Our Team
Mary Rose Kitlowski
Running On Air was founded by Mary Rose Kitlowski. Mary and her only sibling, Rebekah, have a rare genetic disorder called Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (PCD) which has caused lung damage called Bronchiectasis. With 32% lung capacity, Mary uses supplemental oxygen for exertion. She carries a six pound portable oxygen concentrator (POC). She is a lung transplant candidate – which means she’s approved for transplant but isn’t on the transplant list yet. Mary does races around the country to raise awareness. Her first marathon was the NY Marathon on November 3, 2019. Her husband Ed walked with her carrying the extra batteries for the POC. Mary retired from Federal service in February 2024.
Elizabeth Heinlen
As a relatively healthy and active middle school teacher, Eli’s interest in helping people to have easy access to supplemental oxygen is not immediately apparent. However, while she has dodged the bullet of needing supplemental oxygen, both of her parents have relied on it to prolong their lives. Her dad had agammaglobulinemia, a rare disease which affected his ability to fight off infections and which led to such extensive scarring of his lungs that doctors performed a partial lobectomy. By the time he was in his late sixties, he required oxygen to do any type of strenuous activity. Within a decade, he needed to be on oxygen full-time up until his death. Meanwhile, her mother, who had severe scoliosis, ended up developing mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection likely due to the way the curvature of her spine created pockets in her lungs that were a breeding ground for disease. Her other health impairments led her to need supplemental oxygen for a minimum of 20 out of every 24 hours.
Kathryn Vaughn
Kathy Vaughn is a former copyeditor for the American Diabetes Association and currently works in international development with a focus on gender integration. She holds a Masters in Public Policy and MBA from the University of Maryland College Park, and lives in Catonsville, Maryland. Kathy has run with Mary in the 10k Over the Bay and other races in Maryland.
Kemper Conwell
Kemper has been in the prepress business for 43 years. She started out at EM Typesetting and is currently the owner of Pixels in Charlottesville, VA.
Joanne Cianci Hoff
Joanne Cianci Hoff has 30 years of public policy, public health, federal budget and program management experience, including positions with the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations. Among the many issues she worked on were programs to provide individuals with disabilities with the support needed to stay in or return to the workforce. She holds a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a MPA in Economics and Public Policy from Princeton University.
Anne E. O’Donnell, MD
Anne E. O’Donnell, MD is a professor of medicine at Georgetown University and chief of the division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital as well as the Nehemiah and Naomi Cohen Chair in Pulmonary Disease Research.
Having authored over 40 manuscripts, O’Donnell is an internationally recognized expert in bronchiectasis and respiratory infections. She has been a principal investigator on numerous clinical trials investigating new therapies for bronchiectasis and NTM infections.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from Catholic University of America then went to Georgetown for medical school. Her postgraduate medical education, internal medicine residency and pulmonary diseases fellowship, were also completed at Georgetown. She served in the Air Force at Robert L. Thompson Strategic Hospital, Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, completed her service as a major, then joined Georgetown as a faculty member.
In addition to receiving numerous Georgetown awards, including the Michael J. Caruso Award, the Anatomy Department Award and the Georgetown Clinical Society Award, O’Donnell was also recognized with the prestigious Meritorious Service Award from the Air Force in 1991. O’Donnell is also a long standing member of the Mentored Patient Oriented Research review committee of the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.