Birthing and Raising the Next Generation: Holistic Approaches to Advance Racial and Social Equity.

Dr. Amutah-Onukagha is the Founder and Director of the Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice (CBMHRJ), and of the Maternal Outcomes of Translational Health Equity Research (MOTHER) Lab. In addition, she is the founder of the largest conference on Black maternal health in the United States held annually in April. In its 8th year, the conference has recently attracted participants from over 46 states and 10 countries. An active scholar, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha’s research investigates maternal health disparities, infant mortality, reproductive health and social justice, and HIV/AIDS as experienced by Black women. She also serves as the inaugural Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the university’s Public Health and Professional Degree Programs.

A well-published author, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha’s research has been presented in over 85 manuscripts, 8 book chapters, a best-selling book on Amazon, and a textbook on culturally responsive evaluation. Her research has also been featured across a series of platforms, including, The Lancet, TedX, USA Today, MSNBC and most recently in the New York Times. She also serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Women’s Health Issues. Currently, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha is the Principal Investigator of two multi-year studies on maternal mortality and morbidity. She is an active co-investigator on several other research studies with collaborators across the country.

In 2023, she received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the March of Dimes and the Academic Excellence in Maternal Health award from the IRTH app. In 2022 she received the John MacQueen lecture award from the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs. Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha was an honoree of the 2020 Top 40 under 40 Minority Leaders in Healthcare, as presented by the National Minority Quality Forum.

She also holds federal and international appointments and was appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to the Advisory Council on Infant and Maternal Mortality for a 4-year term. In 2024, she was appointed to serve as the Inaugural Health Equity Think Tank Director for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc, an international organization with over 125,000 members.

A community engaged leader, she is a founding member of Birth Equity Justice MA, a board member for the Neighborhood Birth Center in Boston, and a board member for Dr. Shalons’ Maternal Action Project. Dr. Amutah-Onukagha is also the President and Founder of Amaka Consulting and Evaluation Services, LLC, a minority and women owned public health research and evaluation firm.

Dr. Amutah-Onukagha received her Master of Public Health from The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services before completing her Ph.D. in Public Health from the University of Maryland. She also completed the Kellogg Health Scholars postdoctoral fellowship with an emphasis on community based participatory research and health disparities.

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 the baton from elder midwives who first held the vision for a birth center in Roxbury in the 1980s.

With a master’s degree in Maternal and Child Health from Boston University School of Public Health and 20 years of experience designing and implementing public health strategies to advance racial equity, Nashira founded Neighborhood Birth Center in 2015 and co-founded Birth Center Equity in 2020. Neighborhood Birth Center will be the first-of-its-kind community birth center in Boston, providing full scope community midwifery to strategically address the maternal health crisis. Nashira brings a structural analysis and embodied practice to her work. She has worked at the Boston Public Health Commission, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Human Impact Partners.

In 2024, Nashira was featured in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered on the state of maternal health care in Massachusetts.  She was also honored at Black Excellence on the Hill, the Massachusetts Black and Latino Caucus’ premier Black culture celebration. In 2024 she became a TEDx Global Editor’s Pick for her moving TEDx talk “Lighting the Lanterns: Birth as a Portal to Liberation.”

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

Sharita Gruberg (she/her) is Vice President for Economic Justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families where she leads the organization’s work pushing for policies that advance an inclusive economy by centering the needs of women of color to promote broad economic growth and an economy that works for all people. Previously, she was Vice President of the LGBTQI+ Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress where she led the organization’s work advancing LGBTQI+ equality and combating discrimination. Sharita earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and she also received the Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies Certificate from the Institute for the Study of International Migration. She holds a B.A. in political science and women’s studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sharita serves on the board of the Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition and the Equality Federation, and was recognized by the National LGBT Bar Association as one of the 40 Best LGBTQ+ Attorneys Under the Age of 40 in 2019.

Jeffrey Liebman is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, where he teaches courses in social policy, public sector economics, government innovation, and American economic policy. In his research, he studies tax and budget policy, social insurance, poverty, and income inequality. For the past ten years, his Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab has been providing pro bono technical assistance to state and local governments interested in improving the results they achieve for their citizens. During the first two years of the Obama Administration, Liebman served at OMB, first as Executive Associate Director and Chief Economist and then as Acting Deputy Director. From 1998 to 1999, he served as Special Assistant to the President for economic policy and coordinated the Clinton Administration’s Social Security reform technical working group.

Dr. Viveka Prakash-Zawisza, MD, MS, MBA, FACOG is an experienced physician leader and innovator with a passion for exploring how policy and systems impact healthcare delivery and social justice. At MassHealth (Massachusetts Medicaid), she is a Senior Medical Director and the clinical lead for the accountable care (ACO) program and for maternal health policy. She also helps to lead strategies for member and community engagement at the agency. Dr. Prakash-Zawisza is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Family & Community Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School and continues to practice clinically as a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist. She also holds a degree in global health policy and enjoys providing clinical services in under-resourced settings in the US and internationally. She is the past president of the National Perinatal Association which brings together advocates and providers from all sides of the perinatal landscape to collaborate and advocate for parents, babies, and families. Dr. Prakash-Zawisza is passionate about social justice and the tools to actively address health inequities and disparities to create an efficient healthcare system that promotes joy and wellness for all people. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, staying physically active, exploring spiritual practices, and becoming a better cook.

Jessica Ridge has been with UpTogether, a national nonprofit working to change the way the US addresses poverty, since 2014. First, as a volunteer Advisory Board member for the Boston site and officially joining the staff in 2018. She is the Northeast Partnership Director. She spearheaded the Trust and Invest Collaborative, a randomized control trial with the MA Department of Transitional Assistance to transform how cash assistance benefits are delivered. Since 2020, she has overseen the launch of 20 direct cash (guaranteed basic income) initiatives. She is driving UpTogether’s systems change work in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Ridge specializes in building deep, lasting partnerships that ensure those with lived experience are at the table. Prior to joining UpTogether, she worked alongside then-Boston City Councilor At-Large, now Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, for eight years; first as policy director then as Chief of Staff. Jess is a mom, loves being in the woods, playing in the mud, and making art.

Lois McCloskey (DrPH), is a Clinical Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. McCloskey’s public health career began 30 years ago as an applied anthropologist and educator of community health workers in Nepal. The work inspired her lifelong concern with the health care of women and their infants, particularly in communities that are under-served. In both international and domestic settings, her work focuses on the disconnects between the lives of women and the health care systems meant to serve their needs across the life course and proven strategies for engaging and activating women to be full partners in their reproductive health care and planning. She is currently supported by the NICHD and NIDDK to study the barriers to follow-up testing and prevention for women with gestational diabetes, a harbinger of risk type 2 diabetes mellitus later in life. At BUSPH she serves as Co-Director of the MCH Certificate, and Director of the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, a Center dedicated to the education of a diverse MCH workforce, ready to lead. As an educator, she specializes in practice-based courses that engage students in the application of their skills and knowledge in real life organizations, addressing real life challenges.

Currently she teaches “Implementing Community Health Initiatives: A Field-based Course in Leadership and Consultation” and “Sexual and Reproductive Health Advocacy: From Rights to Justice”. She completed a MPH in population, family and international health and a DrPH in perinatal epidemiology and health services research at UCLA School of Public Health. Upon graduation, she co-founded the Institute for Urban Health Policy and Research for the Boston Department of Health and Hospitals, and served as its Senior Research Scientist for 7 years before joining the faculty of Boston University. During her tenure at the Institute, she led research and community action initiatives designed to mobilize community residents, health professionals, academics, and policy-makers to eliminate racial disparities in infant death and pre-term birth. Findings led to fundamental changes in how perinatal health services are delivered to women of African descent in Boston. She directed the launch of a study abroad program, “IHP: Health and Community”, dedicated to comparative study of health, systems and culture in four countries. She co-founded the Women’s Health Committee of the MCH Section of the American Public Health Association, is a member of the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health, and serves on the peer review panels of the Women’s Health Journal, the Maternal and Child Health Journal, the Journal of the Poor and Under-served, and Public Health Reports, BMC Health Services, and BMC Pregnancy and Birth.