NWPPN Board of directors

NWPPN Directors and Officers are reflective of our Northwest region and include parents, clinicians, advocates, stakeholders and business allies. If you have interest in serving on our board, please fill out an application here.

Sarah Lemley, MPA; HA

Sarah Lemley lives in Portland Oregon. She holds a master’s degree in Public Administration; Health Administration and is the co-founder and executive director of the Northwest PANDAS/PANS Network. In her role as ED for NWPPN, she has hosted the first Northwest PANDAS/PANS Provider roundtable, coordinated five Grand Rounds, introduced and passed legislation in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, coordinated 4 Awareness Day Walks and supported over 1,000 families in the Northwest. Prior to her work establishing NWPPN, she worked extensively in the healthcare industry. Her work experience includes healthcare administration, health insurance administration and renewal, social work and advocacy. She received her graduate degree in Public Administration, Health Administration from Portland State University and her undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon. She is a lifelong advocate with many years serving victims of rape and domestic violence with the District Attorney’s office in Multnomah, Clackamas and Lane counties. This past state election, she was elected to be a precinct committee person for Oregon District 35. She also serves on the OCD Oregon Board of Directors.

William P. French, M.D.

Dr. French is an Associate Professor and faculty member in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division of the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. French works with children and families at several outpatient locations including Seattle Children's, Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, and Harborview Medical Center. His interests include understanding and treating autoimmune-mediated disorders of the brain, such as PANDAS/PANS, integrating mental health care into primary care settings, providing consultation to school-based health care centers, and treating children with trauma-related backgrounds and disruptive behaviors, such as ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder. Dr. French's research and publication efforts have focused on the impact of trauma on child development, ADHD, disruptive behaviors and aggression, health care delivery, and improving clinical supervision of child and adolescent psychiatry trainees. He is Associate Training Program Director of Outpatient Psychiatry and is highly involved in the child and adolescent training program and provides supervision for trainees at four outpatient clinical rotation sites.

veneta stoyanova, M.D.

Dr. Stoyanova received her MD at the Medical University of Sofia, Bulgaria. She practiced briefly as a general practitioner and completed a year of internal medicine residency in Sofia,prior to immigrating to the US. While preparing for the US Medical Licensing Examinations, she worked as a Research Associate at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego. She completed a residency in psychiatry at Saint Louis University, followed by a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at OHSU. She is an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at OHSU, where she teaches third-year psychiatry residents. In the past 16 years, Dr. Stoyanova has provided psychiatric services at various levels of care, including outpatient community mental health clinics, residential eating disorder treatment centers, and private practice. Her interests include diagnosing and treating autoimmune-mediated disorders of the brain, including PANDAS/PANS, integrating clinical hypnosis in combination with other psychotherapeutic modalities. She holds a certification in clinical hypnosis from the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and is a faculty member at the Oregon Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

Carey Crill, PMHNP-C, PNP-C

Carey Crill is a Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and a Certified Family Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Carey received her nursing degree from Boise State University, her Pediatric Nurse Practitioner degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and her Mental Health Nurse Practitioner degree from State University of New York in Stony Brook. Carey has worked in Boise, Idaho as a Nurse Practitioner for the last 25 years. She has worked in numerous settings in the past to include working with all age groups, individuals with developmental delays and severely persistently mentally ill individuals. Currently, she runs her own mental health clinic-Integrity Mental Health. She primarily works with children ages 3 to 8 and adults with developmental delays. Carey’s current interests include adding functional psychiatric concepts to everyday practice, ketamine therapy for depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, and helping children that struggle with ADHD, anxiety, and neurodevelopmental disorders. She is also super interested in helping patients with PANS/PANDAS access the care that they need.

Kym mccornack

Kym McCornack lives in Portland Oregon. She studied visual design with an emphasis on photography at University of Oregon. She then went on to become a professional photographer and business owner for 15 years. She has served as the Outreach Coordinator for the last 3 years with Northwest PANDAS/PANS Network and is one of the founding board members. She has a daughter with PANDAS.

carly ashber

Carly Absher lives in Tacoma Washington. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in International Studies through University of Washington-Tacoma. She previously worked in higher education as a disabilities accommodation specialist and an academic counselor for international students. She has a daughter with PANDAS and a daughter with NMDAR encephalitis. She is one of NWPPN’s founding board members.

IVAN VEJAR

Ivan Vejar is a media production specialist, specializing in creating digital and print media for his clients at Cuervo y Culebra llc. Having been a touring musician for seven years, he focused on music industry design and video, laying out packaging for record releases and editing music videos for Epic Records, Universal Records, and several independents. As a photographer he also worked with the Hollywood Foreign Press (the Golden Globes), Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars), the Miss Universe competition. An expert in video production, photography, graphic design and product design, Ivan believes in an integrated marketing approach to development, sales, and creative strategy. Ivan has over 25 years of graphic design and photography experience, and 15 years of video production experience, in Oregon and California. Ivan has a B.A. with emphasis on photography from Point Loma Nazarene University and a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing from Marylhurst University.

candice brunger, MSN-student member

Candice Brunger has been a pediatric nurse for over 20 years and has a passion for the pediatric population. Throughout her career, she has worked in newborn intensive care and pediatric units. She received her master’s degree in Nursing Education at Weber State University and currently teaches as an assistant professor at Utah Valley University. She loves education as much as she loves nursing. Because of her passion for patient care, she is currently at Idaho State University completing her DNP-FNP.

previous board members

Diana Bastien, Psyd

Diana Bastien, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist with Seattle Children’s Hospital. She specializes in the evidence-based treatment of anxiety disorders, OCD, and tics in children and adolescents. Dr. Bastien completed her doctoral, masters, and undergraduate training in Florida and relocated to Missouri to complete a predoctoral internship in an acute psychiatric hospital with children and adolescents. She completed postdoctoral training in integrated pediatric primary care, and practiced over two years as a psychologist in integrated pediatric primary care. She has co-authored peer-reviewed publications on PANDAS/PANS under the mentorship of Dr. Tanya Murphy and spent almost two years as a research assistant with the University of South Florida Rothman Center. Dr. Bastien has provided lectures to healthcare professionals and doctoral-level trainees on evidence-based risk assessment, behavioral sleep interventions, and differential diagnosis of PANDAS/PANS. She has served as a panelist on a roundtable discussion of youth suicide prevention and has also appeared on local news providing recommendations on overcoming anxiety related to needles.