Ashley Valentine

Ashley is a Co-Founder of Sick Cells and the youngest sibling of her family. Her older brother and Co-Founder of Sick Cells, Marqus Valentine, has sickle cell anemia, Hgb ss. Growing up, Ashley spent much of her childhood charming hospital playroom attendants while Marqus was frequently hospitalized for pain crises, fever, and multiple complications from SCD. As an adult, Ashley completed her Master’s in Research Methods from the University Of Aberdeen, Scotland. She focused on disparities in healthcare for people with SCD in London. After graduate school, she worked with University of Illinois in Chicago’s sickle cell program and later transitioned into policy work in Washington, DC. While working as a policy researcher, Ashley successfully wrote sickle cell disease into part of an $8 million Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) funding opportunity to address disparities for adults in the emergency department.

Ashley currently splits her time between working as a sickle cell clinical researcher and building the Sick Cells organization.