EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & FOUNDER

Nashira (she/her), a biracial Black ciswoman, 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 “the call” from elder midwife Dr. Jo-Anna Rorie, who first held the vision for a birth center in Roxbury in 1980.

Nashira holds a master’s degree in Maternal and Child Health from Boston University School of Public Health, and has over 20 years of experience designing and implementing public health strategies to advance racial equity. Founded in 2015, Neighborhood Birth Center will be the first-of-its-kind community birth center in Boston, providing community midwifery to strategically address the maternal health crisis.

Nashira feels most free when walking barefoot in the grass or jumping in a cold lake. She lives with her family in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-esset, Pokanoket, and the Wampanoag people. 

POLICY DIRECTOR

Katherine (she/her) is a Certified Nurse Midwife with a long-held commitment to health equity and social justice.

Before stepping into her role as the Policy Director for Neighborhood Birth Center, 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 completed her midwifery education at Yale University and her BA in Women’s Studies/Anthropology at Barnard College. She was among the first midwives to be appointed as teaching faculty at Harvard Medical School. In 2022, she was inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Nurse Midwives for her contributions to the field of midwifery. 

Katherine lives in Lynn with her husband and their two young children.

MANAGER OF COMMUNICATIONS & CULTURE

Hailing from a lineage of South Asian warriors, jewelers, musicians and monks, Rayna (she/they) is a systems thinker, process nerd, and improvisatory musician who brings creative artistry, technical precision, and playful energy to everything they do.

Rayna holds a degree in Neurobiology & Human Behavior from Cornell University, has over 20 years of experience in strategic communications for trailblazing startups, and is a seasoned professional facilitator of leadership presence trainings and organizational storytelling workshops. Rayna is also a certified practitioner of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapeutic coaching.

Rayna had been very interested in home birthing their child, but—lacking the support, resources, and advocacy to do so at the time—ended up having a hospital water birth instead. At Neighborhood Birth Center, Rayna supports the shaping of a landscape-shifting narrative strategy, empowered advocacy, and a revolutionary work culture—plus will happily fix the printer and bring the snacks.