Meet the Team

Naomi “Amy” Clark is currently the Program Coordinator for the Thom Western Regional Consultation Program (WRCP). A bachelor’s level Educator by training, she has been with Thom as an early intervention (EI) practitioner with over ten years of EI experience. During her EI career, Amy has worked with children and families with an array of needs, including complex medical needs, with a focus on supporting the whole family with a sensitivity to culture and language barriers. In her work, Amy has collaborated with families, medical professionals, and other community partners to support the families she works with. Personally, she is a native of Massachusetts, raised on the South Shore. She and her family have been lead supporters of foster/adoptive care in the State of Massachusetts. She has been a guest speaker for the city of Springfield on National Adoption day and Awarded by the State of Massachusetts for her work personally.

Vanessa Colleran is a special education teacher and reading specialist who has dedicated her life to teaching children in urban school districts. More importantly, she is a mother to three beautiful boys, her oldest son Sam, her son youngest Julian, and her son in heaven, Logan. Logan was born with congenital CMV in June 2017, weighing only 1 lb. 2.2 oz. He was born three months early and very sick with the virus. After 4 months in the NICU and lots of love from his parents, Logan passed away after his strain of CMV became resistant to his antiviral medication. Since then, Vanessa and her husband Peter have become passionate about educating pregnant women and medical professionals about the dangers of CMV and, more importantly, its prevention.

Tracy Evans Luiselli, Ed.D., is Director of the New England Consortium on Deafblindness (NEC), a federally funded grant supported by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). She has developed numerous consultation and training models to support families and their service providers working with children with combined vision and hearing loss (deafblindness). Her professional interests include multi-tiered systems of support (infants to young adults), cortical and cerebral vision impairment, teacher education, and family support. In those areas, she has authored/co-authored peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She presents frequently at local, state and national levels regarding sensory loss and additional disabilities.

Shayne Gaffney holds a bachelor's degree in Health Science in Professional Development and Advanced Patient Care, is a licensed physical therapy assistant in Massachusetts, an associate board member, and the Community Alliance Chair of NH for the National CMV Foundation, and a proud parent of a cCMV affected child.

Talia received her master's degree from Boston College in severe and multiple disabilities in 2018. She is currently employed as an Education Consultant with the New England Consortium on Deafblindness, where she provides training and consultation services to the families and service providers of learners with combined vision and hearing loss. Prior to this, Talia has had experience in a variety of research settings including as a Fulbright scholar and as a research assistant at Boston Children's Hospital. She hopes to contribute to the education and awareness of cCMV through the Massachusetts cCMV Coalition.

Barbara Morris, Au.D., PASC has a Bachelor of Science in Communication Disorders and a Master’s Degree in Audiology, both from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and a Doctorate in Audiology from the Arizona School of Health Sciences at A.T. Still University in Mesa, Arizona. She is Board Certified in Audiology by the American Board of Audiology (ABA) and holds Specialty Certification in Pediatric Audiology from the ABA. She served on the committee which developed the legislation mandating Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) in Massachusetts and is the Coordinator of Newborn Hearing Screening for Baystate Health where she has been a strong advocate of increased testing for cCMV. She is a Past President of the Massachusetts Speech-Language & Hearing Association and Past Chair of the Massachusetts Audiology/Speech-Language Pathology Board of Registration. In addition to her extensive diagnostic and hearing aid work with adults and children of all ages, Barb also provides Educational Audiology services to hard of hearing children mainstreamed in area public schools.