U.S. Donor Conceived Council is committed to working with and learning from individuals who have professional and/or personal experience with donor conception. We are honored to consult with the following volunteer members of our Advisory Committee on a regular basis.
Naomi R. Cahn – Family Law & Reproductive Technology Law Advisor
Naomi Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law, Nancy L. Buc ’69 Research Professor in Democracy and Equity, and Co-Director, Family Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law. She has written extensively about reproductive technology, including third party reproduction. Prior to joining the University of Virginia faculty in 2020, she taught at George Washington Law School, where she twice served as associate dean.
Eloise Drane – Egg-Donation Agencies Advisor
Eloise Drane is a six-time egg donor and a three-time gestational surrogate. She founded Family Inceptions, a family building agency specializing in surrogacy and egg donation in 2008. Her passion is to change the narrative of the industry by bringing compassion, intentionality, and empowerment to the process of building a family.
Erin Jackson – President Emeritus
Erin founded USDCC and served as its first president and CEO. She stepped down after 2022 to focus on her other interests and endeavors, including We Are Donor Conceived, which she established in 2016. She continues to lend her expertise to USDCC in the areas of nonprofit management and communications.
Carole LieberWilkins, MA, MFT – Mental Health Advisor
Carole is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice and author of Let’s Talk About Egg Donation: Real stories from real people. Her experience creating a family through adoption and egg donation deepens her understanding of the challenges others face when exploring these complex family building options. Because the focus of her work has always been to help people build healthy families, she is also an advocate for donor conceived people.
Joni Mantell, LCSW – Mental Health Advisor
Joni had 30 years’ experience as a licensed psychotherapist specializing in donor conception and adoption when she learned from a DNA test that she was donor conceived. She has been a longstanding advocate for parental openness, offering counseling and workshops for parents on the topic. She is also passionate about advocating for change within the reproductive medicine industry.
Brad Pfaff – Information Technology Advisor
Brad is the assistant vice president of service experience analytics for Cox Communications, where he has worked since 2014. He was previously a project engineer for Honeywell Aerospace. Brad holds a M.S. in mechanical engineering and a B.S. in mechanical engineering, both from Georgia Tech. In 2019, Brad learned he was conceived through use of an anonymous sperm donor.
Jana M. Rupnow, LPC – Mental Health Advisor
Jana is a licensed psychotherapist who has counseled intended parents via donor conception using a child-focused, didactic approach since 2010. As an adoptee who was told the truth from birth, she understands the value of open and honest communication between parents and children. Her books, Three Makes Baby: How to Parent Your Donor-Conceived Child and the Three Makes Baby Companion Workbook, help parents navigate conversations with donor conceived children.
Sonia Suter – Reproductive Technology Law Advisor
Sonia is the Kahan Family Research Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Health Law Initiative at The George Washington University Law School. She has widely published in the areas of reproductive rights, emerging reproductive technologies, and ethical and legal issues in genetics. Sonia co-authored Genetics: Ethics, Law and Policy and Reproductive Technologies and the Law, and holds an MS and PhD candidacy in human genetics and a JD from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Diane Tober – Egg and Sperm Donation Advisor
Dr. Diane Tober is an associate professor at the University of Alabama Department of Anthropology and Institute for Social Science Research and author of Romancing the Sperm: Shifting Biopolitics and the Making of Modern Families. She has conducted research exploring egg donors’ decisions and experiences since 2013. With funding from the National Science Foundation, she is conducting research comparing egg donation in the United States and Spain.
Eve Wiley, LPC – Fertility Fraud Advisor
In 2018, through commercial DNA testing, Eve discovered she was the product of fertility fraud. Upon learning that only one state had enacted fertility fraud legislation, she became an advocate for fertility fraud victims and people who face legislative roadblocks accessing their genetic identity. Her efforts have led to ten states (seven of which she worked on) passing civil and criminal causes of action, and the filing of a federal bill for fertility fraud victims.