Candice Belanoff

ScD, MPH, Clinical Assistant Professor, Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health— Candice is a maternal and child health epidemiologist with a particular focus on the impact of interpersonal and structural racism on outcomes like breastfeeding, preterm birth and childbirth experiences.

Catherine Walker

CNM, MPH, The Midwives at Boston Medical Center, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Boston University School of Medicine — Catherine has been a women’s health activist for 40 years and has been a midwife for 25 of them. She was born and raised in Dorchester and lives in Uphams Corner, where she raised her two daughters. She delivered both of her babies with midwives and has dedicated her career to making the kind of holistic and empowering care she received available to all families. She believes in the power of birth to heal our souls and our communities.

connie breece

CNM, Connie has been a practicing midwife for over 30 years. After a short training time at Boston Medical Center, she was one of the founding midwives of the Cambridge Birth Center. She believes empowered and informed birth translates into empowered parents and families, and feels this is the essence of being a midwife.

Craig Andrade

RN, MPH, DrPH, Associate Dean for Practice, Boston University School of Public Health—Craig Andrade is Associate Dean of Practice and Director of the Activist Lab at Boston University’s School of Public Health (SPH) where he serves to catalyze and encourage SPH’s public health practice portfolio locally and globally among all members of the school community, including faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community partners. He is also a member of the Dean’s Cabinet and the Governing Council and chairs the school’s permanent practice committee. Previously Dr. Andrade was the Director of the Bureau of Family Health & Nutrition (BFHN) at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH). BFHN’s programs include Early Intervention (EI), Pregnancy, Infancy and Early Childhood, Children and Youth with Special Health Needs, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program, Home Visiting, Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, Breastfeeding Initiative, Birth Defects Surveillance, Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Program, the Office of Data Translation and Birth Defects Research and Prevention. He also served as Director of the Division of Health Access at DPH, helped found the Racial Equity Leadership Team and Cross-Department Racial Equity Collaborative at DPH and was Associate Dean of Health and Wellness and Director of Student Health Services at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. He served as critical care, public health and ward nurse at Boston Medical Center; nurse manager and head athletic trainer at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, MA; and was owner/operator of Active Health, a private health and fitness company. Craig is a registered nurse, athletic trainer, licensed massage therapist and strength and condition specialist with masters and doctoral degrees in public health from Boston University.

Divya Kumar

ScM, CLC, Co-Founder, Perinatal Mental Health Alliance for Women of Color — Divya Kumar is a South Asian American woman who provides perinatal support at the individual, group, and community levels. Committing to addressing unmet needs in perinatal healthcare, she has helped created several innovative initiatives, including the Perinatal Mental Health Alliance for Women of Color, a program within Postpartum Support International. Divya is a Certified Lactation Counselor, holds a Masters in Public Health, and is currently completing her Master’s in Social Work. A writer and a truth-teller, Divya brings a fresh voice, compassion, and humor to her work with new families.

Elmer R. Freeman

MSW, Director, Office of Urban Health Programs and Policy, Executive Director, Center for Community Health Education Research and Service, Inc. — Mr. Freeman has 35 years’ experience in Boston’s communities of color as a community organizer, health care clinician, administrator, public health practitioner, and more recently as community researcher. Mr. Freeman is a recognized expert in the application of community-based participatory research principles in partnerships with academic researchers to address disparities and inequities in health and health care of underserved communities. His research areas of interest are in the social, economic and political determinants of health status of minority populations; the impact of the internalization of racism on the manifestation of health risk behaviors among oppressed groups; and “practice based evidence” in the management of chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension in health center patient populations. He is a member of the External Advisory Board of the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research; and co-founder of the Community Health and Academic Medicine Partnership with Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He just completed a four year term on the Council of Public Representatives, an advisory committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health. In 2011 he was selected for the prestigious Barr Foundation Fellowship.

Eugene declercq

PhD, Boston University School of Public Health — Gene is a professor serving on the faculties of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Boston University Medical School. He has been the principal investigator for the Listening to Mothers series of national surveys on maternity care.

JoAnna Rorie

CNM, FACNM, PhD, Boston Medical Center - Jo-Anna Rorie has served for 35 years as an educator, provider of midwifery and wellbeing care to a diverse group of women across the lifespan.

Linda Sprague- Martinez

PhD, Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Social Work — Linda’s work examines how assets can be recognized and leveraged by communities to improve living environments and health. She is specifically interested in examining asset-based strategies to promote health equity; as such community engaged research (CEnR) approaches like community based participatory research (CBPR) and youth led participatory action research (YPAR) are central to her work. Having formerly worked across municipal and state governmental divisions implementing disparities related policies and programs, and as an adolescent mental health provider, she brings practical expertise in community collaborations designed to engage diverse communities of color and low-income residents in community planning and intervention development.  In 2017 she was a Boston Housing Authority, Center for Community Engagement and Civil Rights, Resident Empowerment Coalition, Resident Empowerment Honoree.

Lois McCloskey

DrPH, MPH, Boston University School of Public Health — Lois’ first experience in Maternal and Child Health was in rural Nepal where she lived with nurse-midwives from around the world and accompanied them to home births. After more work on global health and research on disparities in cesarean childbirth LA in the 1980’s, she now leads the MCH Center of Excellence at BU School of Public Health.

Lorenza Holt

MPH, Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer, DONA Birth Doula Trainer — Lorenza entered the birth world as a homebirth VBAC mother and later became a childbirth educator and doula. Lorenza provided years of leadership to Cambridge Doula Program at the Cambridge Health Alliance, the Birth Sisters Program at Boston Medical Center, and the Boston Association for Childbirth Education and Nursing Mothers' Council. Her current work as a Spinning Babies approved trainer connects her to birth professionals around the world who, like her and her Spinning Babies colleagues, are committed to improving birth outcomes, reducing unnecessary medical interventions intrapartum, and reducing birth trauma.  Spinning Babies (SpB) is an innovative approach created by midwife Gail Tully, which empowers and mobilizes pregnant women during the prenatal period and during labor through techniques of stretching and relaxing soft tissues that can then allow the baby to naturally enter, descend and rotate through the levels of the pelvis with greater ease for a successful vaginal birth.  She is also working with a team of doulas in forming a community doula program and organizing around policy to expand MassHealth coverage to doulas. She is the winner of the 2010 Women’s Health Hero by Our Bodies Ourselves Collective in Boston. Lorenza has supported many women through pregnancy and childbirth, and was recently by her daughter’s side when she became a grandmother.  Originally from Mexico, Lorenza lives in Newton, MA where she raised her now-adult children.  

Luana Morales

Birth, Death, and Ancestral Healing Arts Practitioner— Luana is a Boston-based Afro-Boricua mother and medicine woman focused on sharing healing practices in organizing and activist spaces to support our resistance work in a healing justice framework. She is committed to supporting the parallel process of dismantling internal and external systems that don’t support our individual and collective liberation. She is Birth and Bereavement Doula, Death Midwife, Circle Keeper, Officiant, Reiki Master Teacher, and Yerbera devoted to reclaiming our birth, death, and afro-indigenous healing practices. She is also the founder of Seeds of Our Ancestors, a mobile healing squad that is multidisciplinary, intergenerational, and multi-lineage. We are committed to being of service, showing up in the name of love, remembering, and getting free together.

Marisa Luse

Roxbury Community Champion, Vital Village — Marisa, longtime community activist and Roxbury resident and mother of two, whose commitment to expanding options in maternal and child health was elevated after birthing and breastfeeding her son. She is an advocate for cultivating individual and community resiliency through activism, family wellness, community engagement, leadership, and self-love. She currently works at Northeastern University as the Community Engagement & Collaborations Manager is a massage therapist with her own practice, and is pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Health.

Nancy Norman

MD, MPH — Nancy is a native Bostonian who grew up in Roxbury and Dorchester. She is currently the Medical Director of Integration for the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership, a Beacon Health Options company that focuses on improving mental health and behavioral health services for residents with Medicaid.  Prior to joining the Partnership, she was the Chief Medical Officer for the Boston Public Health Commission, the health department for the City of Boston. Nancy’s work has always focused on improving the health of those with the most challenges. Dr. Norman completed her internship and residency, including chief residency in internal medicine at Faulkner Hospital after receiving a BA in biology from Bowdoin College and an MD from Boston University School of Medicine.  She later received an MPH from Harvard University School of Public Health and completed a clinical fellowship in Community Oriented Primary Care/Preventive Medicine at Carney Hospital. Nancy is on staff at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and recently accepted an invitation to join the Board of Trustees for the newly formed Beth Israel Lahey Health. Dr. Norman is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University and is tremendously effective at building coalitions, sustaining relationships, and masterfully exerting influence to effect change.

Nechama Moring

CPM, MA, Rebel Girl Research Communications — Nechama is a writer, a reproductive justice activist, a community-based researcher, an abortionist, an educator and a midwife.  A white cis queer woman, Nechama is interested in reproductive and lifespan health care as human rights, but also as avenues for liberation, enacting racial justice, righting historical wrongs, and building better systems. Nechama works as a grant writer and science communicator and spends a lot of time talking to her dog about systems and justice.

Rebecca Polston

CPM, Owner and director of Roots Community Birth Center — Rebecca has a passion for building the Roots community and creating a safe space for all birthing families. She has been in practice as a midwife since 2011 and involved in professional birth work for over a decade. She loves providing nurturing grounding care. She and her husband have 3 children, 2 of whom were born at home. She loves horses, her dog and reading.

Robert Master

MD, President and CEO emeritus Commonwealth Care Alliance — Bob Master lead Commonwealth Care Alliance, a nonprofit prepaid Medicare and Medicaid financed care system caring for thousands of Medicaid and dual eligible elders and younger individuals with disabilities through multidisciplinary primary care teams in 57 primary care sites in Massachusetts’ low-income communities. He is a retired physician, board-certified in Internal Medicine, with over 30 years of experience in the clinical management of patients with advanced chronic illness and disability. In 2009, Dr. Master was recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) with a National Health Quality Award for his leadership in improving the quality of care for vulnerable populations. Prior to his role at Commonwealth Care Alliance, Bob served as the Medical Director of the Massachusetts Medicaid program, was the first physician and medical director at the Upham’s Corner Health Center, and founded the Urban Medical Group in Boston. He also started the Nurse Midwifery program at BU in 1991 after the School of Nursing closed.

Ruben Hernandez

Ruben is the co-founder and managing partner at Devlabs, and Founding Partner of Full Spectrum Capital Partners. Born in Honduras, Ruben is an American (California-based) investor who has successfully raised, deployed and managed private equity, debt, grants, and venture capital across the Americas with specific focus in Southern Chile and Northern California. Ruben has advanced the belief that all human beings must participate in the ownership and active sustainability of earth systems. He believes that money is a resource that must flow freely to enable humans to solve our most difficult challenges and live in harmony with earth and one another. Ruben’s experience includes working as a management consultant with Accenture, managing a multi million dollar technology implementation projects for very large and multinational clients in North America, Mexico and Europe. In 2006, Ruben joined a team of software developers, artists, cooperative workers in a social enterprise dedicated to develop sophisticated and beautifully designed and custom technology platforms for nonprofits, foundations, municipalities and workers cooperatives in the United States. In 2016, Ruben and his founding partners at Devlabs Ventures successfully raised and launched an $8 Million USD (Devlabs Fund I) early stage Venture Capital fund in Southern Chile. Currently Devlabs Ventures is designing, raising over $50 Million USD in funds to invest in indigenous communities of the Mapuche people of Southern Chile.

She-Tara Smith

Doula, Owner, The Birth Co.  

Taj James

Taj James is a father, poet, strategist, ecosystem designer, & capital advisor. Taj is a Founding Partner at Full Spectrum Capital Partners and former Director and current Board President of the Movement Strategy Center (MSC), a 20+ year organization he co-founded. Taj helped grow MSC into a $35M thriving social change community institution and network committed to creating a world that works for all. Taj has advised communities and foundations in the environmental and climate sectors, working to build and launch collaborations, partnerships and initiatives designed to accelerate transition to a regenerative economy. These efforts include the Climate Justice Alliance, Building Equity and for Impact Initiative (BEA4 Impact), the Alliance for Climate Resilience, the Climate Resilience and Urban Opportunity initiative of the Kresge Foundation, Pathways To Resilience Initiative and Community Climate Solutions Initiative. Taj is a graduate of Stanford University.