Our Staff
Exceptional Lives' Staff brings a diverse array of personal and professional experiences to our work. We share a stong commitment to excellence and our organizational mission.
Anne Punzak Marcus
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Anne Punzak Marcus has over ten years of experience working with organizations focused on brain disorders, education, and health. Before transitioning to the not-for-profit sector, she was a portfolio manager and research director at Fidelity Investments.
Anne has actively participated on the boards of several educational institutions, including a private K-8 school, a charter K-8 school, and the foundation board of a public high school. She was the chair of the Special Education parent’s advisory council for her son’s public elementary school. Anne was a 2012 and 2013 Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow. She earned her MBA from the Wharton School after receiving her BS from Boston College.
Marisa Howard-Karp, MS
Chief Operating Officer
Marisa Howard-Karp has spent her career focused on improving access to health care and education, including 15 years providing professional development training to educators and social workers. As a parent and caregiver to four children with disabilities, she has been part of more than 40 IEP meetings (and counting) and has more experience than she wishes she needed navigating complex services and systems. She loves the work of making these systems easier for other families. She’s a non-profit lifer and a Georgia native who has made her home in the Boston area.
Nell Curran, Ph.D.
Head of Product
Nell is an anthropologist, UX evangelist, and a passionate advocate for equitable design. At Exceptional Lives, she works to center user experience and high-quality data in our product strategy & design decisions. She is deeply committed to alleviating inequality and improving opportunities in tech for marginalized communities, and brings a background in tech, nonprofit strategy, as a justice studies professor in prisons, and as a health disparities researcher.
In addition to her professional background, she also brings personal experience advocating for her own all-neurodivergent family, including her autistic child.
Melody Hernandez, MS
Resource Manager, Louisiana
Melody Hernandez has over 10 years of experience in early childhood and mental health.
Most of her undergraduate work involved administering developmental assessments in hospital and primary care settings. The last 5 years she’s provided advocacy and counseling services to adults, including adults with autism and ADHD.In addition to her profession background, Melody is also a parent and a military spouse.
Melody has worked with individuals all over the country and understands the importance of community resources. At Exceptional Lives, she manages the Louisiana Disability Services Finder, supports the User Support team, and provides Spanish support, as needed.Christina Kozik
Community Engagement Specialist
Christina Kozik has been largely focused on supporting families of children with disabilities for the last 5 years. During that time, Christina has lead Exceptional Lives’ outreach efforts in Louisiana, attending events with families, facilitating professional development training for school staff, and creating podcasts and other content designed to help families navigate Special Education and health care. Christina identifies as neurodivergent and is the parent to a child with disabilities.
Marjunique Louis
UX Strategist
Marjunique Louis is a UX strategist with a background in non-profit and government sectors. Originally from New Orleans, she earned her B.A. in Mass Communication from Loyola University and a Master of Science in Information from the University of Michigan.
With experience in UX research, Marjunique has successfully collaborated on projects across diverse fields, including mental health, retail, and consulting. In her current role at Exceptional Lives, she is committed to making disability resources more accessible and understandable for parents, emphasizing a user-centered approach. Marjunique’s passion for enhancing the user experience is particularly focused on serving BIPOC communities, ensuring that her work fosters inclusivity and meaningful engagement.
Carey Luckey
Family Support Specialist
Carey Luckey is an administrative team member with over 20 years experience in both government and non-profit organizations and a single mom of a 13-year-old boy who has ADHD, an SLD in literacy and struggles with anxiety. She has been with ELI since 2019 and currently works with the Family Support team to help connect families with information about programs and services. Carey also has the pleasure of working as a job coach for an individual with disabilities in order to support their success in the workplace.
Julie McKinney, MS
Director of Training / Health Literacy Specialist
Julie McKinney has over 25 years of experience in health literacy, plain language, and adult education. She has deep expertise in writing information so it’s easy to understand, and has developed trainings for educators in clear communication.
At Exceptional Lives, she ensures that our content is clear and friendly. She also works to strengthen relationships with community partners, and designs trainings that help them connect with families.
Julie also has experience parenting kids with ADHD, learning disabilities and significant intellectual disability. She has ushered her own children through schooling and transition to adulthood, and is committed to helping make this process easier for others.Her core view is that good relationships are the key to just about anything we hope for.
Sydni Raymond
Communications and Marketing Manager
Sydni Raymond is a storyteller with a passion for helping organizations share their journey in the digital space. She is a New Orleans native and a graduate of Xavier University. In her time working in social media & communications, she has received numerous awards, including Public Relations Association of Louisiana’s 2020 Rising Professional Ember Award and NOLA.com’s 33 Greater New Orleans Business People on the Move. Sydni previously served as Director of Marketing and Communications at a charter network in New Orleans, and has several years of experience is higher education.
She is a current member of PRSA and serves on Junior League of New Orleans Scholarship Committee.
Paul Shafer
Data Manager
A native North Carolinian, Paul has bachelor’s degrees in Music and French and a master’s degree in Voice Performance from Boston University. In addition, he has a background in academic tutoring. Paul also enjoys studying and speaking other languages. He especially enjoys translating ELI’s written material from English into Spanish and providing phone support as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking callers.
Our Advisors
In addition to our staff, Exceptional Lives benefits from regular contributions from advisors, who offer additional technical and content expertise.
Simon Chan
Marketing & Growth Lead Advisor
Simon has over 15 years of experience working with B2B marketing in multiple industries including tech and healthcare. He is deeply committed to growth within organizations and has had a track record of strategically creating and restructuring multiple marketing and growth plans within organizations leading to additional rounds of funding and acquisition.
Simon is a huge proponent of non-profit organizations which help communities in need and is alumni to national organizations centered around helping ethnic communities of lower income.
Julie McIsaac, Ph.D.
Child Development and Disability Advisor
Julie specializes in working with children and families with diverse developmental profiles She uses reflective practice, emotion-coaching, play and a relationship-based framework to support skill building in the areas of emotional-regulation and problem-solving. Julie consults with families, schools and community organizations. As a parent, she understands the need to have a cohesive team supporting a child and family.
Theresa Nicholls, Ed.S.
Advisor
Theresa Nicholls, the founder of PartnerEd Solutions, has a thorough understanding of special education policy with nearly 20 years’ experience working with state agencies, school districts, and families to solve tough problems. She is not only a parent, but an educator who has served as a school psychologist, a state director of special education, and a national consultant to school districts and state agencies on special education improvement efforts, including systems of alternate dispute resolution. Through these experiences, Theresa has developed a passion for ensuring families have opportunities for meaningful engagement throughout the IEP development and implementation processes.
Pamela White, Ed.S.
Special Education Program Facilitator
Pamela White is an Education Specialist who has worked with individuals with disabilities for almost 15 years. She facilitates special education programs for a Louisiana school district and serves as an Educator in Residence for the PROGRESS Center at The American Institute for Research. She is passionate about establishing high expectations for students with disabilities, developing reading skills, teaching with intention, and educators implementing high-leverage practices.
Our Board
Our Board of Directors guides our mission to support families and providers caring for children with disabilities. Each of our board members brings personal and professional expertise that supports this work.
Darlika Boines
Board Member
Dr. Boines is an educational leader with over 15 years of experience in special education in the pursuit of educational equity for all students by ensuring their individual needs are met. Currently, Darlika is a Student Support Coordinator for Special Education for Jefferson Parish, supporting schools to ensure that students with disabilities are receiving high quality instruction based on their needs. She recently earned her Educational Administration Doctorate at the University of Southern Mississippi. She believes that all children deserve an adequate education.
Carol Raphael, MPA
Board Member
Carol Raphael is a nationally recognized expert on health care and workforce issues. She served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of AARP and CEO and President of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, the largest non-profit home health agency in the US. She has held an executive position at Mt. Sinai Medical Center and was an Executive Deputy Commissioner of the Human Resources Administration in charge of the Medicaid and Public Assistance programs in NYC.
She serves as a Director on numerous Boards including the Primary Care Development Corporation, the Medicare Rights Center, the Scan Foundation, the New York eHealth Collaborative, Commonwealth Care Alliance, Henry Schein, Inc., Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, and the RAND Health Advisory Board. She has been appointed to many commissions including the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the Federal Bipartisan Commission on Long Term Care, and the Age Friendly Commission. She was a member of New York State Governor Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team.
She is the Chair of the Long-Term Quality Alliance, an alliance of payers, providers, consumers and policymakers working to strengthen and better integrate the Long Term Services & Supports system. Ms. Raphael was 2012 Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard.
David Sargent
Board Member
David Sargent is a Senior Advisor of Mergers & Acquisitions at Statesman Business Advisors, a middle market investment banking firm in Houston, TX. David assists clients in effecting mergers, acquisitions, capital sourcing, restructuring, and with general corporate advisory matters. He currently serves on the boards of Asuragen Inc., SAM Inc., and the Babson College Board of Overseers. He is a member of the 2016 Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University.
Cynthia Strauss
Board Member
Ms. Strauss has specialities in both for profit and non-profit investing and research. She recently retired from Fidelity Investments, after seven years as the Director of Research for Fidelity Charitable and 13 years in numerous senior management and investment roles for Fidelity Management & Research’s actively managed fixed income and equity funds. Prior to Fidelity she was a founding Managing Director of a French-owned merchant bank in New York and held a leadership position in leveraged finance at Citibank.
