Mission statement

Claudia Dulude is the founder and CEO of Defeat Melanoma and the Jeff Dulude Melanoma Foundation.  She formerly worked in the telecommunications industry, founding IdealDial, IXL Telecommunications and T1 Systems.  Claudia holds a BA from Simmons College and a MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Alexandra Dulude Donovan is a graduate of Colgate University and the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix. She earned her MD and Masters of Public Health in May 2015.  Alexandra has completed her residency at Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital. She began her oncology fellowship at Dartmouth Hitchcock in 2018. In 2021, Dr. Donovan will join the Callaway Young Cancer Center in Glenwood Springs, CO as an Oncologist.

Richard Dulude is a 2015 graduate of Harvard Business School.  Richard is in venture capital with underscore.vc. He attended Cornell University for his undergraduate and Master’s degree in Engineering. Richard is a Partner at _underscore.vc, a venture capital firm based in Boston.

Jim Long currently works with startups while ramping down Partner duties for Gabriel Venture Partners second fund.  Jim has years of experience and success in building business in the high technology industry, as well as in developing new technologies and patents for the Internet and PC environments.  He has been a co-founder or CEO in such companies as Veritas (IPO: VRTS), Ruckus Wireless (IPO: RKUS), Starlight Networks (“Streaming” video pinoeer sold to Picturetel), Linkware (sold to Ungermann-Bass), and RioPort (Digital Music pioneer merged with Ecast).  Jim has been an angel investor or advisor or part-time exec to others such as Chegg (IPO: CHGG), TiMetra (sold to Alcatel), Applied Microcircuits (IPO: AMCC), and Jibe Networks (sold to Citrix).  Jim received a BS:EECS from UC-Berkeley, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Gary Meller has developed multispecialty group practices, founded managed care companies, and has helped to create innovative technology for health care care and medical education.  Gary was one of the early developers of urgent care centers in the US. He built a chain of ambulatory care centers in the Midwest and consolidated them in a regional network. Gary became the CEO of the Health Services Division of Humana Inc. one of the largest private hospital companies in the U.S., where he ran a network of 150 MedFirst ambulatory care centers in 17 major cities. He later founded the Broward Medical Group, which was merged into the Holy Cross Medical Group, a hospital based multispecialty group with over 30 locations, where Dr. Meller was the CEO.

He is a founding board member of QVL pharmacy, a specialty pharmacy retail company focusing on pain management.  Gary is an advisor to private equity funds on healthcare and biotechnology investments.  Dr. Meller received is medical degree from the University of New Mexico, completed is Internal Medicine residency training at McGill University, and later received is MBA from Harvard Business School.

Leslie Stern is a Board Advisor for Defeat Melanoma.  Leslie has worked as a commercial artist in the domestic and fashion industries, for more than 25 years - including scarf design, bedding and menswear.  As Design Director of LeslieSternMuralArt, she currently takes mural art commissions for interior designers in Sydney.  Leslie holds a Bachelor of Science in Textile Design from Philadelphia University.  She has lived in Australia since 1986, is a mother of two, and is both an American and Australian citizen.  Her outside interests include travel, music, and exercise.  Leslie can often be found speed-walking at Bondi Beach.  She always wears sunscreen.

Dr. Rick Gibbons is a health-social psychologist. He was a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University before moving to the Psychology Department and Cancer Control Program at Dartmouth College. He has been at the University of Connecticut since 2012, where he is currently a Professor of Psychology, with an Investigator appointment at the Center for Health Intervention and Prevention. He is currently the Principal Investigator on two NIH research grants that concern adolescent and young adult health behavior, and co-Investigator on two other health promotion NIH grants. He has received almost 30 million dollars in NIH-funded research over the last 25 years, and has published more than 200 research articles, mostly on health behavior. Dr. Gibbons has also been a consultant on multiple preventive-interventions. He has been working with Dr. Gerrard on health research for almost 35 years.

Reach Dr. Gibbons at rick.gibbons@chip.uconn.edu

Dr. Meg Gerrard is a research professor at the Center for Health Intervention and Prevention and the Department of Psychology at the University of Connecticut. Prior to joining the UConn faculty in 2012, she was a full professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Dartmouth Medical School and served as the Co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth, a National Cancer Institute designated comprehensive cancer center. She has been the Principal Investigator on 4 National Institutes of Health grants on developmental trajectories of health risk behaviors, and co-investigator on 3 other grants relevant to the initiation and consequences of these behaviors. She has led two large-scale intervention studies, one on adolescent alcohol use, and one on UV protection. She and Dr. Gibbons have published numerous research papers on sun protection, smoking cessation, and substance use. The ultimate goal of their research is to improve health risk prevention behaviors.

Reach Dr. Gerrard at meg.gerrard@uconn.edu

Raffy Ermac is a writer and reporter based in the Los Angeles. He received a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in May 2014, where he studied print & digital journalism and special events planning. He is currently an editorial assistant at The Advocate magazine, one of the nation’s oldest news and politics publications, where he writes features and profiles. His passions include all things art, design, and multimedia, and he hopes to use his voice to tell stories and help people.