Research Board of Directors

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Wendy Phillips is the Founder and Executive Director of the Lyme Treatment Foundation, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding access to Lyme disease testing and treatment. She also serves as Chair of the Research Board, leading strategic efforts in scientific collaboration, education, and patient advocacy.

With a background in biochemistry, nonprofit leadership, and public health advocacy, Wendy brings a unique blend of scientific training and lived experience to her work.  

Since founding the Lyme Treatment Foundation in 2018, she has overseen the distribution of hundreds of grants across the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the U.K., helping patients overcome financial barriers to care.  Her leadership has expanded the foundation’s mission to include research partnerships with institutions such as the University of Oxford. 

Wendy previously worked in academic settings including California State University, Long Beach, and Florida Gulf Coast University. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and completed two years of graduate training in biochemistry before withdrawing due to the severity of her illness. She has also contributed to national Lyme policy efforts and spoken publicly on the patient experience, including at events hosted by the Avril Lavigne Foundation and the Health and Human Services Tick-Borne Disease Working Group.

She has also received recognition from policymakers including U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, who commended her leadership in expanding access to care for underserved Lyme patients. 

Wendy is deeply committed to reshaping how persistent infections are viewed and treated, ensuring that patients everywhere are seen, believed, and supported.

Professional Contributions

• Founder & Executive Director, Lyme Treatment Foundation (est. 2018, launched 2019)

• Chair of the Research Board – Lyme Treatment Foundation

• Research Collaborator – University of Oxford

• Speaker – Avril Lavigne’s Fight Lyme concert; Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network

• Former Researcher – CSULB (neurobiology/biochemistry); FGCU (environmental toxicology)

Honors & Recognition

Nominee, Alumni of Distinction – Florida Gulf Coast University (2025)

• Nominee, Alumni Business of the Year - Florida Gulf Coast University (2025) 

• Medical Support Nonprofit of the Year (2024, 2025) 

• Recognized by Senator Marco Rubio for leadership in Lyme advocacy

• Featured – Health and Human Services Tick-Borne Working Group, Lyme Times, FGCU 360

Affiliations

• Center for Lyme Action

• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

• National Association of Environmental Medicine

Dr. Caitlin Doody is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and founder of Rise Wellness LLC, where she is committed to delivering patient-centered, personalized care with a strong focus on Lyme disease and tick-borne illnesses. With over a decade of healthcare experience, Dr. Doody has devoted her clinical and academic career to improving outcomes for patients affected by complex, persistent infections—especially those with delayed diagnoses and multisystem symptoms. She provides expert care in acute and chronic Lyme disease, co-infections, pediatric and adult tick-borne illness management, and tick bite prophylaxis.

Dr. Doody’s doctoral research examined the relationship between Uncertainty in Illness and PTSD symptoms in adults with Chronic Lyme Disease and is currently in manuscript preparation, with publication anticipated in 2025.

Her clinical journey began in New York’s Hudson Valley as an infusion specialist treating pediatric and adult Lyme patients, and continued through advanced training at major academic medical centers in New York City, where she also gained experience in neurology and interdisciplinary care.

Dr. Doody is honored to be joining the Lyme Treatment Foundation Research Board, further contributing her clinical and academic expertise to advance the field of Lyme disease research and care.

Professional Affiliations

• International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS)
• Nurse Practitioner Association of New York State (NPA)
• American Nurses Association (ANA)

Professional Contributions

• 2016: Poster Presentation, Oncology Nursing Society Congress – An organizational, interdisciplinary education program to improve staff knowledge of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery
• 2016: Educational Program Development, NYU Langone Health – Continuing education for nursing staff on Gamma Knife Radiosurgery
• 2016: Co-author, Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery – Quality of the Patient Experience during Radiosurgery: Measurements toward Improvement
• 2025 (expected): Lead author, manuscript on PTSD and Uncertainty in Illness in adults with Chronic Lyme Disease

Awards & Recognitions

• Harriet R. and Ronald M. Feldman Nursing Student Writing Award

Ridge Dershem has a degree in Biology that he has utilized for over a decade across multiple disciplines ranging from the field, medical, and biomedical realms of research. He has a strong predilection for the mountains and rural communities where Lyme borne ticks are most prevalent.  Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, he became familiar with Lyme’s Disease at an early age when a close family member was severely impacted by the disease.

As he bolstered his lab skills, ironically enough, most of his day-to-day work included what are now the two gold standards for testing for Lyme’s Disease. Ridge has robust experience isolating proteins, running enzyme immunoassays and western blot assays. As the lead author on multiple publications in high-ranking peer reviewed journals, you can find his skills at work. The same skills that he will proudly utilize to advance the research arm of the Lyme Treatment Foundation. 

Professional Contributions

-  2014: Poster Presentation-Biology 

Department-Dickinson College 

-  2016: Poster Presentation-American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery

-  2017: Lead Author, “Changes in Telomere Length 3-5 Years after Gastric Bypass Surgery”-Internation Journal of Obesity

-  2018: Biology Department Seminar Series Speaker, “Rare and Synonymous Variants in the DiscovEHR Cohort”-Dickinson College

-  2018: Contribution Acknowledgement “SELEX and SHAPE reveal that sequence motifs and an extended hairpin in the 5’ portion of Turnip crinkle virus satellite RNA C mediate fitness in plants”-Virology

-  2019: Lead Author, “Rare-Variant Pathogenicity Triage and Inclusion of Synonymous Variants Improves Analysis of Disease Associations of Orphan G Protein-Couple Receptors”-Journal of Biological Chemistry

-  2020: Lead Author, “Familial Hypocalciuric Hypercalcemia Type 1 and Autosomal-Dominant Hypocalcemia Type 1: Prevalence in a Large Healthcare Population”-The American Journal of Human Genetics 

-  2024: Co-Author, “Rare GPR37L1 Variants Reveal Potential Association between GPR37L1 and Disorders of Anxiety and Migraine”-The Journal of Neuroscience 

Previous Affiliations

-  Biology Department, Dickinson College

-  Obesity Institute, Geisinger Medical Center

-  Department of Functional and Molecular Genomics, Geisinger 

-  Department of Biomedical Sciences, Florida Atlantic University-Charles E Schmidt College of Medicine