Stefany Shaheen is a passionate advocate for groundbreaking medical research and a successful entrepreneur and business leader.
Stefany is the mother of four children and her eldest daughter was eight-years-old when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Elle nearly lost her life. This, combined with the relentless demands of this dreadful disease, moved Stefany to the work of her life: helping her daughter and millions of others living with chronic diseases. Over 15 years of advocacy, Stefany has helped advance treatments and research for these chronic diseases.
Currently, Stefany is part of a bio-tech initiative based in Manchester’s historic millyard to advance regenerative medicine. She is working to accelerate the development of regenerative therapies for people living with diabetes and other challenging diseases.
Stefany co-founded Good Measures; a small business she helped build to connect people who have chronic conditions with the clinical and decision-making support they need. This work was inspired by her family’s constant struggle to help Elle make decisions about how much insulin to take depending on the food she was eating and her activity level. Good Measures was awarded a suite of patents in the US and ten other countries, for use of technology to help people make real-time decisions about how best to meet their body’s personalized nutritional needs.
Dedicated to finding cures as well as improving treatments for the most costly diseases, Stefany has helped raise millions of dollars for medical research. She is the author of a New York Times best-selling book, Elle & Coach, about her family’s experience with type 1 diabetes. A member of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Stefany worked to raise awareness about the importance of physical activity and access to healthy food.
Stefany was elected to serve on the Portsmouth City Council, where she helped tackle a parking shortage that was threatening local businesses. On the Council, she worked to ensure the safety of the local water supply through comprehensive testing of forever chemicals, or PFAS. Stefany also chaired the Portsmouth Police Commission, where she advocated for resources to ensure public safety, including additional support for the statewide Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce. Appointed by Governor John Lynch, she also chaired the State’s Commission on the Status of Women, ultimately helping transition the unfunded state agency to become part of a vibrant nonprofit.
An alumna of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Shaheen is a graduate of Fairfield University, where she was a Division 1 scholarship athlete. She went on to coach her daughter, Annah, as head coach of the Portsmouth High School volleyball program and was named Division II Coach of the Year. Stefany lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she and her husband, Craig, raised their family.