Category: Our Leadership

Garet Hil is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the National Kidney Registry (NKR) and ImmunoFree. Mr. Hil became involved in transplant medicine when his daughter was diagnosed with kidney failure at age 10. After he and his wife were both deemed incompatible, a difficult and extensive donor search finally resulted in a successful …

Dr. Matthew Cooper is the Chief of Transplantation, Director of Solid Organ Transplantation, and a tenured Professor of Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is the Mark B. Adams Distinguished Professor of Surgery and a member of the National Kidney Registry’s Medical Board and its Surgical Director. Dr. Cooper chose the specialty of …

Dr. Michael Cecka is the Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Immunogenetics Center, Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. He is certified by the American Board for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics and an HLA Laboratory Director and holds licenses in California, Hawaii and New York. Dr. Cecka …

Margaret Voges leads the National Kidney Registry Operations Committee in working to improve the living donation process, teaching new centers how to navigate the system, and working with experienced centers on how to make improvements and utilize new technologies. She also serves as an educator for NKR regional training sessions and is the lead educator …

Before joining the NKR as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Meehan co-founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer of Cell Tolerance, Inc. (CTI), an early-stage biotechnology company focused on developing a cellular therapy to induce immunological tolerance in haploidentical sibling transplants. In 2023, Ryan transitioned to the NKR full-time while also …

Samantha Hil is a kidney transplant recipient and the inspiration for the formation of the National Kidney Registry and ImmunoFree. After she lost her kidney function at age 10 due to an undetected genetic disease, she landed in the ICU where she was given life-saving blood transfusions and was immediately put on dialysis. Both her …

Frank Schultz leads the NKR Software Development team, the Quality Assurance team, and the Information Technology group. He is responsible for technical leadership, software processes, and the execution of development projects. With over two decades of software experience and more than 10 years in the life sciences industry, Mr. Schultz has held executive roles at …

Jon Sullenberger is a living kidney donor and leads the NKR’s donor and patient advocacy teams. His first contact with the NKR was in 2019, when he enrolled in the Voucher Program to get his wife off dialysis. During this difficult and challenging process, he identified significant opportunities for improvement and presented his ideas to …

Timothy Wan, Esq., is the NKR’s General Counsel and Chief Litigator. He oversees contracts, leases, intellectual property, employment law, risk management and litigation. Mr. Wan was admitted to the New York State Bar in January 2001, after graduating from Brooklyn Law School with his Juris Doctor, and from Vassar College, with a double B.A. in …