Barbara Donnell

Barbara Donnell is a San Diego-based philanthropist and type one diabetes (T1D) patient parent advocate. Her work includes coordination of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) /LJI “Meet the Scientists Day” for T1D patients and their families.

Ms. Donnell received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in German from Middlebury College in Vermont. She worked as an educator in Southern California and in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. Her daughter’s diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in childhood led to her passion for pursuing new research and support for scientists studying the autoimmune disease.