Susan Whitman Helfgot is the widow of Joseph Helfgot, a movie marketer who died receiving a heart transplant in April of 2009. Susan was cast into the national spotlight when a Boston Globe reporter accidentally learned that she had donated her husband’s face in a historic transplant operation.

A decade earlier, a passion for astronomy lured the former financial industry executive back to college. Susan became a co-founder and board member of a charter middle school in Los Angeles before returning to Boston with her family in 2002. She pursued degrees in biology and teaching while caring for her terminally ill mother and ailing husband.

A science background coupled with years as a caregiver and hospital insider give Susan a unique perspective on the people and medicine behind organ transplantation. A lecturer at medical conferences, she has testified before the Massachusetts legislature and appeared on Doctor Oz and Good Morning America. She serves as trustee of the Joseph Helfgot Foundation, created to advance medical research, education and clinical care. An avid runner and stargazer, Susan lives with her children and cocker spaniel in a suburb of Boston.