Board of Directors
Seth Baum, MD, FACC, FACPM, FAHA, FNLA, FASPC
Chairman of the Board
Dr. Seth J. Baum, Chief Medical Officer of Flourish Research, is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Medical School, with advanced fellowship training in cardiology, interventional cardiology, and electrophysiology. He serves as a Clinical Affiliate Professor of Cardiology at the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University.
Dr. Baum is a Master of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology and holds fellowships with numerous organizations, including the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the National Lipid Association. Dr. Baum has published two books and over 150 peer-reviewed papers and abstracts. His work has been featured in leading journals such as Nature, The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Lancet.
Dr. Baum has focused his attention on Preventive Cardiology and Clinical Lipidology since 2000. In 2005, he was one of an inaugural group to become Board Certified by the American Board of Clinical Lipidology. Dr. Baum has served in leadership positions at the American Society for Preventive Cardiology (ASPC) since 2010, becoming its President in 2016. He has been an active member of the Family Heart Foundation since 2015, serving on both its Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board. In 2024 Dr. Baum was elected to become the Family Heart Foundation’s Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dr. Baum has a deep passion for advancing research in cardiovascular and metabolic health, focusing on improving patient outcomes and fostering innovation in the field. In 2013, he was awarded Cleveland Heart Lab’s “Heart Award” for lifelong dedication to Preventive Medicine. In 2019, Dr. Baum he was recognized with Mended Hearts’ biennial Dwight Emary Harken Award.
Dr. Baum founded Excel Medical Clinical Trials (EMCT) in 2016, focusing initially on lipid and lipoprotein disorders. In 2021 EMCT was selected to become one of two platform sites in the founding of Flourish Research. Flourish’s therapeutic area focus has since grown to include three areas: Cardiovascular/Metabolic/Renal, Neuroscience, and Infectious Disease. Since 2022, Dr. Baum has served as Flourish’s Chief Medical Officer, helping grow the organization to a leading site network that currently spans the US.
Allison Jamison, MBA
Vice President and Treasurer
Allison serves the Family Heart Foundation as a volunteer FH Advocate for Awareness and as a Board Member. She earned her BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia, and her MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. She currently works as the Assistant Dean of Admissions for the Daytime MBA program at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.
Brian Mittman, PhD
Board Member
Dr. Brian Mittman is a Research Scientist, Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation, Division of Health Services Research and Implementation Science. He co-leads the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Implementation and Improvement Science Initiative and has additional affiliations with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (voluntary position) and RAND Health Program.
Courtney Riley, MD
Board Member
She is a proud graduate of Clarkson University and attended medical school at New York Medical College. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital. She is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She serves on her hospital’s ethics committee and has played an active role in helping her practice gain statewide and national recognition for outstanding vaccination rates.
As a director she will deepen her commitment to the organization and more effectively support the move to include Lp(a) awareness and research to our mission. She is hopeful that her involvement will allow her to better advocate for universal screening, early detection, increased education, and the discovery and implementation of appropriate interventions. She is honored and proud to do this work in memory of her sister and grandmother. She is further motivated to make a difference for her family, friends, and patients who live with elevated Lp(a) , both known and unknown.
Casey Mulligan Walsh
Board Member
Casey Mulligan Walsh writes about life at the intersection of grief and joy, embracing uncertainty, and the nature of true belonging. Her memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, is forthcoming from Motina Books in February 2025. She has written for The New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, Barren, and numerous other literary magazines. Casey’s essay, “Still,” published in Split Lip, was nominated for Best of the Net. She also serves as an ambassador for the Family Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of the genetic lipid disorder that has affected her family across generations. Casey lives in upstate New York with her husband, Kevin, and too many books to count.
Katherine A. Wilemon
Founder, CEO
Katherine’s own journey to receive an accurate diagnosis and appropriate care for Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) urged her to devote her life to this cause. After being turned away from the ER several times and having a heart attack at 38, Katherine set out to raise awareness of FH and save lives. Katherine has spoken to thousands of people across the US and Europe in her effort to bring FH into focus, both for the public and the medical community. In the U.S. alone there are more than 1.3 million people affected by FH, yet 90% of them are undiagnosed. With the formation of the Family Heart Foundation in 2011, Katherine’s goals are to reverse the shocking statistics and empower people with FH to have longer, healthier lives.
