More on the Contributors

Ana Paula Barreto (she/hers) is the Transnational Birth Equity Director for the National Birth Equity Collaborative. She has a masters of Arts in International affairs by The New School and she is a fellow of the United Nations Fellowship Program for People of African descent. Alongside co-curating the first “Black Brazilian Film Festival” in the African continent, she also co-founded Projeto 111 and Kilomba collective. Ana is an activist and researcher on the intersections of race, gender, global health, and the arts.

Dr. Alicia D. Bonaparte is Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College and is a medical sociologist whose research examines the gendered social hierarchy within U.S. medicine and the intersection of race and gender in healthcare practices and disparities. She contributed to the Routledge Motherhood Companion and Black Feminist Sociology, (also published by Routledge) and is completing her book manuscript, Labors of Birthing Work: The Persecution and Prosecution of Granny Midwives, 1900-1940 (University of South Carolina Press). 

TaNefer L. Camara is an IBCLC, maternal health & equity strategist and healer with over 15 years of experience in supporting women through birth, breastfeeding and postpartum.  She provides  lactation and postpartum care through her Oakland based practice, T.L.C Consulting & Maternal Healing. Tanefer is a Co-founder of The  B.L.A.C.K Course (Birth, Lactation, accommodation, culture and Kinship) she provides  comprehensive clinical lactation education with a Black cultural and equitable lens to aspiring and practicing lactation providers and birth workers.

Aja Clark (she/her) is the Birth Equity Senior Evaluation Analyst at the National Birth Equity Collaborative. She has a Master of Public Health from Columbia University with a concentration in Sexuality, Sexual and Reproductive Health. Aja is a doula, menstruation, and childbirth educator interested in community-led care rituals for young Black people of the African diaspora. Aja created the Black Feminist Freshman Orientation and Flo Functions, an intervention seeking to increase knowledge about menstruation in the Black community.

Haile Eshe Cole is an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut. She received her PhD in Anthropology with a concentration in African Diaspora Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. Her scholarly interests include Black Feminisms, community-engaged/social justice research methodology, motherhood, and health disparities. Her most recent projects explore Black birth work and the reproductive health of Black women in the U.S.

Dr. Joia Crear-Perry is a physician, policy expert, thought leader and advocate for transformational justice. As the founder and president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC), she identifies and challenges racism as a root cause of health inequities. She is a highly sought-after trainer and speaker who has been featured in national and international publications including Essence and Ms. Magazine. In 2020, Dr. Crear-Perry was honored by USA Today in its "Women of the Century" series and featured on ABC Nightline’s Hear Her Voice.

Kelly Davis, MPA is the Vice President at the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC), which creates solutions to optimize Black maternal and infant health. Prior to NBEC, Ms. Davis innovative initiatives for the NYC Health Department, including leading maternity hospitals in a long-term institutional transformation and catalyzing the City’s first HIV public awareness campaign for women. Ms. Davis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a Master of Public Administration degree from New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Valérie Déus is a poet, film programmer and radio show host. Her work is featured in Minnesota Women’s Press, The Brooklyn Rail and most recently in What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family, A Garden of Black Joy anthology and Under Purple Skies: A Minneapolis Anthology. She’s also the host of Project 35, a local radio show featuring music and poetry on KRSM radio. She programs FilmNorth’s Cinema Lounge and is the Shorts Programmer for the Provincetown International Film Festival.

Dr. Michelle Drew (she/her) is a Nurse Midwife, Family Nurse Practitioner and historian who is the Executive Director and founder of Ubuntu Black Family Wellness, a birth collective in Wilmington Delaware.Before starting Ubuntu, Mama Michelle as she is known to her community, practiced as a midwife in Delaware, Texas, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Zambia. In addition to her midwifery practice, she is an activist for reproductive rights and justice including expanding abortion access and traditional midwifery in Black communities.

Stephanie Etienne (she/her) is passionate about reproductive justice and believes in the power of community-based care. She’s the founder of Bridge Midwifery, a midwifery consultation practice. She’s a cofounder and partner at the Bloom Collective, a community space dedicated to reproductive justice and birth equity in Baltimore, MD. She’s also the co-director of Listen to Me, an upcoming documentary about Black maternal health. She is a spiritual herbalism apprentice. She’s a native New Yorker of Haitian descent. She lives in Baltimore with her family.

Jeanne Flavin is professor of sociology at Fordham University. Her publications include the award-winning book Our Bodies, Our Crimes: Policing Women’s Reproduction in America. She is the recipient of a 2009 Fulbright research award and the 2013 Sociologists for Women in Society’s Feminist Activism Award. Currently, she serves as president of the board of directors for National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She grew up on a farm in rural Kansas but since 1995 has lived in New York City.

Elizabeth Dawes Gay, MPH is a social entrepreneur working for women of color. She is the founder of Ìpàdé and Sisu Consulting, and a co-founder of Black Mamas Matter Alliance. Elizabeth is a recognized thought leader on reproductive and maternal health, rights, and justice who has been published in The Nation, Rewire, The Root, MTV.com, and Huffington Post, among others. Elizabeth holds a Master of Public Health from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts from University of Pennsylvania.

Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), and Dream Country (Dutton, 2018) young adult novels that won Minnesota Book Awards in 2016 and 2019. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, her new novel, Botched, explores themes of transracial adoption through speculative memoir (Dutton, 2021).

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all sentient beings.  Alexis’s co-edited volume Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016) shifted the conversation on mothering, parenting and queer transformation. Alexis has transformed the scope of intellectual, creative and oracular writing with her triptych of experimental works published by Duke University Press–Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity in 2016, M Archive: After the End of the World  in 2018 and Dub: Finding Ceremony, 2020.

Iris Jacob is the founder of Social Justice Synergy, a consulting firm that provides specialized support to ensure clients reach their goals of inclusion and justice. She has worked with the The National Lawyers Guild, The Women’s March, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, The National Center for Transgender Equality, The American Civil Liberties Union, Teaching for Change, and many more. She is the author of My Sisters’ Voices: Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out. Iris lives in Washington DC, where she raises her three incredible children.

Jennifer Elyse James, PhD, MSW, MSSP is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Health and Aging, the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Bioethics program at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. James is a qualitative researcher and Black Feminist scholar whose research lies at the intersection of race, gender and health, with a specific focus on experiences of cancer and chronic illness. Her current work focuses on experiences of aging, health and illness for people who are or have been incarcerated. She is a mom of two and a collective member of Black Women Birthing Justice.

Nafisa Jiddawi is a social innovator, founder, and CEO of WAJAMAMA, a women’s-centered wellness center in Zanzibar, Tanzania. As a family and women's health clinician, Nafisa has extensive experience in maternal and child health, alongside primary care services in both the U.S. and Tanzania. She is committed to ensuring that all birthing people in Zanzibar have access to empowering, safe, and beautiful perinatal experiences. She believes that this basic human right has the power to create the greatest social change and transform the general wellbeing of communities.

Linda Jones is a Birth and Postpartum Doula, Photographer and mother of two, grandmother of four and great- grandmother of four, who lives in Oakland, CA. She is the Executive Director and one of the co-founders of Black Women Birthing Justice (BWBJ) (blackwomenbirthingjustice.com) (2011- present) and is co-author of Battling Over Birth; Black Women and the Maternal Health Care Crisis in California. Linda is the Doula Coordinator for the BWBJ Doula Collective and a facilitator/trainer for the BWBJ Black Doula Training Program.

Loretta J. Ross is a professor of women and gender studies at Smith College in the Program a was the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective (2005-2012) and co-created the theory of Reproductive Justice. She was National Co-Director of the 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., founded the National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE),  launched the Women of Color Program for the National Organization for Women (NOW), and was the national program director of the National Black Women’s Health Project.

Jennie Joseph is a British-trained midwife and executive director of the Birth Place, a freestanding birthing facility in Winter Garden, Florida, as well as her own nonprofit corporation, Commonsense Childbirth. Her “Easy Access” Prenatal Care Clinics offer quality maternity care for all, regardless of choice of delivery site or ability to pay, and have successfully reduced perinatal disparities. Her school, Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery, trains and certifies midwives, doulas, and paraprofessionals, emphasizing culturally competent and community-focused care.

Victoria Logan Kennedy (“Logan”) is a Registered Nurse from Ontario, Canada.  She is currently a doctoral student in Nursing at Western University.  She also continues her work in the area of women and HIV as the Senior Research Associate at the Women and HIV Research Program at Women's College Hospital, Toronto.  Her clinical and research interests relate to the advancement of the sexual and reproductive healthcare of women, with a specific focus on younger women. Her work is informed by intersectional feminism and poststructural theory.

Christ-Ann Magloire, MD, is the first female board-certified Haitian American obstetrician/gynecologist to practice in North Miami. She's a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) advocate who puts her words into practice with a 7 percent primary C-section rate. She’s a physician champion for breastfeeding promotion at Jackson North Medical Center and a member of the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Her proudest accomplishment is being the mother of two, the second a VBAC.

Pauline Ann McKenzie-Day, M.S., Reg. MBACP a specialist counselor at Women and Girls Network working with women who have suffered various forms of trauma. She also counsels young women at a local High School. She is the proud mother of three extraordinary adults and grandmother of two amazing little girls. Pauline currently lives in London where she continues to be passionate about her family, birth justice, and supporting others on their journey to live their best lives.

Monica McLemore At the University of California, San Francisco, Monica McLemore is a tenured associate professor in the Family Health Care Nursing Department, an affiliated scientist with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, and a member of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health.

Shafia Monroe is a veteran midwife, childbirth educator, doula trainer, motivational speaker, and health activist. She is founder of the International Center for Traditional Childbearing, which works to increase the number of culturally competent midwives, and created the ICTC Full Circle Doula Training Program using the traditional midwifery model of care. She founded the Oregon Coalition to Improve Birth Outcomes, which was instrumental in the inclusion of doulas for Medicaid reimbursement as a national model. She mothers seven children and nine grandchildren.

Marvelous Muchenje is Community Relations Manager at ViiV Healthcare Canada and a PhD Student inSocial Work at the University of Toronto. An affirming HIV positive Black with a professional and activist background in sexual and reproductive rights, Marvelous is passionate about seeking social justice in all its forms. Marvelous has made it her mission to spread love and empowerment. She is a writer, motivational speaker and advocate for marginalized communities. Marvelous sits on several national boards with a global reach used to uplift the narratives of those who face injustice.

Priscilla A. Ocen is an associate professor of law at Loyola Law School. Her work examines the relationship between race and gender identities and punishment. In particular, her scholarship explores conditions of confinement within women’s prisons and the race and gender implications of the use of practices such as shackling during labor and childbirth. Her work has appeared in academic journals such as the California Law Review, the UCLA Law Review, and the Du Bois Review, as well as in popular media outlets such as Ebony and Al Jazeera.

Julia Chinyere Oparah ("Chinyere") is a social justice educator, activist scholar, and transformational leader. She’s Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of San Francisco and professor emerita of ethnic studies at Mills College. Chinyere is co-founder of Black Women Birthing Justice. She is author and editor of numerous publications, including Battling Over Birth, Birthing Justice (first edition), Global Lockdown: Race, Gender and the Prison-Industrial Complex, Activist Scholarship, and Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. She lives in Oakland, California, with her partner and daughter.

Dr. Sayida Peprah-Wilson  is a licensed clinical psychologist and birth doula.  An advocate for human rights in childbirth, Dr. Sayida is a member of the Black Women Birthing Justice Collective and a Collaborator with the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, promoting research, education and community-based services to positively transform the birthing experiences of Black families. Dr. Sayida is the Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit organization Diversity Uplifts, Inc., focusing on supporting diverse communities and the providers who serve them.

Biany Pérez, LSW, M.Ed (she/they) is a queer Black Latinx holistic psychotherapist,  licensed social worker, educator, reiki practitioner, tarotist and full-spectrum doula. Biany works with women, BIPOC, queer and trans folks, using psychodynamic, energy psychology, body centered, and feminism to help clients access their inner wisdom, and to heal and grow through life’s many challenges. Biany lives in Lenni Lenape land (Philadelphia) with their partner and three children. Check them out at www.bianyperez.com or IG @heybianyp.

Alexus Roane, MPH is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Michigan. Her current research interests center using a reproductive justice theoretical framework to address reproductive health disparities for Black birthing people at the nexus of their experiences with violence and/or criminalization. Alexus is also a pregnancy loss doula studying to become full-spectrum alongside serving as a collective member of Black Women Birthing Justice.

Gina Mariela Rodríguez (she/her/hers) is a multi-genre writer, birth doula and arts administrator rooted in Providence, Rhode Island. By day Gina serves as the Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Providence, where she manages the City’s Public Art program, develops cultural policy, and facilitates creative placemaking initiatives. She is a graduate of Brown University’s Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre program and a proud Mama Bear of Xiomara Mia and Alessandro Manuel.

Loretta J. Ross is former coordinator of SisterSong, a reproductive justice network of women of color founded in 1997. After leading Women of Color Programs for the National Organization for Women and working at the National Black Women’s Health Project, she helped originate the Reproductive Justice framework in 1994. She was codirector of the 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington, DC, worked against white supremacist groups, and founded the National Center for Human Rights Education in the 1990s.

Griselda Rodríguez-Solomon, PhD (Dr. G.) is a Black-Dominican mother, wife, doula and professor in the Department of Anthropology, Gender Studies and International Studies within the City College of New York. Griselda and her twin sister, Miguelina, are the Bruajs of Brooklyn. They design yoga workshops and academic dialogues addressing racisms' effects on the reproductive health of women of color. Griselda earned her PhD in Sociology from Syracuse University. Her expertise on racism among Latin@s has earned her features in Univision, NBC, Pero Like/Buzz Feed and Google.

Viviane Saleh-Hanna is Professor and Chair of Crime and Justice Studies, and an affiliate of Women’s and Gender Studies and Black Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. She serves on the board of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, the African Journal for Criminology and Justice Studies and Decolonization of Criminology and Justice. She is a Black feminist abolitionist specializing in transformative justice, historic memory, structurally abusive relationships, and Afrofuturism inspired by Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and N.K. Jemisin.

The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project  is a non-profit organization dedicated to honoring those who have died of pregnancy-related causes in the United States since 1982. As a national effort and public information campaign, the Safe Motherhood Quilt Project was developed to not only draw public attention to the current maternal death rates, but also to the gross under-reporting of maternal deaths in the United States.

Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist, five-time author, international speaker, strategist and advocate for maternal & infant health. A former senior editor at ESSENCE and writer at FORTUNE magazine, Kimberly is a leading voice on the racial and socio-cultural complexities of birth, breastfeeding and motherhood. She is the founder of Irth, a new "Yelp-like" app for Black and brown parents to address bias and racism in maternity and infant care. Kimberly also created Birthright, a podcast about joy and healing in Black birth.

Jacinda Townsend is the author of Saint Monkey (Norton, 2014), which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction. Saint Monkey was also the 2015 Honor Book of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her second novel, Kif, will be published by Graywolf Press in fall of 2022. Townsend holds a BA from Harvard and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She teaches in the Zell Creative Writing program at the University of Michigan.

Darline Turner is a board certified physician assistant with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biology, a Master of Health Science Degree, and is a full spectrum doula, specializing in high risk pregnancy support. Darline developed a training program for Perinatal Community Health Workers, and is developing an Associates in Applied Science in lactation (IBCLC), and in midwifery (CPM), to increase providers of color and the healthcare workforce in rural, underserved areas of Texas.

Syrus Marcus Ware, a visual artist, activist, and educator pursuing his PhD in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, cocreated Trans-Fathers 2B, the first course for trans men considering parenting in North America, and Primed: A Back Pocket Guide for Trans Guys and the Guys Who Dig ’Em, the first comprehensive sexual-health resource for gay and bisexual transgender men. Ware works with Blackness Yes! to produce Blockorama, the Black queer and trans stage at Toronto’s Pride Festival.