Ellia Tootoonchian
Ellia is a Data & Research Manager at the World Federation of Hemophilia managing the production of the Annual Global Survey as well as the implementation of the World Bleeding Disorders Registry in Africa. She holds a Master of Public Health degree and has previous experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors focusing on global chronic and infectious disease surveillance and health equity.
Angela Weyand
Dr. Weyand is a native of Kansas City, Kansas and graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She attended medical school at the University of Michigan and completed her pediatrics residency at the University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Hospital. She then returned to the University of Michigan for pediatric hematology and oncology fellowship and subsequently stayed on as faculty. Clinically, she is interested in von Willebrand disease and young women and girls with bleeding or clotting disorders. She is co-director of a combined hematology/gynecology program and co-chair of the NHF working group to identify a national research blueprint to address the needs of this population. Her research interests are in women and girls with bleeding disorders, hormone provoked thrombosis, and von Willebrand disease. She was a member of the management panel for the latest ASH/ISTH/NFH/WFH VWD guidelines, a co-chair for the ISTH SSC on Women’s Health, and Theme Lead for Women’s Health for the ISTH 2025 meeting.
Richa Mohan
Richa Mohan, MA, M.Phil (Psychology) Richa Mohan is the past Chair, Psychosocial Committee of WFH and presently a member. She is a Clinical Psychologist and has more than 20 years of experience in social sector in the field of counselling and guidance, rehabilitation, health education and communication, capacity building, leadership training, documentation and research on bleeding disorders related issues. Her research articles have been published in National and International journals. She has co-authored a Monograph on Genetic Counselling in Hemophilia and updated the Guidelines of Hemophilia 3rd Edition as a psychosocial expert. She has been invited by National Hemophilia Organisation and its chapters in different regions of India to talk, present, counsel and train the hemophilia community. As a WFH volunteer she has visited several countries for capacity building trainings for healthcare professionals. She provide trainings on psychosocial aspect of Hemophilia in Global NMO Trainings. She is a lead contributor to the WFH Psychosocial Curriculum and piloted the curriculum in trainings of psychosocial professional of Caucasus region in Georgia,Serbia, and Turkey. She is also a member of steering committee of Parents Empowering Parents Program and a trained PEP facilitator. She received “Caregiver’s Education Award” from Bayer Haemophilia Awards Program and various other awards to her credit. She has worked in various multicultural settings and widely travelled. She represents the Organisation, Empowering Minds Society for Research and Development in India and serves as President and Director.
Hilary Critchley
Professor Hilary Critchley has held a Personal Chair in Reproductive Medicine at the University of Edinburgh since 1999. She is Head of Deanery of Clinical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh; Co-Deputy Director, Centre for Reproductive Health and Consultant Gynaecologist at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh. Her research focuses on improving the understanding of the complex basic science of the uterine endometrium and thus the clinical management of gynaecological complaints with major impacts on women’s quality of life, including heavy menstrual bleeding. Her expertise in this field has national and international recognition. Hilary is committed to seeing research in women’s health maintain a critical mass, so it achieves a prominent position in the national/global health funding arena.
Anne-Louise Cruickshank
Anne-Louise’s commitment to Haemophilia began in 1991 when she worked at the Paediatric Haematology Unit at Johannesburg Hospital. In 1996, she was awarded the Arthur Robertson travelling fellowship by the South African Haemophilia Foundation (SAHF). The fellowship gave her the opportunity to travel to Canada for highly specialised training at the Hospital for Sick Children and St. Michael’s Hospital.
For the past 21 years at the of University of Cape Town based at Groote Schuur Hospital, A-L co-ordinates comprehensive care for patients with the bleeding disorder haemophilia in the Western Cape Province, including implementing and coordinating the national outreach program.
Together with South African nursing colleague Anne Gillham and Jill Smith from Australia, Anne-Louise developed the curriculum and training material for the World Federation of Haemophilia (WFH) -recognised Haemophilia Nurses’ Training Course. This training has taken her to all 9 Provinces of South Africa as well as to Namibia, Kenya, Lesotho, Ethiopia Zambia, Malawi and Mauritius.
Anne-Louise has been a study co-ordinator on international clinical trials and has contributed to several publications.
During her time at the University of Cape Town, Anne-Louise has been involved in development and implementation of a national South African Bleeding Disorders Registry.
In July 2010 at the WFH Buenos Aires Congress she was awarded the Novo Nordisk Haemophilia Foundation Community Award.
Anne-Louise is currently the Secretary of the SAHF Medical and Scientific Advisory Council and a member of the South African Haemophilia Nurses Committee and is a retired member of International Society for Thrombosis and Haemostasis Nurses committee.
Marlène Beijlevelt
WFH Nurses Committee – Chair Marlène Beijlevelt is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner with more than 25 years of experience in Haemophilia and Bleeding Disorders care in the Amsterdam University Medical Center in Amsterdam the Netherlands. Her main focus are the young children and their families and also has a particular interest in supporting the needs of women with bleeding disorders. The Nurse Practitioner is the link between the patient and members of the comprehensive care team, the community and other health care providers. She plays a key role in patient care management and provides care and education to patients with a bleeding disorders and those who care for them. Marlène is Chair of the WFH Nurse committee.
Susan Cutter
Susan Cutter, LCSW, MSW, & MPA is a social worker at the Penn Comprehensive Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center (PCHP). PCHP serves adults with inherited bleeding and clotting disorders. Ms. Cutter has worked in the inherited bleeding disorders field for 32 years. She is also the Chair of the WFH Psychosocial Committee.
Jill Johnsen
Dr. Johnsen is a physician scientist with expertise in classical (benign) hematology. She is researcher at Bloodworks Research Institute, an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington, and sees patients in the Washington Center for Bleeding Disorders (WACBD). Dr. Johnsen studies the genetics and biology of clotting factors and blood groups (blood types), with emphasis on coagulation factor VIII (FVIII), factor IX (FIX), and von Willebrand factor (VWF), and clinically relevant blood group genes, particularly in the ABO and Rh systems. Dr. Johnsen is further working to better understand the molecular basis of how inherited bleeding disorders uniquely impact females, particularly in hemophilia and von Willebrand disease.
Shannon Meeks
Shannon L. Meeks, MD is a pediatric hematologist at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Professor of Pediatrics and the Mitchell Chair in Hemostasis at Emory University. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Duke University. After earning her medical degree at the University of Mississippi in Jackson, she served her residency in pediatrics at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and pursued a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at Emory University. Dr. Meeks has a basic, translational, and clinical research interest in hemophilia and inhibitors. Her current projects focus on understanding the early stages of the immune response to factor VIII and understanding how changing patterns of factor VIII exposure in the setting of non-factor replacement therapies impact the immune response to factor VIII . She currently serves as the President of the Hemostasis and Thrombosis Research Society and is a member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council (MASAC) of the National Hemophilia Foundation.
Megan Brown
Megan Brown MD, MSc is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and the Director of the Young Women’s Bleeding Clinic at Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She is a pediatric hematologist whose clinical and research focus centers on the intersection of women’s health and hemostasis. She completed medical school at Michigan State University, pediatric residency at the University of Colorado and pediatric hematology and oncology fellowship at Emory University. She performs patient centered clinical research to optimize the diagnosis of bleeding disorders, to improve quality of life outcomes in children and adolescent with bleeding disorders, and to improve education about bleeding disorders in girls and women.
