Latham Thomas
Named one of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100, Latham supports women in embracing optimal wellness and spiritual growth as a pathway to empowerment. A celebrity doula and maternal wellness maven, Latham is the founder of Mama Glow, a global women’s health and education brand serving women along the childbearing continuum. Latham is a graduate of Columbia University and author of book two best-selling books; Own Your Glow: A Soulful Guide to Luminous Living And Crowning The Queen Within and Mama Glow: A Hip Guide to Your Fabulous Abundant Pregnancy.
Abby Epstein
Abby Epstein is a film director and producer most known for working in the field of the documentary. Her film The Business of Being Born, which deals with the birth process in American hospitals, is one of her most widely known and acclaimed films. She will be discussing her new film based on Birth Control.
Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens -KEYNOTE
Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens is a noted historian, scholar, and award-winning author. Her book Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology reveals the deep linkages between slavery and the birth of American gynecology. She is an in-demand public speaker who lectures on race, gender, medicine, and reproductive justice issues. Dr. Cooper Owens has published a number of think pieces, served as an expert on race on various media outlets, and advocates to change the way medical professionals are taught about race, bodies, and reproduction. Additionally, she is also the nation's only African American woman to direct a medical humanities program. Dr. Cooper Owens is a former American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Fellow who currently works at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as an endowed professor in the history of medicine. She also runs the Program in African American History at The Library Company of Philadelphia, the country's oldest cultural institution. You can learn more about Dr. Cooper Owens and her work at:
Tonya Lewis Lee
Tonya Lewis Lee is a film and television producer, author, entrepreneur and advocate for maternal and infant health. She published two children’s books Please, Baby, Please;Please, Puppy, Please; and Giants Steps to Change the World—which she co-authored with her husband, Spike Lee. She’s a spokesperson for the Office of Minority Health’s infant mortality awareness campaign, A Healthy Baby Begins with You. And is the founder of Movita Organics.
Jamia Wilson
Jamia is a feminist activist, writer, and speaker. As director of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York and the former VP of programs at the Women’s Media Center, Jamia has been a leading voice on women’s rights issues for over a decade. Her work has appeared in numerous outlets, including the New York Times, the Today Show, CNN, Elle, BBC, Rookie, Refinery 29, Glamour, Teen Vogue, and The Washington Post. She is the author of Young, Gifted, and Black, the introduction and oral history in Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Around the World, Step Into Your Power: 23 Lessons on How to Live Your Best Life, ABC's of AOC, and the co-author of Roadmap for Revolutionaries: Resistance, Advocacy, and Activism for All.
Learn more at: www.jamiawilson.com
Dr. Wednesday Martin
Dr. Wednesday Martin is a feminist cultural critic, #1 New York Times bestselling author and thought leader on female experience and female sexuality. Her bookUNTRUEabout female non-monogamy was a "best books of 2019" selection by Kirkus and has been called "revolutionary" and "game changing" by critics.
Dr. Angela Le, DACM, MSTOM,LAc.
Dr. Angela Le is a leading integrative reproductive health expert, acupuncturist and founder of Fifth Avenue Fertility Wellness in New York City, as well as one of the first practitioners in the country to focus exclusively on fertility. For over 17 years, she has dedicated her practice to support, treat and empower thousands of women. Respected and trusted by the leading reproductive endocrinologists throughout the country, she works in collaboration with both physicians and patients to provide a holistic perspective and create a personalized experience directed at the best possible conditions for conception.
Beatrice Dixon
As the founder and CEO of The Honey Pot Company, Beatrice suffered with bacterial vaginosis infection for 8 months. An ancestor gave her the ingredients to heal herself in a dream. From that insightful dream, she created the formula for a healthy, clean feminine wash. It worked! She launched The Honey Pot Company in 2014. With experience in pharmaceuticals, retail and natural foods, she has the insight and expertise to bring the innovative concept of a plant-based feminine care system to the marketplace. Unlike mass market and conventional feminine care brands, consumers will be able to get all of their feminine care needs met under one brand as The Honey Pot Company currently offers feminine washes, wipes, pads and soon-to-be additional product offerings in both the feminine hygiene and feminine care segments. www.thehoneypot.co
Stacey D Stewart
Stacey D. Stewart, President and CEO, joined March of Dimes as its fifth President on January 1, 2017. In this role, Stewart heads the organization leading the fight for the health of all moms and babies. She is responsible for all aspects of the organization's strategy, vision and operations. https://www.marchofdimes.org
Kimberly Seals-Allers
Kimberly Seals-Allers is an award-winning journalist, author of five books, international speaker, strategist and advocate for maternal and infant health. A former senior editor at ESSENCE and writer at FORTUNE magazine, Kimberly is a leading commentator on birth, breastfeeding and motherhood and the intersection of race, policy, and culture. As the director of various on-the-ground community-based projects in several U.S. cities, Kimberly is also deeply rooted in the lived experience of mothers across the socio-economic spectrum. She brings all of these experiences to bear in her strategic advisement for clients, advocacy efforts and her vision for a world that supports mothering as valued work. Her latest book is, The Big Let Down.
Andrea Jackson
After working for the past 19 years as the Senior Executive Assistant to an investment titan in the high-pressure, high-stakes hedge fund industry, Andrea took a leap of faith to make her passion a business as a full time motivational lifestyle coach and speaker. She is committed to breaking the cycle of dysfunction for women wishing to reclaim their voices both at home and the workplace. Andrea's life calling is to assist such women in moving past such unhealthy patterns and moving towards happiness and success both professionally and emotionally. You can keep up with Andrea through her weekly podcast Our Mirror's Reflections.
RAH ALI
A true New York native, Rah Ali is a tastemaker and trendsetter and leading cast member of VH1ʼs hit reality show “Love & Hip Hop NY”. The CEO of 5 Approved is a Bronx native who remains a humble powerhouse.
Joy Altimare
Joy is a brand strategist with nearly 20 years of experience across a range of highly competitive, rapidly evolving marketplaces. She has a proven track record, creating profitable solutions centered around engagement and consumer behavior change. Throughout her career, Joy has been an expert advisor and resource for organizations tackling growth, innovation, and technology challenges and positioning themselves as positive disruptors within their category.
Prior to joining the health care space, Joy worked with leading agencies such as Ogilvy+Mather, GREY, and Publicis on preeminent brands like L'Oreal, Verizon, and Colgate-Palmolive.
Dr. Molly Dickens
Dr. Molly Dickens is a trained research physiologist turned startup chameleon. After nearly 15 years of studying stress physiology and reproductive endocrinology, she left academia to join Bloomlife, a Women’s HealthTech startup, and follow her passion for maternal health. As Head of Content and Community at Bloomlife, Molly channels her ability to decode the science and state of research when it comes to pregnancy and maternal health. Molly is also currently leading Bloomlife’s HRSA-funded project to develop supportive remote prenatal monitoring technology with and for low-income women of color.
Mara Martin
Mara is a Mother, Model and Women’s Advocate. Mara went viral when she walked the 2018 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit show while breastfeeding her daughter. She is a Save the Children Celebrity Cabinet Member. She is a top 100 Changemaker in 2019.
Julee Wilson
Julee is the Global Beauty Director at Essence Magazine & host of #TheColorFiles podcast. She describes herself as "a tall glass of sass, dope wife, and a fab mom”.
Rashia Bell
Energetic Interior Designer and Crystal Healer Rashia Bell, is the co-founder of THE CRISTALLINE, a multi-faceted lifestyle company that works to help you create balance within all areas of your life. Rashia has taken a uniquely holistic approach to the spaces she transforms for THE CRISTALLINE, by incorporating the energetic and healing powers of crystals and stones into her Interiors. The foundation for this design process is specializing in personal healing work, where Rashia has lead workshops for all ages, private events and retreats around the world. Her work is to show her clients how to find balance within themselves and greater encompassing the spaces they inhabit. www.thecristalline.com
Erica M. McAfee
Erica M. McAfee is the Founder and Chief Sister of Sisters in Loss, a digital media platform dedicated to helping millennial black women replace silence with storytelling around pregnancy and infant loss and infertility.
Its self-titled podcast is the first and only podcast that spotlights resilient black mothers who share intimate details of their journey to motherhood through loss and infertility stories. Sisters in Loss has been featured in Black Enterprise, Women’s Health, and Refinery 29 as a resource to heal, gain clarity and peace, and find hope after loss. Launched in August 2017 the podcast has amassed a community of 20,000+ Sisters in Loss.
Erica is a Bereavement Doula, Grief Specialist, Mom to two angels in heaven and one rainbow baby Maxwell also known as Super Mighty Max. She is an alumnus of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.
LaTonya Yvette
LaTonya Yvette, was born in Brooklyn, New York with three brothers and one sister. It is the same place she now calls home with her daughter, River and her son Oak. She is the blogger and stylist behind the eponymous site, and is unapologetically candid about life’s trials, including motherhood, love, death, and racism. Her first book, Woman of Color, published in April 2019 and is part memoir, part lifestyle guide—packed with moving essays, gorgeous original and archival photographs, and practical style and beauty advice.
Whitney Robinson
Whitney is a Product Manager and Founder of The Renée, a movement centered around design-thinking jam sessions. Jam sessions are intimate yet impactful events for WOC to come together and “redesign” the current state of maternal health. Spaces are inviting and joyful – challenging and changing the narrative around our bodies and children, one idea at a time. Whitney enjoys camping with her kids, attending breast-feeding hackathons, and finding any excuse to eat tacos.
Kimberly Ann Johnson
Kimberly Ann Johnson specializes in helping women prepare for birth, recover from birth injuries and birth trauma, and heal from sexual trauma. She is the author of bestselling book, The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions and Restoring Your Vitality. She is the creator of Activate your Inner Jaguar, an online course ushering women into their full voices and sexual expression and the founder of Magamama.com.
Malika Hodge
Malika Hodge is the NYC Centering Healthcare Institute Program Manager. She is a public health nutritionist, certified full-spectrum doula, certified lactation consultant, and educator. Malika is a graduate of Boston College and Tufts University. She is a native New Yorker and is of Garifuna and Caribbean heritage. Health equity work is her calling and she's implemented and founded public health and education programs throughout NYC, Boston and the Dominican Republic (as a Peace Corps volunteer) for women, children, adolescents in the criminal injustice system, and families. She feels honored to serve families in her hometown. She works in close collaboration with the DOH's Birth Equity Initiative to improve health outcomes in NYC. Her goal is for CenteringPregnancy and CenteringParenting sites throughout NYC to become the national model for cities throughout the United States. She is excited to work with passionate healthcare providers, public servants, and administrators who are also committed to making NYC a more just place. https://www.centeringhealthcare.org/
Robin Hilmantel
Robin Hilmantel is the digital director of Women’s Health, which regularly covers maternal health, including award-winning packages on black women and infertility and a guide to help readers navigate the first several months of postpartum life. She has more than 10 years of experience writing and editing health and wellness content.
Camalo Gaskin
Camalo Gaskin is the founder of the Center for Doula Pathways, facilitating interdisciplinary and intersectional learning that honors the birth companion as an embodied human being through education that develops quality of presence and enhanced perception for the care and well-being of those we serve. She is an experienced doula mentor, ritual guide, author, and lecturer on obstetric culture. She has contributed to public discourse on global birth culture through speaking, teaching and features at the Huffington Post, Tonic Magazine, Clue Period & Ovulation App’s magazine, Midwifery Today conference, Savvy Contemporary with German Foreign Office’s “Long Night of Ideas”, The Primal Continuum of Human Development (PCHD): Birth Keeper Summit at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., CUNY’s New York College of Technology, Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) Medical Anthropology department, and acts as a partner and expert patron for All Our Mothers (AOM).
Lindsey Taylor Wood
Lindsey Taylor Wood is the founder & CEO of The Helm, a new lifestyle brand and VC investing in female entrepreneurs. Lindsey was formerly Founder & President of LTW, an impact studio with clients including actor Matt McGorry, MAKERS, Amanda de Cadenet's The Conversation, The Harnisch Foundation, Women Moving Millions, and filmmakers Jill Bauer, Ronna Gradus, and Rashida Jones. Before consulting, Lindsey was on the founding team of Catapult, a crowdfunding platform for girls & women. She also worked for Women Deliver and contributed to a variety of campaigns centered on conflicts in Central Africa, as well as “The Enough Moment,” a book by John Prendergast and Don Cheadle. She advises The Brooklyn Museum's Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
Sara Auster
Sara Auster is a New York City–based sound therapist, meditation teacher and author of SOUND BATH: Meditate, Heal and Connect Through Listening. Sara has travelled the world to facilitate immersive Sound Bath experiences using the transformative power of sound and deep listening. From the boardrooms of Google to the galleries of MoMA, from hotels to hospitals, grade schools to Madison Square Garden, her work has been a driving force in bringing Sound Baths to modern culture. Sara’s thoughtfully-crafted experiences allow sound to be used as a tool to invite meditative states, support self-inquiry and cultivate deep relaxation. She is a thought leader on how to inspire meaningful connection through listening.
Ivelyse Andino
Ivelyse Andino is an Afro-Latina health equity innovator born and raised in The Bronx and the founder and CEO of Radical Health. Ivelyse enjoyed a fledgling career in health tech, pioneering some of its first digital health solutions, including bringing the first mobile app prescribing platform to market and working with global clients such as National Health Service (NHS London) and Kaiser Permanente. While she routinely trained oncologists on new drugs, she found herself unprepared when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. This forced her to directly and intimately confront the systemic healthcare disparities she knew that existed. In founding Radical Health — the first Latina-owned and operated Benefit Corp in NY — she has sought to combine her expertise in healthcare and her passion as a community organizer. Coming from an historically marginalized community herself, it was important for Ivelyse to initially build Radical Health by bringing together her neighbors around her kitchen table and hearing first-hand from voices — including the undocumented, women of color, elderly, young people, and LGBTQ — who are otherwise (figuratively and) literally never given a seat at the table to have a say in their own healthcare destiny. Through Radical Health, Ivelyse is committed to the task of transforming healthcare by facilitating health literacy and self-advocacy, as well as forging a relationship between meaningful face-to-face conversations with cutting-edge technology. Ivelyse is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow and a 2019 Aspen Ideas Health Scholar.
Dr Emily Kiberd
Dr Emily Kiberd is a mama, chiropractic physician, and founder of Urban Wellness Clinic in midtown Manhattan. She believes every busy New York woman struggling with chronic pain can feel better in her body through simple and effective strategies developed over the last twelve years in practice.
Dr Kiberd treats prenatal and postpartum women, and the corporate warrior who wrestles with the expectations of having to do it all. She’s been featured in Vogue, Elle, and Dr Oz her health and wellness expertise, and builds corporate wellness programs for companies like Prada and Slack.
Nneka Symister
Nneka Symister, LCSW, is an therapist specializing in helping women and couples who suffer with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, miscarriage and loss. After years of working with people with all types of diagnosis, Nneka decided to specifically work with perinatal diagnoses when realizing the huge deficit in mental health awareness and services for women who suffer from these disorders. In her work, Ms. Symister uses multiple techniques to best serve her clients, including cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, interpersonal therapy and mindfulness. Nneka facilitates a free monthly youth parenting class for pregnant youth and couples under 25 to discuss their rights as they pertain to prenatal care, labor/delivery, and reproductive health and how to best advocate for themselves. Within the Seleni Institute, she offers evidence-based maternal mental health trainings to help providers properly diagnose and treat Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders as well as Perinatal Loss and Grief.
Ms. Symister has over a decade of experience helping families build and strengthen their relationships. Her past work includes supporting diverse patients in underserved populations, including inner city residents and the LGBTQIA community. She also has an extensive background working with fathers, specifically utilizing the latest research in human behavior to help patients enhance their relationships with their children and increase positive communication in co-parenting efforts.
Amy Keller Laird
Amy Keller Laird is an award-winning health and lifestyle journalist and thought leader. She is the EVP of Brand & Audience Development for Remedy Health Media, overseeing eight condition-specific health brands including HealthCentral, TheBody, and Psycom. From 2014 to 2018, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Women's Health, responsible for the editorial direction across all platforms. As EIC, Amy led the brand to a record 19 million print and digital readers and the largest social media audience of any women's lifestyle media brand at the time. During her tenure, WH also surpassed all competitive brands in newsstand sales and growth of millennial readers, was nominated for two National Magazine Awards, and was named an AdAge Magazine of the Year twice. Before becoming EIC of Women's Health, she served as Executive Editor; prior to that, Amy was Deputy Editor/Beauty Director at Allure and held beauty editor posts at Good Housekeeping and Redbook. Her editorial initiatives have been featured in national and trade publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, WWD, and Glossy, and she has appeared as an expert on Today, Good Morning America, Dr. Oz, The Doctors, and HSN.
Lindsey Benoit O’Connell
Lindsey Benoit O'Connell is the Deputy Editor of Entertainment at Thrive Global and the creator of Happily Imperfect Mama — a lifestyle brand celebrating the amazingly-messy and breathtakingly-chaotic aspects of motherhood. At Thrive, O’Connell is responsible for all of the celebrity and thought leader content; as well as booking and producing Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global Podcast and talent curation for WaitWhat's Meditative Story podcast. Prior to her role at thrive, O'Connell was the Entertainment + Special Projects Director at Hearst booking covers, features, videos and online stories for Cosmopolitan,Women’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Redbook and Woman’s Day. She had worked on major initiatives like Vogue’s Fashion Rocks and Vanity Fair’s Movie’s Rock and launched a passion project while at Good Housekeeping--the GH Lab experiential store in the Mall of America with Amazon. She is an advocate for skin and cervical cancer —as a survivor of both — and speaks out about postpartum anxiety and depression awareness. She works in Soho and lives in Astoria, NY with her husband Brian and her adorable son, Hunter Fitz,.
Sarah Rueven
Sarah Rueven is a Registered Dietitian-Nutritionist, wellness expert and women’s health advocate. She is the founder of Rooted Wellness, a nutrition counseling practice dedicated to maternal and family health. In her practice, Sarah supports clients in areas such as preconception nutrition, fertility, PCOS, prenatal and postpartum health. She received her Master’s degree in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics at New York University. Beyond private counseling, Sarah provides wellness seminars, group education and is a nationally recognized contributor to media outlets such as SELF, Cosmopolitan, New York Magazine and Business Insider. She is a founding advisory board member of Robyn, a maternal wellness resource.
Layla Saad
A writer, speaker and teacher on the topics of race, identity, leadership, personal transformation and social change. She is the author of the upcoming book Me and White Supremacy, which began as a viral 28-day Instagram challenge in 2018, and later became a best-selling workbook downloaded by more than 90,000 people around the world. Me and White Supremacy releases as a harcover book in the US and UK in February 2020. Layla is also the host of the popular podcast interview series Good Ancestor Podcast.
Rachel Sklar
Rachel Sklar is a writer, entrepreneur and feminist who writes frequently about women and motherhood. A single mother of a four-year-old daughter, Rachel appears frequently at events, and is a guest on television, podcasts and other media to discuss issues relating to gender, culture and parenting. A former lawyer who writes about media, politics, culture & technology, Rachel contributes to numerous national publications including most recently the Washington Post, InStyle, and CNN.com. She is an advisor to companies including Vox Media, The Muse, Hopscotch and Bustle and non-profits Donors Choose and She's The First. She is currently launching The Luckiest, a newsletter about motherhood, single and otherwise.
Rachel is currently a lyricist in the BMI Musical Theater Workshop and contributed jokes to two of President Obama's WHCD speeches. Find her at @rachelsklar on Twitter and Instagram, and sing showtunes with her anytime.
Anne Brunn
Anne Brunn is a nationally certified acupuncturist and Chinese herbal practitioner. She brought with her to The Yinova Center with a breadth of experience that stems from a life-long pursuit of holistic wellness.
She is particularly interested in women’s health; she believes that effective care comprises the full spectrum of menstrual life: from puberty through menopause. Fertility concerns, menstrual difficulties, pre-natal and post-natal symptoms, breech presentations, and labor prep are just a few of Anne’s specialties.
Her goal is to help women take charge of their own health by encouraging them not to accept their ailments as “normal”, and so aims to optimize their most basic experiences — menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. Anne brings to each treatment the gifts of insight and compassion, to enhance the healing experience and strengthen the innate healing power within each of us.
Gessie Thompson
Coach Gessie Thompson is one of the 90% of Black Women affected by fibroids by age 50. She personally battled the epidemic for 14 years and the resulting infertility for 10 of those years to have her miracle baby Nia. Her grueling journey included 10 surgeries, five IVF cycles, a devastating miscarriage and even her heart stopping on the delivery table.
She authored a bestselling book, HOPE BEYOND FIBROIDS: Stories of Miracle Babies & the Journey to Motherhood, becoming a Nutrition & Health Coach and co-founding both the Hope Beyond Fibroids Elimination Program and The Detox on her mission to end inflammatory diseases such as Fibroids, Diabetes, Heart Disease and more by educating and empowering women to cure and prevent disease holistically.
Isa Herrera, MSPT, CSCS
Isa Herrera, MSPT, CSCS Isa is a licensed pelvic physical therapist, as well as an expert in integrative pelvic floor therapies. She developed her expertise in diagnosing and treating pelvic pain, leaking, and prolapse by helping over 14,000 women since 2005 at her NYC healing center Renew PT. Isa pioneered the use of integrative modalities like Maya Massage, Cold Laser Therapy, Sound Healing, and Andean Energy Techniques with evidence-based physical therapy in ways that had never been done. Isa incorporates a mind-body-spirit approach to all pelvic healing and believes that every woman holds the key to their own healing and can be their own inner doctor.
Isa's new online school, www.PelvicPainRelief.com brings all of her expertise to a global audience, incorporating exercises, self-care techniques, and integrative tools to maximize female healing and professional training. After suffering from pelvic floor dysfunction herself
after the birth of her daughter, Isa has made it her life’s mission to help 1 million women overcome pelvic floor conditions. To this end, she has created the Female Pelvic Alchemy Online program which teaches women how to heal themselves in the privacy of their own homes. Isa’s goal is to create a global language of understanding around a topic that is loaded with taboo, shame and silence and to help women to awaken their inner pelvic healers.
MORE SPEAKERS COMING SOON
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