The VAA Team
Scott Cupples
Scott L. Cupples is the Chairman of the Board for the Vascular Anomalies Alliance, and lives with a progressive port wine stain birthmark on the left side of his face. After 32 years without treatment, his port-wine stain grew thick and dark with nodules impeding his vision and affecting his quality of life. In 2016, he began laser treatments which helped lighten and smooth his PWS, and now receives annual treatments to ensure the health of his birthmark. With a strong motivation to help families along their journey, Scott is passionate about sharing his unique story with others to best help them navigate through maintaining the health of their birthmark, and their experiences of dealing with a vascular anomaly.
Scott has over two decades in the United States military, and currently serves as a Chief Master Sergeant in the New Jersey Air National Guard. As the Senior Enlisted Leader of the Mission Support Group, Scott oversees all activities of 400+ Airmen in the civil engineering, logistic readiness, security forces, force support, communications, and family readiness sections, serving as the top enlisted advisor to command. In addition to his military service, he has almost a decade in nonprofit experience and 15 years in corporate accounting. Cupples has an education in business, completing his Doctorate of Business Administration & Organizational Leadership in 2023 from Thomas Edison State University. Scott is the proud father of his son Dohnovan, an avid traveler, and loves the adventure of trying new experiences. Through the VAA, Scott’s goal is to continuously increase the scope of impact he and his teammates have on the vascular anomaly community by providing support to those in need.
Corinne Barinaga
Corinne Barinaga currently serves as the Vice-Chair for the Vascular Anomalies Alliance Board. After graduating with a B.A. in communications and advertising from the University of Idaho, Corinne worked as an account executive for a communications company. Corinne took time away from her career to take care of her family and to be active in coaching soccer, volunteering and serving on many boards. Corinne also worked in schools as a substitute.
Corinne and her husband reside in the Pacific Northwest and are proud parents of four sons. Their third son had a large facial segmental hemangioma as an infant. The extensive process of researching vascular anomalies and physicians to help her son, inspired Corinne to help others trying to navigate the field. She has advocated for those living with vascular anomalies since 2003. Serving on the board for the VAA allows Corinne to continue her passion for supporting others through their journey with vascular tumors, malformations and syndromes.
Blake Benedict
Blake Benedict serves as the treasurer for the Vascular Anomalies Alliance board. After graduating from Western Illinois University with a Project Management degree, Blake began working for his family mechanical contracting company in Galesburg, IL where he currently serves as COO of the company. Blake then began his brewing career on the side at a local brewery in 2015, until he opened a brewery and event venue in Galesburg in 2022, Reserve Artisan Ales and The Vault. This is also the location of their annual VAA fundraiser, the G-ALES-Burg Beer Fest. Blake has been on a private lake association board, and he currently serves on the Galesburg Tourism board and IL Craft Brewers Guild board along with the VAA board.
Blake and his wife, Lindsay, who is also on the board, have two sons named Vail & Ezra. Their oldest son, Vail (4) was born with an undiagnosed port wine stain birthmark for the first 3 months of his life. After searching for answers and treatment options that fit their desires for the first 8 months of his life, Blake and his family finally found their diagnosis and treatment plan in New York with Dr. Geronemus, where they continue to go for treatment to this day. Blake and his family hope to help those who feel lost for answers and treatment options find a path in a more rapid manner than they were able to seek answers.
Melissa Carriaga
Melissa Carriaga is honored to serve as the Secretary for the Vascular Anomalies Alliance Board. Her dedication to this role is deeply personal, as her daughter’s experience with a facial port wine stain/capillary malformation has profoundly shaped her commitment to advocacy and education about vascular anomalies. Her daughter receives laser treatments at the Beckman Laser Institute at UC Irvine under the care of Dr. J. Stuart Nelson, a journey that has fueled Melissa's passion for fostering awareness and acceptance of vascular anomalies.
Professionally, Melissa holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing and a Master of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Her extensive career includes teaching Pre-kindergarten through third grade, serving as a district Mathematics Facilitator, and working as a Multilingual Learners Coordinator, where she managed, designed, developed, and monitored implementation of language acquisition programs in compliance with state and federal guidelines. Additionally, Melissa has worked as a consultant for school districts across various states, specializing in both teacher and executive coaching. Fluent in English and Spanish, she currently works as a preschool teacher and Senior Education Consultant. Melissa, her husband Lance, and their three children reside in the scenic mountain state of Colorado.
Jody Lee
Jody Lee is proud and humbled to serve on the Vascular Anomalies Alliance Board of Directors. She has 2 beautiful daughters, 1 of whom lives bravely with a port wine stain/capillary malformation. Her daughter receives laser treatments for her birthmark to keep her skin healthy. Jody hopes that through the VAA, the birthmark community finds a safe, non-judgemental, unbiased and loving space to all share and grow together. Jody and her family founded the Purple Polka Dot Race in 2016 to raise awareness and promote/encourage acceptance for all members of the birthmark community. 2025 will host the 10th annual event and she wishes for you all to be a part of it!
Jody has her Doctorate in Physical Therapy and has been practicing for 20 years. She is married to John and together they have daughters, Meghana (9) and Serena (6). They live in a suburb of Detroit, MI and are immersed in the local Michigan birthmark community. Meghana receives treatment at the University of Michigan under the care of Dr. Orringer.
Lindsay Benedict
Lindsay Benedict is proud to serve on the Vascular Anomalies Alliance Board. She has been passionate to share her journey with her oldest son to help other parents of children with birthmarks. Lindsay has two sons, Vail (4) and Ezra (2), but her first son had an undiagnosed port wine stain birthmark for the first 3 months of his life. She has a commitment through VAA to help educate by distributing informative pamphlets to be given to new parents and clinics to educate those who may have a newborn child with a current or future birthmark, anomaly, or syndrome. Her family found their diagnosis and treatment plan at the Laser & Skin Surgery Center in New York with Dr. Geronemus, where they continue to go for treatment to this day.
Lindsay has her Secondary Spanish Education degree from St. Ambrose University, and then she went on to teach high school Spanish for 8 years to students in grades 9-12 where she resides in Central Illinois. Shortly after the arrival of her son, Vail, she decided to stay home with him to be able to teach him Spanish and to be able to travel to his every 6-8 week trips to NYC for treatment. Outside of public school teaching, Lindsay has taught private adult, homeschool children, and toddler Spanish classes in her free time. Her husband, Blake, who is also on the board, opened a brewery and event venue in their hometown in Galesburg, IL in 2022. Once Reserve Artisan Ales was up and running, Lindsay took on the role as the social media and marketing manager for Reserve Artisan Ales and The Vault. Naturally, she and her husband wanted to give back to the birthmark community. In 2022, they decided to create a yearly beer variant to raise funds, and they called it Brews For Birthmarks. The year after, they decided to create something bigger, the G-ALES-Burg Beer Fest. Lindsay now serves as the Coordinator of the G-ALES-Burg Beer Fest, and she hopes anyone near Galesburg, IL could come and support the 3rd annual beer fest on April 12th, 2025!
Melanie Mandonas
Melanie Mandonas is the proud mother of a son with a port wine stain birthmark. Professionally she is a Managing Director at global investment firm, Cambridge Associates. Melanie manages investment portfolios for foundations, endowments, private clients, and pensions that range in size from $100 million to over $20 billion. She advises on asset allocation and manager selection. Melanie specializes in building hedge fund allocations and sourcing, underwriting, and actively monitoring hedge fund investments globally, with extensive travel throughout developed and emerging markets. Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2010, Melanie held roles as an equity research analyst and as an intern at an investment bank. She is a CFA charterholder. Melanie received her BA in Economics from College of the Holy Cross, where she played Division I varsity tennis and served as team captain. Melanie currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts with her husband and 2 kids; her youngest, James, was born in 2021 with a facial port wine stain birthmark. Melanie is passionate about spreading awareness for all vascular anomalies and about building a strong, inclusive community for those impacted by them.
Megan McNicholas
Megan McNicholas is a proud mother of two children, one of whom was born with PIK3CA-related overgrowth syndrome (PROS), manifested as Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome. She is honored to serve on the Board of the Vascular Anomalies Alliance as a parent representative and advocate for education, awareness, representation and acceptance. On a personal mission to support her daughter in her journey, Megan has been part of the Pennsylvania Purple Polka Dot Race Committee since 2022, bringing Jody and Meghana’s race to the east coast, and assists with promoting initiatives through her daughter’s nonprofit organization, ReMARKable you!
Megan has been a Registered Nurse specializing in Cardiology for over 20 years. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Health (MPH), with a specialization in community health education and promotion, serving as her inspiration to help others understand the significance of vascular anomalies and their related syndromes as well as encourage her daughter to use her own voice to become an advocate and a leader for the vascular anomaly community. Prior to her career as a nurse, Megan served as Director for Chester County Highway Safety Project, Chester County SAFE KIDS and the Lancaster County Safe Communities Project. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband Ryan cheering on her son Maddon in cross country and track and her daughter Maille at her many dance competitions.
Maille McNicholas
Maille McNicholas is a student completing her Senior year of high school and starting her degree in Elementary Education through dual enrollment at Kutztown University. Born with PIK3CA-related overgrowth syndrome (PROS) manifested as Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome, Maille has venous and capillary malformations (port wine stain birthmark) as well as lymphatic malformations and muscle overgrowth of her right leg. She has received treatment since infancy at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Comprehensive Vascular Anomalies Program (CVAP) under the direction of Dr. Denise Adams, and three sclerotherapy treatments to alleviate the pain caused by her venous malformations. Maille is an accomplished competitive dancer and a local teen Titleholder for the Miss America Organization.
When she was twelve years old, Maille decided to make her mark on the world by becoming an advocate for individuals, like her, born with vascular anomalies and related syndromes. She is the Founder of her nonprofit organization, ReMARKable you! whose mission is to not only provide education about vascular birthmarks, anomalies and related syndromes, but also to encourage all individuals with visible and invisible differences to celebrate their unique qualities in order to manifest their genuine selves. She presents at health and wellness fairs, public speaking engagements and elementary centers with her “I am ReMARKable” presentation and children’s book based on her own personal story, No More Leggings for Lainey. Maille is also co-host of the Pennsylvania Purple Polka Dot Race and host of her YouTube interview series called More Than a Birthmark. Through her social media @project.remarkableyou and website www.project-remarkableyou.org, she connects with others to promote her message of what makes you different makes you reMARKable!
Jamie Karch, MD
Jamie Karch, MD, is proud to serve as a medical advisor to the Vascular Anomalies Alliance (VAA) Board of Directors. Jamie brings over a decade of nursing experience across diverse medical fields, having earned her BSN before attending Dartmouth Medical School to fulfill her dream of becoming a physician. Currently, she is completing her transitional year residency at Harvard/Beth Israel’s Transitional Year Program in Boston and later this summer will continue her dermatology residency at Dartmouth Hitchcock Dermatology Clinic.
With a strong passion for working with children with dermatological concerns and vascular anomalies, Jamie has been actively involved in numerous community outreach and advocacy initiatives. As a former advisor for the Vermont Skin Cancer Prevention Task Force, she provided guidance on public education regarding skin cancer prevention. She also served as Director of Community Outreach during her time in medical school, overseeing programs that bridged Dartmouth’s Dermatology Department, Geisel School of Medicine, and local communities of New Hampshire and Vermont. Notably, she led the SPOTS (Sun Protection Outreach Teaching by Students) program, educating middle school students about sun safety and advocating for skin cancer awareness. Her legislative efforts include successfully advancing Vermont’s 2024 legislation regarding sunscreen use in schools and leading Dartmouth’s designation as a Skin Smart Certified campus.