Shalee Cunneen, MBA

In 2010, Shalee and Blake Cunneen’s daughter Ella had her first seizure, just days after her first birthday. Ella was diagnosed with epilepsy, and unfortunately her battles with epilepsy continue to this day, as she suffers from multiple seizures per week. Ella also has significant developmental and cognitive delays resulting from the epilepsy.

With Ella as inspiration, Shalee became a lived experience reviewer for CURE Epilepsy by contributing to CURE Epilepsy’s grant review process by reading research proposals from a lay perspective and helping to ensure the stakeholder point of view is represented at all stages of the review process.

Shalee became further involved as a CURE Epilepsy Champion, and she and her husband started an annual event called “Ella’s Race to CURE Epilepsy.” This run/walk has raised over $300K for research and brought a significant amount of awareness to their community.

Shalee was born and raised in Seattle and currently resides in La Grange Park Illinois with her husband Blake, and children Ella and Sean. She holds an BA from the University of Washington and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Shalee worked as a Senior Accounting Manager at CareerBuilder before leaving the workforce to care for her daughter full-time.