Ira Auerbach moved to the Hudson Valley over 50 years ago, when he began his work as an Engineer at IBM. Along with Jill and their children he spent much of his time camping and enjoying outdoor activities, which is where a tick probably nabbed Jill. Since retiring he has spent a great deal of time in helping to resolve issues related to tick-borne diseases. Ira is co-chair of NYS Senator Serino’s Lyme and TBD Advisory Board, a board member of S.T.O.P, a board member of Hudson Valley Lyme Disease Assn., a member of the NYS Coalition on Lyme and TBD, a member of the Coalition for Federal Lyme and Tick-borne Disease Legislation, and participates in the Dutchess County Tick Task Force. A bright and clear minded scientist; he always has wonderful insights to enhance their ability to act together as a team, rarely seeing one without the other! BTW, Ira likewise, had Lyme disease; however, he was treated promptly with good results. Jill Auerbach is a forceful advocate for Lyme and Tick-borne Disease. Jill has developed a national reputation for her focus on prevention, education, patients, legislative advocacy, and her work with Tick-borne Disease research. Jill suffered from the many impacts of Lyme Disease for decades, and emerged determined to make changes. Her special interest is in stopping ticks and the pathogens they transmit. Ready to both change laws and change the science of the disease. Both she and her husband Ira are a team and co-chairs of NYS Senator Serino’s Advisory Board on TBD. She and Ira have been key persons involved with legislation passed in NYS as well as with federal legislation which inserted TBDs into the 21st Century Cures act establishing the HHS TBD Working Group. She served as a subcommittee member of the 2018 HHS TBDWG Subcommittee on Disease Vectors, Surveillance and Prevention. She is also leading the effort to focus on the prevention of Lyme disease by attacking the source of the disease -- ticks. As such, she organized the scientific coalition, “Tick Research to Eliminate Disease” (TRED) consisting of notable scientists to advocate the dire need for tick research to both Congress and governmental agencies. Her greatest goal is for our beautiful environment to be returned to the safe place it once was when she was a child so that all of us, especially our children can enjoy it without becoming the victim of a tick!

Bob Giguere has spent the majority of his career dealing with clinical laboratory medicine in the esoteric fields of genetics, endocrinology, and immunology. He did his undergraduate study at Providence College and then got his molecular biology training at MIT. Since starting his laboratory career in the early 1980’s at Nichols Institute in California, he has been a director or higher level at a number of nationally recognized esoteric clinical laboratories. These include the molecular laboratory Collaborative Research Inc. and Repromedix,Inc, in greater Boston. He was COO and Senior Vice President at Boston BioMedica Clinical Laboratory during the 1990’s and for the past 14 years Director of Sales at IGeneX,Inc. https://igenex.com/

Dr. Ralph Garruto is Professor of Biomedical Anthropology and Biological Sciences and Director of the Tick-borne Disease Research Center at Binghamton University. His research focus is on natural experimental models of disease using both field and laboratory approaches. His cross-disciplinary research and interests include studies of neurodegenerative disorders, food chain disorders, health transition studies, Lyme and other tick-borne diseases and prion diseases. Currently he has field research projects in Micronesia, Melanesia, Ukraine, and in the Northeast U.S.

Holly Ahern, MS, MT (ASCP) is professor of microbiology at SUNY Adirondack where she teaches courses in microbiology and general biology. Ahern has a B.S. degree and national board certification (American Society of Clinical Pathologists - ASCP) in Medical Technology, and an M.S. degree in Molecular Biology from the University at Albany (SUNY). Ahern is the recipient of awards for both teaching (President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching) and scholarship (SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship). Named an ASM/NSF Biology Scholar in 2008, Ahern is actively involved in research on tick-borne diseases endemic to upstate New York, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is an author of articles published in scientific and trade journals, textbooks, and most recently the first microbiology lab manual available as an open educational resource (OER). As a result of her family’s personal experience with Lyme disease, Ahern co-founded and is vice-president of Lyme Action Network, a 501-c-3 Lyme disease advocacy organization. Ahern served on the Testing and Diagnostics subcommittee of the HHS Tick Borne Disease Working Group, and is currently a member of the advisory board for the NYS Senate TBD Task Force, and the NYS Governor’s TBD Working Group.

Internal & Critical Care Medicine, Private Practice - Pawling, NY Dr. Kenneth Liegner is a Board Certified Internist with additional training in Pathology and Critical Care Medicine, practicing in Pawling, New York. He has been actively involved in diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease and related disorders since 1988. He has published articles on Lyme disease in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has presented poster abstracts and talks at national and international conferences on Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases. He is the author of In the Crucible of Chronic Lyme Disease, a documentational history of the struggle to characterize the nature of Lyme disease in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He has cared for many persons seriously ill with chronic and neurologic Lyme disease. His work has focused on the serious morbidity and (occasional) mortality that can eventuate from this aspect of the illness. He has emphasized the urgent need for widespread clinical availability of improved methods of diagnostic testing and for development of improved methods of treatment for Lyme disease in all its stages. He holds the first United States patent issued proposing application of acaricide to deer for area-wide control of deer-tick populations as a means of reducing the incidence of Lyme disease.

Mary Beth Pfeiffer, author of Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change, has been a journalist for four decades. Since 2012, Pfeiffer has emerged as the nation’s leading investigative reporter on Lyme disease, attracting national and international attention and garnering seven awards for her groundbreaking articles on this tick-borne scourge. Reviewers have called her book “superbly written and researched”; “a powerful wakeup call”; and “a work of breadth and depth, impressively documented and elegant.” Pfeiffer reported for 30 years for the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal, where her Lyme articles were first published. Her previous book is Crazy in America: The Hidden Tragedy of the Criminalized Mentally Ill, which has been called a testament to the inhumanity of prison solitary confinement. She resides in the Hudson Valley of New York. Her Lyme disease articles have also appeared in Scientific American, the Toronto Globe and Mail, Aeon magazine, Newsday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Newark Star Ledger.