Leadership | Cohen Syndrome

Board of Directors

Ashley Waterman, MA

Co-Founder & President

Ashley holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Education & Spanish Literature from Emory University and a Master’s Degree in Health Education from Columbia University. Ashley's career has focused on strategic partnerships and community engagement within the nonprofit sector. Ashley lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and their three boys. Their youngest child, Liam, has Cohen Syndrome. Ashley is passionate about connecting families with children with special needs to essential resources. She is excited to apply her nonprofit experience to CSRF in hopes of creating a better future for Liam and all individuals with Cohen Syndrome. Ashley also serves on the Board of Sinai Temple and the Cohen Syndrome Association (CSA).

Courtney Tracy, MSA, CPA

Co-Founder & Treasurer

Courtney holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master’s in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame and earned her CPA license. Courtney currently serves as the Director of Investor Relations for investment company Paul G Smith Associates, LLC. Courtney also serves as the Program Director for an Omaha-based philanthropic fund. Courtney and her husband live in Omaha, Nebraska, where they raise three spirited boys, the youngest of whom (Mitchell, age 2) has Cohen Syndrome. Both her nonprofit and financial experience provide valuable experience for her work on the CSRF.

Benjamin Waterman, MD, MBA

Medical Director

Born and raised in Southern California, Ben attended Pomona College and UCLA for medical school, business school, and his internal medicine residency. He currently practices as a primary care physician as well as a hospitalist. He is the Chief Medical Officer at Olive-View UCLA Medical Center, where he supervises over 800 physicians and allied health professionals to provide care to the underserved. He is also an Associate Dean at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine where he leads over a dozen programs and hundreds of trainees in graduate medical education. Ben is the proud father of Liam who has Cohen Syndrome.

Scientific Advisors

Matthew Fuller

Chief Scientific Advisor

Matthew Fuller, PhD is the Executive Director of Vector Platform Research at Ultragenyx. He is leading the Producer Cell Line and Vector Engineering teams, both of which perform program and platform research to continually optimize and invest in Ultragenyx’s gene therapy platforms and programs. Matthew has experience leading early-stage development programs and supporting multiple AAV programs for IND submission and clinical trials.

Matthew also serves on the FNIH Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium (BGTC) AAV subcommittee, the American Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (ASGCT) Education committee, the Coalition to Cure CHD2 (CCC) Scientific Advisory Board, as Chief Scientific Advisor for the Cohen Syndrome Research Foundation (CSRF), and is serving a second term as an elected official on the Board of Health in Millis, Massachusetts. Matthew received a PhD in microbiology from the University of Missouri studying host-cell interactions of autonomous Parvoviruses with Dr. David Pintel, and a MSPH with a focus in Tropical Medicine from Tulane University.

Aaron Nagiel

Scientific Advisor, Retina Research

Aaron Nagiel, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, affiliated with the USC Roski Eye Institute/Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, California. As a surgeon specializing in retinal disorders of childhood and adolescence, he complements this clinical expertise with an active laboratory and translational research program. This includes the establishment of a nationally recognized retinal gene therapy program that has performed dozens of gene therapy surgeries, including for clinical trials.

Dr. Nagiel earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University summa cum laude, and then underwent combined MD and PhD training at Cornell University and The Rockefeller University in New York City. After an internship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Nagiel completed both ophthalmology residency and vitreoretinal fellowship at the Stein Eye Institute at UCLA.

Dr. Nagiel is a recipient of numerous grants and awards including the Heed Ophthalmic Foundation Fellowship, the Ronald G. Michels Fellowship Foundation Award, Knights Templar Eye Foundation Career Development Award, a National Eye Institute Clinical Scientist Training Grant (K08), and a Research to Prevent Blindness Career Development Award.