Nurturely Team
We Nurture a Team of Passionate Humans
In Loving Memory
Angela Diaz de Leon
We are so lucky to have been graced by Angela’s presence on Nurturely Founding Board of Directors. She was much more than an integral part of this organization – she was a true friend to each of us. Angela had a fierce passion for birth work, community activism, and reproductive justice. Nurturely was just one of the many organizations to which Angela dedicated time, energy, and expertise. If this loss can teach us anything, it is to strive to create the type of community and world that Angela was humbly working toward. We can honor our memories of Angela by showing genuine compassion for others and by working hard to create a world where pregnancy, birth, and postpartum are supported with the sacred reverence they deserve. We have a lot of collective work to do, but Angela’s light will continue to guide us forward.
Board President
Chidimma Ozor Commer, MSW, MA [she/her]
Black mama, wife, global citizen
Chidimma Ozor Commer, LLMSW, MSW, MA, is a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, small business owner, educator, and the former podcaster focused on racial and social justice, anti-racism, anti-oppression, and highlighting the stories of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) / People of Color (POC) / People of the Global Majority (PGM) disruptive storytellers. She has worked as a social science researcher for several years and also has a background in healthcare. She’s committed to coming alongside others in their perinatal journey through community care, empathy, compassion, and understanding. During her “off” time when she is not thinking about how to better serve humanity, she enjoys riding her Peloton, run + walking, strength training, HIIT training, practicing yoga and mediation, reading, writing, traveling, and spending time with loved ones.
Board Treasurer
Randy Tran, PhD [he/him]
Conscientious, Empathetic, Strategic
Dr. Tran serves as the Treasurer on the Board of Directors for the non-profit Nurturely. He utilizes his background in Human Biology and interests in reproductive health and child development to help guide Nurturely’s mission in promoting equity in perinatal wellness and creating a culture of support for infants and caregivers. Dr. Tran completed his PhD at the University of California, San Diego in Experimental Psychology with an emphasis on human memory, learning, and attention. In his day-to-day job, he brings science to the human-centered design of complex and high-consequence systems. He applies his research skills and interests to solve challenging problems in the design of user interfaces for unmanned vehicle command and control systems and for futuristic emerging technology concepts before they are fielded.
Board Networks Chair
Mamta Elias, MPH, MBA [she/her]
First-Generation Indian-American, Women’s Health Advocate, Empathy-First Healthcare Strategy Leader
Mamta serves as the Networks Manager on Nurturely’s board of directors. Her professional journey in healthcare is rooted in her lived experiences as a patient and caregiver. Mamta has seen first hand how the healthcare system can fail patients and caregivers by being reactive, difficult to navigate, inaccessible, and unaffordable. These lived experiences are what drive her to bring an empathy-first approach to improving equity, outcomes, and experience in underserved areas of healthcare. Her professional experience in healthcare spans the public and private sector, and her most recent roles have been in product & strategy leadership at digital health companies focused on women’s and family health. She’s thrilled to bring these experiences to Nurturely’s mission of promoting equity in perinatal wellness and strengthening cultures of support for infants and caregivers.
Board Secretary
Eddye Golden, MPH [she/her]
Jewish Woman, Ambitious Public Health Advocate
Eddye is a public health advocate with experience working in digital health research and women’s health. Eddye received her Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University with a focus in sociomedical sciences and ethics/law. In her day-to-day job, she develop digital programs and products to improve accessibility and equity in maternal and family health outcomes. She is passionate about improving health equity through technology and driven by the idea that we should meet people where they are, and address their needs holistically.
Founder & Executive Director
Emily Little, PhD, CLEC [she/her]
Perinatal Researcher & Advocate, Global Explorer, Outdoor Enthusiast
Emily Little, PhD, CLEC, is a perinatal health educator, researcher, and advocate, and is the Founder and Executive Director of Nurturely. She completed her PhD at University of California, San Diego in experimental psychology with a specialization in anthropogeny. Emily conducts community-participatory research that combines approaches from anthropology, psychology, and public health to explore infant-caregiver interaction and perinatal health systems, with the end goal of improving policies and societal practices so all infants and caregivers can thrive. She is trained as a Certified Lactation Educator Counselor and Babywearing Educator and is passionate about co-creating community-led programs that facilitate equitable access to wellness during the perinatal period. Her time living and working in Micronesia, Central and South America, and India inspired her passion for strengthening cultures of support for infants and caregivers and promoting equity and cultural humility in all aspects of her work.
Equity & Inclusion Lead
Ayisha Elliott, BS, LE [she/her]
Black Beauty-Uplifter, Salsa Dancer, Community-Builder
As a single mother of three beautiful children, Ayisha earned an Associates degree in Nursing at Santa Monica college, a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, with focus on Cognitive Neuroscience, and a minor in Sociology at the University of Oregon. The programs she has created and the lives affected by the work she has dedicated herself to, have led her to lean into her power and move into full time Equity/Inclusion facilitation and advising. True to her nature, she has again created an intimate approach around learning Anti Racism work through skilled conversation and leadership.
Outreach & OpS Coordinator
María Paz Aguirre [she/ella]
Mother, Friend, Community-Worker
María Paz was born in Santiago de Chile where she majored in Arts and Design. She moved to Ecuador a few years later , where she found her passion for connecting and supporting others. Her first son was born in this country and a few months later she migrated to the United States with her family. In 2015 she moved to Eugene OR, where she has found her community and is actively working to support and advocate for the Latinx community in the area.
Research & ProgramS Manager
Aver Yakubu [she/her/hers]
Enlightened; Critical Thinker; Tranquil
Aver has ten years of experience working in roles related to equity in perinatal care and women’s health within multiple settings from community organizations, hospitals, and academia. Currently, Aver is wrapping up a PhD program in Public Health Studies (concentration: health administration and policy) at Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice. Her dissertation is studying the effectiveness of multi-sector collaborations aiming to improve birthing (perinatal) outcomes. In addition to research, Aver is skilled in strategic planning, business management, as well as team building.
Program Coordinator
Jessalyn Ballerano [she/her/they]
Eclectic, eco-minded, partner in paradox
Jessalyn is passionate about illuminating connections for her clients and the public between the ways we cultivate health, relate to one another, and engage societal systems. She became a birth worker and advocate by way of studying sustainability, food and media in upstate/western New York, where she also wrote her thesis on U.S. hospital birth systems.
Informed and invigorated, she spent about a decade in Northern California as a student of birth and community-grounded doula with the Oakland Better Birth Foundation. Jessalyn serves OBBF as Communications Coordinator and is on the board of the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery. She enjoys meditating via cooking, work/playing with her partner in their Eugene garden, and taking her Australian Shepherd on long walks while mind/heart mapping the many solutions at our fingertips for the liberation of all people and collective wellness.
Navegadora de Bienestar
Roshny B. Martuscelli, BA, QMHA, LE [she/ella]
Immigrant, Multicultural, Social Worker
Roshny B. Martuscelli, born in Panama, immigrated to the United States at the age of 8. A native Spanish Speaker, Roshny’s passion has always been people and giving back to the community that served her and empowered her single-mother to navigate her resources independently and raise her kids to be as successful as possible. Although her family faced numerous adversities as immigrants, Roshny still managed to graduate from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Spanish with focuses in Business and Ethnic Studies. She is now a mother to two beautiful boys and a wife to her high school sweetheart. Roshny is passionate about Social Justice, Perinatal work, serving marginalized communities, advocacy, and all things Equity. She has also made dance her life’s work and is currently the Artistic Director of Elite Dance Company, an adult performance group in Eugene, OR.
Milk Magic Co-Lead
Jennifer Michel-Wilson [she/her]
Beautiful, Passionate, strong and loving
Hello my name is Jennifer Michel-Wilson—Certified Birth Doula & Certified Postpartum Doula, Bereavement & Holistic Fertility Doula as well as a Certified Lactation Counselor. I am also Body Ready Method Certified (BRM Pro). I am the founder and owner of La Belle Doula. Beyond being a Doula, I am an advocate for mental wellness. Supporting mental and emotional health is a sentiment in my life which led me to become a VP Board Member of NAMI, National Alliance of Mental Illness. In addition, I am a proud native New Yorker who is a loving and devoted wife and mother.
Advisory Team - organizational
Sabia Wade, LE, Doula [she/they]
Radical Doula, Badass Investor, Systems-Visionary
Sabia is a revolutionary CEO, doula, educator, and somatic practitioner in training, elevating the voices and experiences of marginalized communities. Sabia embraces her role as a liberator of self by birthing new and hidden aspects of individuals while nurturing the spaces within them that have never known love, all with the goal of autonomy, justice, and equity for all.
Advisory Team - Organizational
Michaelyn Wipf, JD [she/her]
Lady-of-the-Law, Garden Enthusiast, Mother-of-Spitfires
Michaelyn Wipf, JD, graduated from University of San Francisco in 2014 with a certificate in public interest law. She is a 2010 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Economics and Policy and a minor in City Planning. She became partner in a civil law firm in her hometown of Ukiah, California, in 2018. She is the mother to two spitfires, Austen and Arlo.
Advisory Team - Research
Jen Hahn-Holbrook, PhD [she/her]
Scientific Explorer, Teacher, Maternal-Child Health Activist
Dr. Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at UC Merced and the Director of the LATCH Lab. Dr. Hahn-Holbrook received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen’s University Belfast in 2010 and then completed postdoctoral training at UCLA. In collaboration with the LATCH Lab team, Dr. Hahn-Holbrook conducts basic research and fosters community and industry partnerships to address key health problems facing families.
Advisory Team - Research
Rupa Basu [she/her/hers]
Climate researcher, epidemiologist, mother
Rupa Basu, PhD, MPH, is currently the Chief of the Air and Climate Epidemiology Section at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) of the California Environmental Protection Agency. She has published extensively on research focusing on examining temperature and air pollution on health outcomes, including mortality, morbidity, and adverse birth outcomes, while identifying vulnerable subgroups. Prior to joining OEHHA, she worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency, after obtaining her PhD degree in epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and her MPH degree from the UCLA School of Public Health. She collaborates with external agencies such as the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the Kaiser Division of Research on studies that have been federally funded. She serves on several statewide and national climate change committees and has been an invited guest speaker on many occasions from academic settings including teaching a course on climate change and public health at UC Berkeley to governmental leaders, such as former Governor Schwarzenegger. She was featured in the Emmy award-winning climate change documentary, Years of Living Dangerously, “Mercury Rising” episode with Matt Damon. Dr. Basu’s work is widely cited and has received a lot of media attention, including The New York Times, LA Times, and NPR. She has served as a referee for many environmental health, epidemiology and climate research journals and has reviewed several grant proposals and reports for federal and state governmental agencies.
Advisory Team - Community
Elydé Arroyo [she/her]
I believe in aliens. I love mushrooms and pineapple on my pizza.
Elyde Arroyo is a Mother, Grassroots Activist, Trauma Informed Birthkeeper(specializing in postpartum support) Co-Founder of Sacred Healing Collective and The Source Holistic Space, founder of Grounded Womb as well as Director and founder of BIPOC Community Clinic San Diego.
Elyde is a somatic practitioner whose focus is post-traumatic growth. She began her Birthkeeper journey by supporting people through abortions then later post-partum.
Advisory Team - community
Kyndl Woodlee, PhD [he/him]
Father and Husband, Pop Culture Enthusiast, Young Black Psychologist
Kyndl Woodlee, MS, is a University of Kentucky Graduate and counseling psychology doctoral candidate, scheduled to graduate from the University of Oregon in 2022. Over the last 3 years, he has worked as a therapist in university, family, and community settings. He has focused much of his research on Intimate Partner Violence and Masculinity. Having become a father in 2020, Kyndl has begun to merge his interests and expertise to develop and provide sources of support for new and expecting fathers.
Advisory Team - Medical
Alisha Liggett, MD [she/her]
Doctor, health equity expert
Dr. Alisha Liggett is a family medicine physician, and founder of Empower Her Health, a reproductive health equity consultancy that uses a social justice lens to craft unique solutions to combat bias and promote anti-racism in healthcare today. She has worked as a primary care doctor caring for patients all over New York City. She has authored several published articles, train & mentor health care practitioners, and teach health education seminars in her community.
Advisory Team - Medical
Miranda Lanning, MD, IBCLC [she/her]
Pediatrician, Lactation Consultant, Mother
Dr. Miranda Lanning is a pediatrician and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She completed her medical education at Oregon Health & Science University and her pediatric training at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. She is a current member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. She uses her passion and skills for breastfeeding to care and advocate for her patients and their families as a pediatrician with PeaceHealth Medical Group in Springfield, Oregon. She enjoys caring for families from prenatal visits through adolescence and is passionate about breastfeeding education as a way to promote health for infants and caregivers. Miranda currently lives in Eugene with her husband and their two year old daughter who enjoys their ongoing breastfeeding relationship.
Advisory Team - Medical
Laurie Bostick Cammon [she/her/ella]
Mother, Healer, Nature-Lover
Dr. Cammon is a Pediatrician and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics who has been in practice for 20 years and has a career focus on working in urban areas with underserved, marginalized, vulnerable, and truly resilient patient populations. She is empathetic, detail-oriented, and quality-focused with a family-centered approach to medical care and strives to provide evidence-based medical care that respects the history, culture, and individual needs of the families I serve.
Dr. Cammon graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School and completed her residency at the Children’s Hospital Oakland. She was the Medical Director of Kerry’s Kids which is a mobile clinic that provides medical care to homeless children and was also the Medical Director of the Alameda County Juvenile Hall. She has taught at the University of California Berkeley through the Biology Scholars Program (BSP) which focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion to support students from low-income backgrounds and underrepresented minorities as they pursue careers in medicine and the sciences. She is currently in practice at Santa Clara County Valley Medical Center while also serving as a Champion Provider Fellow Mentor at the University of California San Fransisco and as an affiliated Clinical Instructor at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Cammon is passionate about helping families thrive by improving their health through healthy lifestyle changes, especially by being active in nature. And she is the Pediatric Director of JUNTOS, a Park Prescription initiative that was developed in collaboration with the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. JUNTOS is a Spanish word meaning “together”, and the program is designed to connect medical providers with high-risk patient families in an effort to improve health equity by eliminating barriers to park access. Through JUNTOS, providers and families come together to develop a community culture based on being active in and connected to nature. She is currently working to expand this work to a larger population of families in her community through the development of a Santa Clara County Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights. This Bill of Rights will be used as a lever to implement policy and systems-level changes to address social inequities and increase access to green spaces for all children and families.