I am a certified nurse-midwife and educator with over thirty-five years experience in maternal-child health. My experience has ranged from an academic appointment at Ohio State University as Assistant Professor of Pediatric Nursing to health service planning projects in rural Ohio and Kentucky and several clinical midwifery practices in Massachusetts.

I received my midwifery training at Frontier Nursing Service in Hyden, KY.  At FNS I also developed and implemented comprehensive pediatric services for Leslie Co., KY, an isolated Appalachian community and taught the pediatric component of the FNP program there. This program was designed to train midwives and FNP students for roles in international settings and rural or low resource areas of the USA. Much of my work there, including births, was done in the home and required daily travel by horseback or jeep. The people in KY had many of the challenges facing the Maya: environmental and cultural degradation, poverty, lack of education, lack of adequate roads, lack of clean water, etc. 

After moving to Boston, MA, I founded one of the first full-service midwifery services there and served as its director for eleven years. My other experience includes founding and directing a neighborhood emergency food pantry, founding and directing a small food production business, and co-founding a free standing Birth Center in Cambridge, MA . My clients in Massachusetts have mainly been low income, immigrant women from Latin America.  I speak Spanish and some Portuguese and plan to learn Mam in the near future.

In 2003 I met Antonina Sanchez at a conference in Oaxaca, Mexico and traveled back with her to Guatemala. I was totally enchanted by the village and the midwives. I was so impressed that this group of indigenous women had overcome so many obstacles to realize their dream of a birth center of their own, one under their control which would reflect their language, culture, and traditional healing practices as well as incorporating biomedical practices where appropriate. This is what makes the ACAM project so unique and compelling.

Since that initial visit I have returned several times each year. I have shared my midwifery and primary care skills in workshops, helped to organize and maintain a small pharmacy, and helped to develop systems such as records and emergency procedures. I traveled with the midwives as they offered both traditional healing ceremonies and medical care to other communities devastated by Hurricane Stan.
In the U.S  I am doing fund raising,helping to organize a large container of medical and dental supplies, ordering medicines and other supplies and beginning to develop a system for handling volunteer requests. I hope to retire from my current job this year and devote more time to the project.