Our Team
Christina Roth, Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Christina graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with both departmental honors in Psychology and “honors of greatest distinction” from the Commonwealth Honors College. She is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society, the Psi Chi National Honor Society, and the Alpha Beta Kappa Honor Society, and was the recipient of a Commonwealth College honors research grant to fund her thesis research looking at strengths and competencies in adopted adolescents which Christina then presented at 3 regional conferences and the International Conference on Adoption Research (ICAR3) in Leiden, the Netherlands in 2010. At the age of 14 Christina was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, which has fueled her passion in helping other people living with the disease. In her junior year at UMass, Christina founded the College Diabetes Network (CDN) both as a national organization and as a local chapter at UMass. For her work with CDN, Christina was the recipient of the Bateman Family Memorial Scholarship, the 21st Century Leader Award, the Class of 1941 Humanitarian Award, and the UMass Amherst recipient of the Massachusetts governor’s “29 Who Shine” award. After graduating in May 2011, Christina worked as a research assistant at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, MA, before transitioning to running CDN full-time in 2012. Christina was appointed Chief Executive Officer of CDN in January of 2013, and also spends some of her time working with the research department of the T1D Exchange.
Jo Treitman, Program Director
Jo graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in Neuroscience in 2011 and is now living in Boston. She was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 14 and is now one of the founders of Diabesties, now a program of CDN. Jo has been involved in both JDRF and the ADA since her diagnosis. Following Jo’s diagnosis in 2004, her Grandmother, Ruth Treitman, began to sell her jewelry at the Clever Hand Gallery in Wellesley, MA to benefit JDRF. Jo has spoken at breakfasts and volunteered at JDRF Galas. She has also been a counselor at Camp Carefree, an ADA camp in New Hampshire. Jo spent the spring of her junior year in Copenhagen studying Danish design and neuropsychology at DIS. She realized her passion for science during her time at Harvard University working as a summer student in Dr. Doug Melton’s lab. After graduating, Jo worked as a research technician at Tufts Medical Center in a Biology lab studying the effect of BPA exposure to breast cancer incidence. Jo founded the Wellesley College CDN chapter in 2011 as a senior, and since then, has been an involved member of the team.
Danielle Petrunich, Student Blogger
Dani is a sophomore at Bentley University, majoring in Economics-Finance with a minor in Spanish. At school Dani stays busy as a member of the Honors Program, the Bentley Women’s Varsity Lacrosse team, the Off the Clock A Cappella musical group, and the recently-created campus diabetes club. Dani was diagnosed with Type I diabetes when she was three years old, and she and her family have been involved in the diabetes community ever since. In addition to blogging for CDN, she is the creator of a Twitter account called Diabetic Girl Problems, which she created in the spring of 2012 to share her life as a college-age female diabetic with other young diabetics. In the fall of 2008, Dani wrote and performed an original song about living with diabetes- titled “Walk With Me”- to raise awareness for the Worcester Walk to Cure Diabetes. With the help of some friends, Dani made a YouTube video of the song and performed it at the walk that year. Dani has lived in Massachusetts for the majority of her life and intends to attend grad school and eventually live in Boston post graduation.
