Leadership Team - Our Heart Speaks Our Heart Speaks

Keith W. L. Rafal, MD, MPH

President & Founder

Keith W. L. Rafal, MD, MPH is the former Medical Director of the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island and former Chief of Rehabilitation and Restorative Care at Memorial Hospital of RI. He is the founder and director of Healing Choices, P.C. an integrative medicine private practice who specializes in drug free treatment in collaboration with other practitioners for patients living with chronic pain, fibromyalgia and other chronic medical conditions.

He has been passionate throughout his career on the importance of how the Mind, Body and Spirit shape our health and wellbeing and the special role that the arts and humanities offer. He is the founder of the nonprofit Our Heart Speaks, Inc, which supports the patient stories project, where the power of the human spirit is revealed.

Hear an interview with Dr. Rafal about the Our Heart Speaks project on the Hand to Hand Show.

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Aithan Shapira, MFA, PhD

Board Member

Aithan Shapira, MFA, PhD brings a nontraditional background to the fiber of corporate innovation, branding, marketing, and culture-shaping strategy with a PhD in creative processes, two Masters’ in Art, and 10+ years of experience challenging assumptions with graduates in art and design programs across three continents. His work and research has been implemented in an upcoming manuscript Making to Think and invited his thought leadership from a TEDx Talk to launching MIT’s Hacking Arts Fest to work with Summit Series.

Furthermore, he has pioneered progressive programs in the innovation sphere at MIT Sloan School of Management, the Royal College of Art and Design, Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston, and Berklee College of Music Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship, and was awarded a research grant to live and work with an Aboriginal Australian community over three years in order to study innovation in cultures of survival.

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Michael McWilliams

Board Member

Michael McWilliams is a veteran public affairs strategist, executive, and communicator with experience across diverse fields. He now works on building organizational capacity in key facets of nonprofit fundraising, communication, and advocacy. Michael repatriated to the US from Stockholm, Sweden in 2010 upon finishing work with an international NGO focused on the growing global water crisis.

He had earlier worked in the American public policy and nonprofit arenas after a career in the corporate and entrepreneurial worlds. He is the Excutive Director of The Global Institute for the Arts and Leadership.

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Joan Baranow, PHD

Advisory Board Member

Joan Baranow is Professor of English at Dominican University of CA. She founded and teaches in the Narrative/Poetic Medicine track of Dominican’s Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing. Her poetry collections include In the Next Life, Living Apart, and two poetry chapbooks. In 2020 she edited Still You: Poems of Illness and Healing, an anthology of poetry published through Wolf Ridge Press, an independent poetry press she formed with her husband Dr. David Watts.

Together, they produced the PBS documentary Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine. Her feature-length documentary, The Time We Have, presents an intimate portrait of a teenager facing terminal illness.

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Alexander Batthyany, Ph.D

Advisory Board Member

Alexander Batthyany holds the Viktor Frankl Chair for Philosophy and Psychology at the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein. He teaches theory of Cognitive Science at Vienna University’s Cognitive Science Program and Logotherapy and Existential Analysis at the Department of Psychiatry at Vienna Medical School. Since 2012, Batthyany is Visiting Professor for Existential Psychotherapy at the Moscow University Institute of Psychoanalysis.

He is director of the Viktor Frankl Institute and the Viktor Frankl Archives in Vienna and first editor of the 14-volume Edition of the Collected Works of Viktor Frankl. Batthyany has published several books and articles and lectures widely on logotherapy, existential issues in psychology, and the philosophy of psychology.

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Chris Downey, AIA

Advisory Board Member

Chris Downey, AIA is an architect with over 30 years of practice – continuing without sight since 2008. Forty-five years old at the time, Chris had surgery to remove a brain tumor. Though the tumor was successfully removed and found to be benign, the surgery left him completely blind. Convinced his doctors had done all they could do to restore his sight, Chris quickly turned his attention to healing, getting the training that he would need and went back to work at his architectural office exactly one month after the surgery to start exploring how he could rebuild his career as an architect without sight.

Chris soon was asked to join an architectural team that was designing a new Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs in Palo Alto, California. In less than a year since losing his sight, his new disability was turned into a distinct advantage and asset providing unique and valuable insights – designing from within the non-visual experience for the benefit of others that were experiencing sight loss.

Building off the strength of that experience, Chris now specializes in universal design for projects specifically for the blind and visually impaired including blind rehabilitation centers, eye clinics and schools for the blind. Chris also consults on projects including museums, cultural centers and transit projects critical yet typically challenging to the blind and visually impaired where they represent an often-forgotten minority user group. He has been featured in numerous media stories including CBS’ “60 Minutes” and speaks internationally about architecture and disability including his TED Talk, “Design for the Blind in Mind” which has been viewed over a million times. He is also a guest lecturer for the UC Berkeley Department of Architecture, serves on the California commission on disability Access, is the chairman of the Board of Directors for the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired of San Francisco.

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Ashley P. Duggan, Ph.D

Advisory Board Member

Ashley P. Duggan (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara 2003) is Associate Professor in the Communication Department and in the Medical Humanities program at Boston College. Her research addresses the intersections of nonverbal and verbal communication processes, health, and relationships. She holds an additional appointment at Tufts University School of Medicine, and her interdisciplinary research involves integrating reflective practice in medicine, communication processes, and health outcomes.

Her work addresses theoretical explanations for health as unique context for interpersonal and relational processes. Examining communication behaviors in naturalistic interactions, she focuses on the mutual influence process of communication about health and illness and the ways health outcomes are shaped by individual and contextual behaviors.

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General Michael V. Hayden

Advisory Board Member

General Michael V. Hayden, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Before becoming Director of CIA, General Hayden served as the country’s first Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence –and was the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the armed forces. Earlier, he served as Director of the National Security Agency. Currently, he serves as a principal at The Chertoff Group, a security and risk management advisory firm, and as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University.

He is also founder of the Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason. In 2014 he was the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in Intelligence Studies at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. His book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, was a New York Times best-seller and was selected as one of the 100 most notable books of 2016.

His most recent work, The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies, was also a New York Times best seller and addresses the impact of a post-truth world on the intelligence enterprise. He is a stroke survivor living with aphasia and on the Board of the National Aphasia Association.

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Gail Snow Moraski

Advisory Board Member

Gail Snow Moraski, Principal of Results Communications and Research, is a marketing consultant with more than 25 years of marketing and communications and market research experience from corporate marketing and consulting roles. While she can assist clients of all sizes, industries, and profit statuses with both traditional and digital marketing activities, she most enjoys helping non-profit organizations with digital communications challenges and opportunities, such as developing and maintaining effective web sites and social media presences, and online advertising.

Much of Gail’s corporate marketing career was in roles at healthcare organizations. Because of her healthcare background, as well as the fact that Gail is an 11-year survivor of abdominal area/trunk sarcoma, Gail brings both work-related and relevant personal experience to her volunteer social media position at Our Heart Speaks.

Gail’s numerous surgeries and other treatment that have left her with chronic illness, so she well understands the challenges that individuals living with sudden and ongoing illness face and what resonates with them. She is passionate about supporting Our Heart Speaks in our mission to provide the means for individuals living with chronic illness to share their health stories, have a voice, and most importantly, heal.

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Alison Bonds Shapiro, MBA

Advisory Board Member

Alison Bonds Shapiro, MBA, is a stroke recovery teacher, artist, author, and business consultant. In 2002 she suffered two brain stem strokes twenty-four hours apart and was profoundly disabled. Three years later after a remarkable recovery, Alison began teaching narrative re-creation and recovery skills to survivors of neurological illness and injury and to their caregivers and care professionals. Her work has positively affected the lives of thousands of people.

She is the author of Healing into Possibility: The Transformational Lessons of a Stroke, the illustrator of Just for Today, the co-producer of What Now? Sharing Brain Recovery Lessons, the creator of the Mindful Stroke Recovery Course and the co-founder of Wohaula.net a social media, education and training platform designed for survivors, their caregivers and care professionals.

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Mustafa Rfat

Advisory Board Member

Mustafa Rfat is a PhD candidate in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and a McDonnell International Scholar. His scholarship is grounded in disability justice, community engagement, and policy advocacy to advance social determinants of health among people with disabilities and refugees. His work draws on community-based participatory research and has been shared through peer-reviewed publications, national conferences, and collaborations with refugee and disability organizations.

He understands on a personal level with his lived experience as a refugee with a disability, the dual challenges displacement and disability present, while exemplifying resilience, passion and human flourishing.

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Christine Kurczaba-Aquino

Director of Community Outreach

Christine Kurczaba-Aquino PA-C MMSc obtained her Physician Assistant and Masters of Medical Science degrees at Midwestern University in Downers Grove, IL. She completed an Internal Medicine Residency Program for Physician Assistants at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Her Masters of Research Thesis completed at Chicago Institute for Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch was entitled “Modified Nucleosides as Detection Markers for Brain Tumors.”

She has worked clinically as a PA in Otolaryngology and Cardiology and in clinical research positions for pacemakers, defibrillators and cochlear implants at the University of Chicago Medicine.

A lifelong interest in art disciplines connected her to volunteering as Community Outreach at Our Heart Speaks – a nonprofit dedicated to educating the public through sharing narratives on video platform about patient stories emphasizing post traumatic growth as a result of a acquired medical disability. She has contributed to the narratives by locating many of the talented patients/narrators showcased on the OHS website.

The experience of learning how arts exposure, immersion, and the process of creating can promote healing motivated her to complete an Artist Teacher Fellowship at Intuit Art Museum in Chicago. She is currently attempting to locate physical “gallery spaces” inside hospitals or clinics to showcase patient’s artwork. Combining Museum Studies training Medical Arts Advocacy-in order to accomplish this ambitious goal. She serves on the Advisory Board of “Nature as Medicine” under Dr. Susan Abookire and is the Midwest coordinator for Sudden Cardiac Art.

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Ted Meyer

Artist, Videographer and Interviewer

Ted Meyer is an internationally recognized artist, curator, writer, and patient advocate who helps people with illness, students, and medical professionals find meaning and resilience in the face of adversity. His decades-long visual art project, Scarred for Life: Monoprints of Human Scars, chronicles the trauma, healing, and courage of individuals who have lived through accidents and health crises.

A lifelong survivor of Gaucher Disease—a rare enzyme deficiency that affects the bones and joints—Ted brings deep personal insight into the patient experience. His early work, influenced by years of pain and hospital stays, merged art with medical materials. Contorted, skeletal imagery reflected his prognosis that he would not survive past 30. Today, with the aid of new treatments and joint replacements, Ted now considers himself healthy, and his artistic focus has shifted outward, from autobiographical themes to curating and amplifying the stories of others living with illness, disfigurement, and disability.

As Artist-in-Residence at the Keck School of Medicine of USC since 2016, Ted curates exhibitions of artwork by patients whose illnesses align with the medical curriculum. These shows, which are revolutionizing the medical school humanities programs, feature artists living with MS, cancer, Parkinson’s, back pain, and more, and help medical students better understand the human experience of illness. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, a graduate of the Aspen Leadership Seminars, and was the 2017 Sterling Visiting Professor at Stanford University. Ted has been granted both a California Creative Corps Grant and a CAC Individual Artist Fellowship, and was awarded the National Association of Practice’s 2024 Patient Advocacy Award. He has spoken on the main stages of both TEDMED and TEDx Anchorage.

Ted’s work seeks to improve physician-patient communication and promote empathy through storytelling. By sharing his own journey and the powerful stories behind the Scarred for Life series, he opens conversations about pain, disfigurement, survival, and what it means to live fully with chronic illness.

His art has been exhibited internationally in museums, hospitals, and galleries, and his work has been featured by NPR, The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and USA Today. His visual presentations reveal how a life shaped by illness can also be a catalyst for creativity, compassion, and connection.

In addition to his visual work, Ted is a writer, illustrator, and filmmaker. His books include Shrink Yourself: The Complete Do-It-Yourself Book of Freudian Psychoanalysis, The Butt Hello – And Other Reasons My Cats Drive Me Crazy, Cats Around the World, Good Things You Can Learn from a Bad Relationship, and Scarred for Life. His award-winning documentary, King of Dinoland, tells the story of outsider artist Abe DeLacerda. Sheepdogs, a documentary of Ted’s work with military veterans, is currently in festival circuit. His newest book, The Room Sinatra Died In, and Other Medically Adjacent Stories, is now available on Amazon.

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