Naa Amissah-Hammond (she/her/hers) is a Black, immigrant, queer, femme and the Chief Strategy Officer with Groundswell Fund, a public foundation that strengthens U.S. movements for reproductive and social justice.

At Groundswell, Naa leads strategy development, helping to create alignment and impact across Groundswell’s grantmaking, capacity building, and funder organizing efforts.

In her tenure at Groundswell, Naa has supported hundreds of reproductive justice, birth justice, and social justice grantee partners as both a Program Officer and a Grantmaking Director.

Naa is deeply committed to organizing funders and donors to return resources to frontline movements and communities that are fighting for justice and liberation.

Naa currently serves on the Board of Directors of Funders for Reproductive Equity and the Steering Committee of Funders for Birth Justice and Equity. Prior to joining Groundswell, Naa worked for Funders for LGBTQ Issues to mobilize philanthropic resources to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities.

Over the last 15 years, Naa has worked in philanthropy, development, and grassroots organizing with several U.S. organizations committed to gender, racial and economic justice, including FIERCE, Third Wave Fund, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Queers for Economic Justice, and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.

Elise Belusa is the Executive Director of the Tara Health Foundation. As Executive Director, Elise leads Tara Health’s operations and strategic initiatives, including overseeing the organization’s spend-down efforts, while also serving as a key spokesperson to advance Tara’s mission, vision, and values. Before joining Tara, Elise worked with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California, San Francisco, Ibis Reproductive Health, and the Harvard School of Public Health. She brings a background in domestic and international reproductive health research and service delivery, including working with women in Indonesia, Kenya, Senegal, and throughout the United States. Elise received a B.A. from the University of Minnesota and earned a Masters of Science in Reproductive & Sexual Health Research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Sona Smith, (she/her,) is the Birth Justice Program Officer at the Ms. Foundation. She has been working in non-profit and movement spaces for over 15 years, with experience developing, implementing and managing innovative programs that serve young people in Chicago and beyond. She has been deeply committed to improving the lives of youth, families, and organizations in disinvested communities. Throughout her career she has worked for various organizations, including Chicago Volunteer Doulas as the Executive Director. She has a rich history in youth development, program management, leveraging community support and resources, developing coalitions and building relationships with a shared sense of purpose. Her work in the birth justice movement has included serving as a birth doula and lactation peer counselor for families in Chicago and participating as one of the first members of Health Connect One’s Birth Equity Leadership Academy.

Currently she sits on HMBANA Donor Milk Health Equity Task Force and is recent a graduate of both the Cultivate Women of Color Leadership Cohort, and Rockwood Leadership Institute Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Fellowship. Most recently she has graciously served as Executive Director of Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, a youth centered reproductive justice organization located in Chicago. Sona is a mother of three amazing children Aya Sol, Ameen Naji, and Ajani Najim. Her commitment to birth and reproductive justice was birthed through her lived experiences as a Black woman and mother navigating harmful systems of oppression and injustice as she was becoming a parent.

Dr. Arthur R. James is a retired Obstetrician, Gynecologist, and Pediatrician who has been involved in the care of underserved populations for his entire medical career.  During his career he has been the Medical Director of two different Federally Qualified Health Centers, Medical Director of Bronson Methodist Hospital’s Women’s Care Clinic, and Founding Medical Director of Borgess Medical Center’s Women’s Health Office. In each of these efforts, he was instrumental in expanding services to indigent patients, patients using drugs, HIV-positive pregnant patients, and teens. He is also the founder and former Medical Director of the Kalamazoo County Fetal and Infant Mortality Review team and, for many years, led Kalamazoo County’s efforts to reduce infant mortality.  During his tenure in Kalamazoo the Black/White racial disparity in infant mortality decreased from 3x to 1.4x and, for a brief moment Kalamazoo County went from having the highest Black infant mortality rate in the State of Michigan to having the lowest Black infant mortality rate in the State. He was also the former Director of the State of Michigan’s Infant Mortality Think Tank.  He is a former Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pediatrics at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Co-Chair of the Ohio Collaborative to Prevent Infant Mortality, and Senior Policy Advisor to the Ohio Department of Health (2011-2016). 

He has also been a member of the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality (SACIM), a former member of the Board of Directors for the National Healthy Start Association, a former board member for the Centering Healthcare Institute, Inc., former Executive Director of The Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, former co-chair for the Centers for Disease Control and March of Dimes Health Equity workgroup,  former Senior Consultant to First Year Cleveland (a Cuyahoga County community-wide effort to decrease the infant mortality rate and eliminate racial disparities in birth outcomes), former Evaluator for the Indianapolis Healthy Start Project, former Board member for the Black Mothers Breastfeeding Association, founding co-principal investigator for the national AIM-Community Care Initiative (a national program to decrease the racial disparity in maternal morbidity and mortality), and (after more than 100-years) he was the first African American member of the Franklin County Public Health Department’s Board of Directors.  From 2019-2024 he led the Faculty Planning Committee for the Healthy Start Technical Assistance Service Center at the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality. 

Dr. James has received numerous local and national awards for his advocacy to achieve equity in birth outcomes; most recently he was the 2022 American Public Health Association’s Martha May Eliot Award recipient (awarded to an individual or organization who has had a national impact on improving Maternal Child Health).  Although the award has been given annually since 1964, Dr. James is the first African American male recipient.  He has also been named the 2023 award recipient of the National Council of Negro Women, Columbus Section’s  Outstanding Achievement and Leadership Award for his work to improve birth outcomes in Ohio.  He is also a frequent national speaker on maternal and infant morbidity and mortality, especially regarding the national racial disparity in birth outcomes.

Dr. James believes that:

• RACE is a social construct, not a biological construct
• The notion of “human hierarchy”, that some of us are better than and, therefore, more deserving than others of us is not true
• The international genome project has taught us that all humans are 99.9% genetically the same
  • This clearly implies that birth inequities do not occur because of biological or physiological racial “differences”.
  • Achieving equity (as noted by Dr. Camara Jones) will require at least three things:
    1. Respecting all individuals and populations the same,
    2. Recognizing and rectifying past historical injustices and
    3. Taking a targeted or proportionate universal approach; providing the most assistance to the groups experiencing the worst outcomes.
  • A race-neutral approach will not result in achieving equity.

Improvements in health care alone will not result in health equity.  The “syndemic” nature of our challenge requires improvements in domains other than health care. Therefore, addressing upstream “moral” determinants (the will to make the changes necessary to achieve equity), structural determinants, and social determinants must become a larger part of our work.  Our initial goal should be to decrease racial disparities, then to achieve overall equity and our long-term goal should be to create a society that has “zero tolerance” for race-based inequities. 

Crystal D. Charley is a distinguished community organizer, activist, and advocate renowned for her commitment to reproductive justice and civil rights. A proud mother, she holds an MBA in Public Administration and is certified as a perinatal doula and educator. In 2023-2024, Crystal was selected as a fellow for the Black to the Future Public Policy Institute, a program of the Black to the Future Action Fund. This fellowship emphasizes policy advocacy and leadership training, equipping community leaders with the tools needed to empower Black communities and cultivate independent Black political power.

Currently, Crystal serves as the Director of Back in Our Hands Birth and Wellness for the Greater Mount Zion Community Development Corporation, where she fosters a nurturing and innovative environment for maternal and infant care. In this role, she collaborates with community stakeholders to ensure that services meet the needs of families, with a particular focus on Black families in Trenton, NJ. Additionally, she is a Senior Organizer for Salvation and Social Justice, leading vital campaigns centered on Black maternal health.

As the Founder of Melanin and Maternal Wellness, a village-centered organization focused on birth and reproductive justice, Crystal is deeply committed to eradicating disparities in Black maternal health. She is also a co-author of the award-winning reproductive health curriculum, My Black Health is Beautiful, a new lesson plan series that addresses reproductive health equity and Black maternal health. Her extensive training as a Certified Shafia Monroe Consulting (SMC) Full Circle Doula Birth Companion enables her to provide comprehensive perinatal doula services, including prenatal, labor and delivery, and postpartum care, further solidified by her graduation from the Commonsense Childbirth Institute, Childbirth Educator Course.

Crystal’s influence reaches nationally through her involvement with the National Perinatal Task Force and the Board of Trustees for the Center for Health Equity and Wellbeing, a Public Health Institute. She actively participates on the Board of Directors for the Fair Share Housing Center, Planned Parenthood of North, Central, and Southern New Jersey, and the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Before transitioning to her full-time career in health equity and reproductive justice, Crystal served as the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director of Policy, Research, and Planning, and the Director of Local Programs and Services. Her role involved shaping research-driven policy and its implementation, where she played a pivotal part in critical initiatives such as the establishment of administrative procedures for legislation like the A4663 Restorative Justice Bill. Demonstrating her managerial expertise, she supervised five units of managerial staff comprising approximately 40 employees, ensuring optimal operational efficiency. Crystal exemplified professionalism and diplomacy in managing communications, coordinating personnel actions, and preparing comprehensive reports that informed decision-making. She also successfully led the planning and execution of major events, including the New Jersey JDAI conference, which attracted over 600 attendees.

A steadfast member of the NAACP New Jersey State Conference, Crystal currently serves her third term as the 2nd Vice-President and is a Silver Life Member. She chairs the Women in NAACP (WIN) for the New Jersey State Conference.

Her dedication has garnered recognition from numerous media outlets, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Burlington County Times, the Grio, and many others. As a sought-after speaker, Crystal regularly presents at conventions and panels on vital topics such as reproductive justice, Black maternal health, civil rights, systemic racism, diversity and inclusion, and health equity.

Beyond her professional endeavors, Crystal is a proud mother and an active member of Jack and Jill of America, Incorporated, Burlington County Chapter, emphasizing her commitment to fostering positive development and opportunities for children.

With her extensive background and unwavering dedication, Crystal Charley is a formidable force in the fields of reproductive justice, civil rights, and Black maternal health. Her tireless advocacy profoundly impacts countless individuals and communities as she continues to champion a more just and equitable society.

Nashira (she/her), is the daughter and great-granddaughter of midwives. She experienced firsthand the sacred care of community midwives at the home births of her siblings in 1987 and 1989 and her own two children in 2013 and 2017. These births transformed her worldview and put her on a path to receive a big assignment from elder midwives who first held the vision for a birth center in Roxbury in the 1980s. 

Katherine is a Certified Nurse Midwife with a long-held commitment to health equity and social justice. She is the Policy Director for the Neighborhood Birth Center, working to open Boston’s first birth center and increase access to midwifery care in the state. Prior to that, Katherine was the Associate Chief of Midwifery at Massachusetts General Hospital successfully leading programs to address the social determinants of health and expanding family planning, including abortion services, to community health centers. Katherine was among the first midwives to be appointed as teaching faculty at Harvard Medical School. Katherine is a past-president of the Massachusetts Affiliate of the American College of Nurse Midwives and currently serves as the Legislative Co-Chair. Katherine completed her midwifery education at Yale University and her BA in Women’s Studies/Anthropology at Barnard College. In 2022, she was inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Nurse Midwives for her contributions to the field of midwifery.

Ebony has served as the Director of Midwifery at Community of Hope since 2015. She leads a team of primarily Black midwives serving patients in under-resourced communities in Washington, DC. She was formerly the Administrative Chief of Midwifery Service at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. She completed her nursing education at Georgetown University, Masters in Midwifery at Jefferson University, and her Doctor of Arts in Nursing Practice at Frontier Nursing University.

She was recognized as a Johnson & Johnson Hero Among Us in 2022. In 2019 she was inducted as a Fellow into the American College of Nurse Midwives. In 2018, she completed Duke University and Johnson & Johnson Nursing Leadership Fellowship. She is adjunct faculty at Georgetown University and guest faculty at IHI (Institute of Health Improvement) focused on rebuilding systems to address racism and health equity. Her advocacy work has included multiple congressional briefings creating awareness around the need for policy changes to reduce maternity care disparities.

Dr. Marcelle is known for her passion in midwifery and midwifery’s role in reproductive justice. She has built culturally aware clinical models of care specifically for under resourced Black women. She is currently serves on the following boards: National Association for the Advancement of Black Birth and American Association of Birth Centers. In 2019 she was appointed to the District’s Inaugural Maternal Mortality Review Committee.

Kelly is a well-respected and innovative nonprofit leader in Washington, DC. For over 30 years, she has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of people experiencing poverty and homelessness in Washington, DC through providing direct services as well as finding long-term solutions through system change. Her bold leadership in housing systems and healthcare delivery is transforming care in both fields.

Kelly has been President and CEO of Community of Hope (COH) since 2001. Her leadership and foresight have grown COH from a budget of $1.8 million to $52 million, allowing the organization to annually serve the needs of about 20,000 people. Founded in 1980, COH’s mission is to improve health and end family homelessness to make Washington, DC more equitable. Kelly has led the organization through four strategic plans and multiple capital projects.

Kelly has provided leadership at a city level in transforming systems to help low-income families. Since 2006, Kelly has served as a member of the Mayor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness, including co-chairing the Strategic Planning Committee. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the DC Primary Care Association and as a member of the Federal City Council.  She is a member of the 2006 class of Leadership Greater Washington. She received a Master’s in Business Administration from Georgetown University and has a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

Kelly has won numerous awards, including the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation’s Exponent Award in 2009, Washington Women of Excellence Award in 2015, the Washington Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business Award in 2017 and the Washington Business Journal’s Innovators in Health Care; Women’s Health Advocate Award in 2024.

Kelly previously served as Executive Director of Hannah House, a transitional housing program for homeless women in the District of Columbia, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband Kevin McShane, and they are parents to three adult children.

Aimée Brill, MSW, is an experienced facilitator, consultant, and birth justice activist dedicated to transforming perinatal healthcare by integrating equitable, person-centered, and respectful maternity care practices at both the national and international levels. As the co-founder and co-director of JustBirth Space and Village Birth International (VBI), Aimée has driven systemic change and accountability within maternal health, operationalizing birth justice principles to address pervasive gaps in care. She supports institutions in addressing systemic oppression in healthcare by consulting on equitable, anti-racist frameworks and their implementation.

Since 2003, Aimée has practiced as a maternal health professional, providing local, national, and international expertise in advocacy, consultancy, mentorship, and community doula training. She helped to establish a Ugandan-led mobile midwifery clinic in 2006, bringing essential midwifery care to communities in northern Uganda. In 2011, VBI founded Syracuse, New York’s first community-based doula collective, advancing community-led maternal health support.

Aimée’s collaboration with Ancient Song Doula Services and Every Mother Counts led to the co-authorship of “Advancing Birth Justice: Community-Based Doula Models of Care for Ending Racial Disparities,” highlighting the role of community-based doula models in Medicaid reimbursement strategies. Her consulting portfolio includes respected institutions and presentations at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Wagner College; hospitals such as Upstate Medical Hospital, Montefiore Hospital, and NYU Langone Hospital; as well as organizations like the NYC Department of Health—Healthy Women, Healthy Futures; Public Health Solutions; the International End of Life Doula Association; Every Mother Counts; Doulas of North America; and the NJ Academy for Family Physicians, among others.

Aimée recently received her Master of Social Work from Rutgers University, focusing on solutions to addressing perinatal mental health disparities. She believes that healing is essential for collective change and she is committed to centering birth justice models of care through the innovative work at JustBirth Space.

Chanel Porchia-Albert CD, CPD, CLC, CHHC, is a prominent health policy advocate and co-director of JustBirth Space, known for her transformative contributions to reproductive and maternal health equity across city, state, and federal platforms. As the founder and president of Ancient Song Doula Services, Chanel has led vital policy initiatives to address racial disparities in maternal care, advocating for Black and Latinx communities and championing reproductive justice. Her influence in health policy has sparked collaborations with the NYC Department of Health, AMCHP, and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, where she has presented her work on the critical need for culturally respectful, equitable maternal care.

At the federal level, Chanel has advised policymakers, including Vice President Kamala Harris, on advancing Black maternal health and birth justice, helping to shape initiatives like Medicaid reimbursement for doulas. In New York City, she has worked to establish Medicaid Doula Hubs in partnership with community organizations and contributed to the Baby Dove Black Birth Equity Fund, a program that provides funding for doula services nationwide with a focus on supporting Black women and birthing individuals.

In her city-level work, Chanel has contributed to the Respectful Care at Birth guide and partnered with Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman to develop a birthing center to serve teen and underserved populations. Chanel’s work at JustBirth Space, in tandem with her policy advocacy, continues to drive systemic change and create equitable, safe, and empowering healthcare for all birthing individuals.

Eugene Declercq, Ph.D., M.B.A., is a Professor of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health and Professor on the faculty of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Boston University School of Medicine. He’s collaborated on 4 studies involving 6 reports on women’s experiences in childbirth entitled Listening to Mothers and is currently part of the team working on a new 2024 survey. Dr. Declercq is the creator of the website www.birthbythenumbers.org. His recent research has focused on maternal mortality and severe morbidity and he’s currently a member of the Massachusetts Maternal Mortality Review Committee.

Natacha Blain, JD, PhD, serves as the Senior Board Director of the Board on Children, Youth and Families (BCYF) and the Committee on Law and Justice (CLAJ) at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. She has over 25 years of experience working with policymakers and senior legislative officials on a variety of social justice issues and campaigns including serving as a Supreme Court Fellow, Chief Counsel to Senator Dick Durbin on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Lead Strategic Advisor for the Children’s Defense Fund’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign. Prior to joining the National Academies, Dr. Blain served as Associate Director/Acting Executive Director of Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families (GCYF). There she played a critical role in helping convene and engage diverse constituencies, fostering leadership, collaboration and innovation-sharing through a network of funders committed to the enduring well-being of children, youth and families. Dr. Blain earned her Master of Science and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Allegheny University of Health Sciences and MCP – Hahnemann University (now Drexel University) respectively, and her Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Villanova School of Law.

As the founder of The Shades of Blue Project, Kay Matthews and her team are on a mission to uplift all birthing individuals with the care, respect, and dignity they deserve – no matter their social status or birth outcome. They focus on the birthing experience, and this is how they bridge the gaps: by acknowledging everyone’s birth story matters. Through education, advocacy, and support, they are dedicated to helping birthing individuals of color whose lives are impacted by racial disparities that amplify their birthing struggles. It is from her own personal experience of infant loss and postpartum depression, that Kay has recognized a critical diversity gap in mental health resources and emotional support for Black and minority birthing individuals which is what she is working to dismantle through her work and advocacy.

Jamarah Amani, LM is a community midwife who believes in the transformative and healing power of birth and that every baby has a human right to human milk. Her mission is to do her part to build a movement for Birth Justice locally, nationally and globally. Jamarah is the architect of the Birth Justice framework, the Black Midwives Model of Care and the Birth Justice Bill of Rights. Jamarah identifies as Black, Femme and Queer.

A community organizer from the age of sixteen, Jamarah has worked with several organizations across the United States, the Caribbean and in Africa on various public health issues, including HIV prevention, infant mortality risk reduction, access to emergency contraception and access to midwifery care. As a birth worker and activist, Jamarah has been tackling issues of racial justice, including the epidemics of Black maternal and infant morbidity/mortality for over fifteen years. She is currently the Executive Director of Southern Birth Justice Network, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization working to expand the Birth Justice movement and to make midwifery and doula care accessible to marginalized communities. She is also the co-founder of National Black Midwives Alliance, the only national professional association in the U.S. specifically for midwives of African descent, and a founding member of the Queer and Transgender Midwives Association.

Jamarah is the recipient of the 2019 Trailblazer Award from the City of Miami, which proclaimed a day in her honor- Jamarah Amani Day, celebrated annually on March 14. She has been featured in a variety of media outlets including PBS, NPR, NBC and publications such as Vox, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Washington Post, among others. She has written for news outlets including the Miami Times and Miami Herald. Jamarah recently received the inaugural Umm Salaamah Sondra Abdullah- Zaimah Birthworker Award from Black Mamas Matter Alliance. In addition to parenting four children and watching the sunrise whenever possible, Jamarah offers midwifery care to families in South Florida and teaches workshops on Birth Justice to organizations across the United States.

Jamarah is currently producing a documentary entitled Legacy Power Voice: Movements in Black Midwifery with her partner, filmmaker Karyl-Lyn Sanderson.

Kiara Cruz is Senior Research Analyst with the Research and Strategy Team at Reproductive Health Impact. She is also a doctoral candidate who has expertise in centering Black and Brown women’s experiences to illuminate and identify how systems work to reinforce and create overlapping layers of hardship. She has nearly 10 years of experience working with public health agencies, community-based organizations, and non-profit organizations to address and dismantle maternal health inequities embedded in our healthcare and public health systems. She is the Research Director with the Research & Strategy Team at Reproductive Health Impact.

Susan Perez is a health services researcher whose research focuses on centering the voices, needs and experiences of birthing people in policy, education, and quality improvement. She has collaborated with the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, the American Board of Internal Medicine, the California Healthcare Foundation, and the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative to address health inequities through multifaceted approaches such as, measure development, health education campaigns, and provider education and tools.  She is a research consultant with the Research & Strategy Team at Reproductive Health Impact.

Zea Malawa is a mother, pediatrician and public health professional committed to improving health outcomes for children of color. Upon completing her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, she earned a medical doctorate from UCLA and a master’s degree in public health from UC Berkeley. Currently, Dr. Malawa is the director of Expecting Justice, a public health program that uses systems change and justice-oriented approaches to dismantle racism and close the racial gap in birth outcomes. In that capacity, she directs the Abundant Birth Project, the first pregnancy Guaranteed Income program in the US. She is the Perinatal Equity Medical Director at the San Francisco Department of Public Health and Adjunct Faculty at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. She also sees patients at General Hospital in San Francisco and serves as the Vice Chair of San Francisco’s Department of Early Childhood Commission.

Michaela Taylor is a registered nurse and MPH graduate from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Her clinical experience includes health promotion, disease management, and public health nursing. She’s worked specifically with adolescents who were in the foster care system and/or were involved in the juvenile criminal legal system. Through her clinical experience, she became aware of the ways discriminatory health and social policies often take advantage of, rather than support people who have been marginalized. This drove her passion to address the social and systemic injustices that create health inequities among communities of color in the U.S. This passion is what brings her to her work with Expecting Justice where she is the Senior Manager for the Abundant Birth Project.

Marna Armstead has over twenty years as an entrepreneur and business developer. She is both a co-founder and the Executive Director of SisterWeb, A Community Doula Network in San Francisco, CA. In her role, She drives SisterWeb’s swift programmatic and fiscal expansions. She also operates Marna Mama Doula, which provides private doula consultations and services to women and families of color in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the nation.

Additionally, Marna has also built an extensive career in the printing and design industry. She is skilled in Copywriting, Print & Graphic Design, Branding Consulting, Event Planning, Project Management, Advertising & Marketing, Business Development Consulting, Financial Planning, and Business Management.

Marna enjoys spending time with her amazing, college-aged daughter, with whom she loves cooking, gardening, TV/Movie binging, reading, brunching, singing karaoke, and watching cat videos.

Carol Sakala, PhD, MSPH, is a nationally recognized thought leader in maternal health and maternity care, with expertise in maternity care system transformation and high-performing maternal care models. She is senior director for maternal health at the National Partnership for Women & Families and has led the organization’s maternal health portfolio for more than a decade. 

Dr. Sakala is lead author of 2024 reports on Realizing the Potential of Maternity Care Payment Reform. She was a member of the Clinical Episode Payment Workgroup of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN), which developed guidance on maternity care episode payment, and of the strategy team that led the LAN’s Maternity Multistakeholder Action Collaborative. Her considerable involvement with maternity care performance measurement includes serving for many years as co-chair of the National Quality Forum’s Perinatal and Women’s Health Standing Committee and on numerous other measurement-related advisory bodies. Among many other advisory bodies, she was a member of the National Academies for Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Study Committee on Assessing Outcomes by Birth Setting. She is the lead author of recent major reports on several high-performing maternal care models—midwifery care, community birth settings, and doula support. She works to delineate health care’s role in meeting the social, mental health, and physical health needs of childbearing families and is the lead author of Raising the Bar for Maternal Health Equity and Excellence: Actionable Strategies for Healthcare Systems.

Dr. Sakala has been an investigator on all Listening to Mothers surveys, beginning in 2002. She currently serves as principal investigator of the Fourth National Listening to Mothers Survey, which will begin to report a rich array of data about views and experiences of childbearing women and people with 2023 births early in 2025.

Carol Sakala leads maternal health and maternity care programming at the National Partnership for Women & Families. She is a long-time maternity care advocate, educator, researcher, author and policy analyst, with a continuous focus on meeting the needs and interests of childbearing women and their families. Sakala sits on advisory bodies and work groups focusing on payment reform, performance measurement and other ways to improve the quality of maternity care. She has been an investigator on all national Listening to Mothers surveys (2002-) and was principal investigator of the most recent Listening to Mothers in California survey. She helps create or commission foundational resources for the field on such topics as the cost of having a baby, maternity care and liability, evidence-based maternity care, effectiveness of labor support, hormonal physiology of childbearing and performance of the nation’s maternity care system. She led the National Partnership’s recent convening and collaboration of 17 national leaders resulting in the consensus report, Blueprint for Advancing High-Value Maternity Care Through Physiologic Childbearing. Through her guidance, the National Partnership maintains childbirthconnection.org, which features results of systematic reviews to support childbearing women in informed maternity care decision making and helps them navigate the maternity care system. She was a Pew Health Policy fellow at Boston University, where she received her doctorate in health policy through the University Professors Program, and has master’s degrees from the University of Utah and the University of Chicago.

Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, JD, is a vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she leads the Health Justice team. She is a national health and health care equity policy and advocacy thought leader with 25 years of experience advancing equal opportunity for women and families of color, and almost 20 years advocating for increased health care access and improved quality of care for underserved communities. Sinsi is deeply committed to transforming our health care system to meet the needs of our rapidly evolving nation so we can all thrive together. She believes that our future prosperity depends on ensuring our health care system routinely provides excellent, comprehensive, culturally centered and affordable care for every single person, family and community, and that this requires the dismantling of structural inequities including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and religious bigotry.

Sinsi is a recognized leader in the national health equity movement, a sought-after strategic advisor and a dynamic, inspiring speaker. She has presented at national events across the country and served on numerous advisory committees for organizations including the National Academy of Medicine, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs and the American Association of Pediatrics. She has published extensively and has appeared in national and state level English and Spanish television, radio and print media.

Sinsi’s extensive experience in health and health equity policy and advocacy spans the state government, labor and non-profit arenas. Prior to joining the National Partnership’s staff, she was the founding director of Families USA’s Center on Health Equity Action for System Transformation, where she led efforts to advance health equity and reduce disparities in health outcomes and health care access and quality by leveraging health care and delivery system transformation to reduce persistent racial, ethnic and geographic health inequities with an intersectional lens. Prior to that, she advised and represented two governors of Puerto Rico on federal health and human services policies, and she worked for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as a senior health policy analyst and national campaign coordinator for their Healthcare Equality Project campaign to enact the Affordable Care Act.

Nan Strauss is the Senior Policy Analyst for Maternal Health at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she advocates for policies that center the needs of women and families of color, with the aim of dismantling racism. She previously served as the Managing Director of Policy, Advocacy & Grantmaking for Every Mother Counts, where she led the organization’s efforts to improve access to quality, respectful, and equitable care, both globally and in the U.S. As the Director of Maternal Health Research and Policy at Amnesty International USA, she co-authored the groundbreaking report, Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA. Nan has led extensive federal and state policy work, including the development and implementation of legislation and policy strategies to advance maternal health, human rights, and birth justice. As a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nan litigated cases in federal court, including a successful challenge to the U.S. FDA’s refusal to make emergency contraception available over-the-counter, as well as challenges to abortion bans.

Wilna Paulemon is a public health professional with a passion for promoting health equity and improving global maternal health outcomes. As Associate Director of U.S. Programs, she is responsible for supporting activities related to the U.S. Safer Childbirth Cities initiative and priority global maternal health advocacy engagements.

Wilna first joined the Merck for Mothers team in 2019 as a graduate summer associate through the Merck internship program. Her tasks included developing recommendations for the community of practice of the Safer Childbirth Cities initiative and supporting other activities related to the announcement of the first cohort of grantees under the Safer Childbirth Cities initiative in the fall of 2019.

Prior to her role as Associate Director of U.S. Programs at Merck for Mothers, Wilna worked at Partners In Health, where she developed COVID-19 related materials that helped public sector partners implement effective and equitable pandemic response programs. She also has experience as a global health consultant, where she supported various programmatic, policy and strategic projects focused on COVID-19, vaccine confidence and health systems strengthening.

Wilna holds bachelor’s degrees in Community Health and Child Development from Tufts University and a master’s degree in Public Health from Columbia University.

Alexandra has over 15 years of consulting experience working with philanthropic and corporate clients to develop strategies and assess impact. At Afton Bloom, Alexandra has advised leading philanthropists on strategy development, design of innovative funding mechanisms, equitable approaches to partnership engagement and more. She also supports growing non-profits with a focus on racial and gender equity to design strategies and build their capacity to grow as critical actors in the field. Her work has specialized in mental health, reproductive health, birth equity, and advancing women in technology and venture capital. Her clients include the Hewlett Foundation, Community Health Acceleration Partnership (CHAP), the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the AAKOMA Project, LatinasRepresent, and more. 

Prior to founding Afton Bloom, she served as a Director at FSG where she led the Global Health practice and founded the Gender Equity practice area. In her eight year tenure at the firm, she led strategy projects for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Facebook, Samsung, Merck Foundation, and Humana. She built a deep understanding of the important role of the private sector in philanthropy and gained perspective on how philanthropy can best be used as a tool for social change. 

She holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, a Graduate Certificate from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a BA in Asian Studies and Mathematics from Hamilton College.  

She speaks Mandarin Chinese and in her free time enjoys weekly backgammon, photography, and running.

Léah Lomotey-Nakon, PhD is a scholar-practitioner who leverages over 15 years of experience across academic, philanthropic, and corporate healthcare settings to research and advance healthcare and health philanthropy strategies. As a scholar, Leah designs participatory, arts-based and mixed-method reproductive and organizational bioethics research in the Southern US and West Africa. As a practitioner, Léah uses human-centered, trust- and arts-based methods to facilitate creative and meaningful experiences for groups and teams focused on justice-based strategy and innovation projects.

At Afton Bloom, Léah deploys her decade of experience in philanthropy to lead projects that help funders advance parent and child health policy and related reproductive health strategies at the local, state, and national levels.

Léah earned a PhD in Bioethics, a M.Ed. in community and organizational development and a M.T.S. in social ethics from Vanderbilt University as well as a BA in political science from Emory University. Her research has been supported by the Aspen Institute, RWJF/Johns Hopkins Health Policy Research Scholars, Hastings Institute, and the Meharry-Vanderbilt Engaged Research Core, and Social Science Research Council, among others. She currently also serves as an Assistant Professor of Bioethics at Baylor University.