoot
Amanda came on as a consultant with The Mast Cell Disease Society (TMS) in 2024, bringing a background in supporting nonprofit organizations through consulting and managing projects from start to finish. Her work with TMS began with the patient registry project, where she evaluated the registry platforms the organization had previously identified and presented her findings to the Board to support the final platform selection.
Following the completion of this first phase, Amanda stayed on as a consultant for Phase Two, supporting the development and implementation of the registry and helping move the project from platform selection through its planned launch in late 2026.
Session: Power in Participation: Introducing the Mast Cell Disease Patient Registry
More Speaker Bios Coming Soon
We are still finalizing our speaker details. More information coming soon.