The team behind
Stardust Fertility Foundation
We’ve got a small but mighty team behind the scenes at Stardust Fertility Foundation — all committed to our mission to help Jewish people in the tri-state area bring more babies into the world.
Our executive team
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Alyssa Kolatch
Co-Founder / CEO
Alyssa is an advocate of all things infertility. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from NYU Stern and began her career as a Credit Research Analyst at Barclays. While she enjoyed the fast paced environment of Wall Street, she realized she wanted to spend her professional life helping people. She completed a post-baccalaureate in medical studies and is currently a 4th year medical student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is happily married and has 3 beautiful children.
alyssa@stardustfoundation.org
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Jenn Leffell
Co-Founder / COO
Jenn’s love for helping others combined with her personal experience with fertility issues naturally led her to co-founding Stardust. She serves as a passionate fertility advocate dedicated to realizing the dreams of individuals and couples striving to build their families. Jenn hopes to make a lasting impact on the lives of others, fostering a community where everyone has access to the resources and assistance needed on their fertility journey.
jenn@stardustfoundation.org
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Alex Peyser, MD
Co-Founder / Chief Medical Officer
Alex is a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist at Northwell Health. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center, where she served as administrative chief resident followed by a fellowship in REI at Northwell Health. Having gone through infertility herself, she is passionate about helping others on their path to build their families.
alex@stardustfoundation.org
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Niki Fine
Chief Advancement Officer
Niki Fine graduated NYU with a major in Sociology and minors in Social Work and Child Adolescent Mental Health Studies. After working in the non-profit sector for seven years, she took some time off to be with her twins who were conceived through IVF. Having faced some fertility issues, Niki got involved with Stardust to help advocate for other Jewish families experiencing infertility. After volunteering with Stardust for six months, she joined Stardust’s staff as their Director of Development. Niki loves sports, reading, dogs, traveling, exercising, and spending time with her family!
niki@stardustfoundation.org
Our board of directors
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Anate Brauer MD, MS
Board Member
Anate is a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist/fertility specialist and serves as SGF New York’s IVF Director. She earned her medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical Center. As a former fertility patient, she is passionate about helping patients achieve their family-building goals and enjoys sharing her expertise through social media channels.
anate@stardustfoundation.org
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Justin Korval
Board Member
Justin is a Partner at Apollo Global Management. Since joining the firm in 2006, he has played a leading role in the creation and growth of various initiatives, including Hybrid Value and Opportunistic Credit, and currently serves on the board of directors of New Era Cap, Morton Salt, and Reddy Ice. IVF was fundamental to helping Justin and his wife create a family, and Justin is excited to help facilitate that for others through the incredible work of Stardust.
justin@stardustfoundation.org
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Ben Siegel
Board Member
Ben serves as Chief Operating Officer at Dwight Capital LLC, one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the US. He is responsible for developing plans to realize strategic goals across the organization. Ben spent over ten years at PwC in New York and London, where he specialized in providing advisory services to a host of real estate and hospitality investors. Ben lives in New York City with his wife and two young boys.
ben@stardustfoundation.org
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Ashley Gildin Spitzer
Board Member
Ashley is a fertility warrior and IVF, NICU, and surrogacy mom. She welcomed two babies in 2021, 4 months apart, after a 4-year journey that involved 5 egg retrievals, 9 embryo transfers, 2 surrogates, multiple miscarriages, and surgeries. She carried her daughter and her son was born via her wonderful gestational carrier.
ashley@stardustfoundation.org
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Diana Bryk Straus, MD
Board Member
Diana is a molecular genetics pathologist at Westchester Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at New York Medical College. She received her MD from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed her residency in clinical pathology at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University. She also completed her fellowship in the Division of Personalized Genomic Medicine at Columbia University.
diana@stardustfoundation.org
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Leon Treger
Board Member
Leon works in strategy and operations in tech. He and his husband were fortunate to have four children through surrogacy: one as a twin pregnancy and the other a singleton. Having grown up in a modern orthodox community, he is passionate about helping other Jewish LGBTQ couples achieve their goals of having families.
leon@stardustfoundation.org
Our advisory board
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Darren Bryk – Urology Medical Specialists
Medical Advisor
Dr. Darren Bryk is a urologist who specializes in male infertility. He completed Urology residency at the Cleveland Clinic and an Andrology Fellowship at the University of Virginia.Dr. Bryk’s clinical and academic interests include male factor infertility, erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction, Peyronie’s disease, hypogonadism, male voiding dysfunction, prosthetic urology, urethral reconstruction and vasectomies.
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Felix Cohen, MD, FACOG – Cohen Medical Practice
Medical Advisor
Dr. Cohen is a Board-Certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist, focusing on procreational optimization, fertility evaluation and management, as well as minimally invasive surgery.
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Randi Goldman MD – Northwell Health
Medical Advisor
Dr. Goldman is a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist at Northwell Health.
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Madeline R. Greenblatt – Farrell Fritz, P.C.
Legal Advisor
Madeline Greenblatt is a commercial litigator who is passionate about emotionally supporting individuals through their fertility journey.
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Avner Hershlag MD – Stony Brook University
Medical Advisor
Dr. Hershlag is a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist at Island Fertility.
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Joey Kolatch
Financial Advisor
Joey graduated from the New York University School Of Law. He was a commercial litigator at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison for seven years before moving on to private investing.
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Brian Levine MD – CCRM, New York
Medical Advisor
Dr. Levine is the founding partner and practice director of CCRM NY Board certified Reproductive Endocrinologist.
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Danielle Siegal Goldman – Stein Farkas & Schwartz LLP
Legal Advisor
Danielle Siegal Goldman has a broad range of commercial litigation experience in New York’s state courts, at both the trial and appellate levels. Danielle’s practice primarily focuses on complex commercial and real estate litigation, as well as providing practical, business-oriented solutions for a wide range of real estate commercial disputes and partnership disputes.
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Brittney Sobel – The Sobel Firm, PLLC
Legal Advisor
Brittney is a family and surrogacy law attorney licensed to practice in New York and New Jersey. Brittney is also a surrogacy consultant and uses her personal experience conceiving a child through surrogacy to help guide her clients.
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Arielle Spiegel – CoFertility
Outreach Advisor
Arielle is a Co-Founder, Advisor, and former CMO at Cofertility, a company that makes egg freezing and donation more accessible and ethical while helping match intended parents with egg donors. Prior to co-founding Cofertility, Arielle led digital marketing strategy initiatives at Victoria’s Secret PINK, Coach, and various other consumer brands. After years of infertility, she now has three miracle babies.
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Michael A. Werner MD, FACS
Medical Advisor
Michael A. Werner, MD, is a board-certified urologist, with fellowship training in male infertility and sexual dysfunction. He is an expert in the continually evolving advances in male infertility treatments and is currently the only specialist in the US offering ESSM.
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Zev Williams MD, Ph.D. – Columbia University
Medical Advisor
Dr. Williams serves as the chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
“For gay men, what we’ve learned is that the cost to have a baby is well over $100K. We can’t afford a mortgage, let alone a surrogate! We needed all the help we could get to save up for a surrogate, and Stardust was a big part of making that possible.”
— Grant recipient
