Our Team

The People Behind the Work

Meet the dedicated researchers, educators, and advocates working to advance women’s health equity.

Senior Leadership

Founder & Executive Director

Select the card to read the full profile.

Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha PhD, MPH

Founder & Executive Director·Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health·Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Founder and Director of the Center for Maternal Health Advancement and of the Maternal Outcomes of Translational Health Equity Research (MOTHER) Lab. Her scholarship examines maternal health disparities, infant mortality, reproductive health and social justice, and HIV/AIDS among Black women.

Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha

PhD, MPH · Founder & Executive Director
Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health
Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,
Public Health and Professional Degree Programs

About

Dr. Amutah-Onukagha is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Maternal Health Advancement (CMHA) and of the Maternal Outcomes of Translational Health Equity Research (MOTHER) Lab. She holds the Julia A. Okoro Professorship in Black Maternal Health in the Department of Public Health & Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, and serves as the inaugural Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the university’s Public Health and Professional Degree Programs.

She founded the nation’s largest Black maternal health conference, which draws participants from more than 46 states and 10 countries. She directs diversity, equity, and inclusion training for the KL2 and BIRCWH fellowship programs at Tufts CTSI, and serves on the boards of Birth Equity Justice MA and the Neighborhood Birth Center.

Dr. Amutah-Onukagha earned her MPH from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and her PhD in Public Health from the University of Maryland, and completed a Kellogg Health Scholars postdoctoral fellowship in community-based participatory research and health disparities.

Research Focus

Her scholarship examines maternal health disparities, infant mortality, reproductive health and social justice, and the experiences of Black women living with HIV/AIDS. She leads two multi-year studies: an NIH R01-funded investigation of maternal mortality and morbidity, and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation interdisciplinary maternal health equity grant.

Her work spans more than 80 manuscripts, six book chapters, a bestselling book, and a textbook on culturally responsive evaluation, and has been featured in The Lancet, TEDx, USA Today, MSNBC, and The New York Times. She serves on the editorial board of Women’s Health Issues.

Recognition

2022 John MacQueen Lecture Award, Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs · 2020 Top 40 Under 40 Minority Leaders in Healthcare · 2019 Young Professional of the Year, American Public Health Association Maternal and Child Health Section.

Unit Leads

Program Area Leadership

Select any card to read that lead’s biography.

Dr. Nina Ashford

Policy Advisor
Clinical Assistant Professor

Unit Lead

Dr. Ashford is committed to health equity through innovative person-centered policy, public health programming, and evaluation, with over 16 years of experience across government, academia, and community-based non-profits.

She serves as Deputy Director for the Program Alignment Group at the CMS Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office, and previously spent seven years leading the State and Population Health portfolio at the CMS Innovation Center. Her dissertation examined the influence of patient activation on the use of clinical preventive services among Medicare beneficiaries.

Dr. Linda Hudson

Community Engaged Research Lead
Assistant Professor

Unit Lead

Dr. Hudson is an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. The strength of her contribution has been in community-based practice, implementation, management, and evaluation of programs designed to facilitate health-related behavior change by addressing individual and community level determinants of health.

Her doctoral work examined chronic disease prevention among women, including protective behaviors related to lupus and obesity prevention in urban environments. Her recent research adapts a nationally tested cardiovascular disease prevention curriculum specifically for African-American women.

Dr. Shikhar Shrestha

Maternal & Child Health Epidemiological Data Lead
Assistant Professor

Unit Lead

Dr. Shrestha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He earned his PhD from the University of New Mexico in 2019, where his dissertation examined post-discharge healthcare utilization in infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome.

His research studies the opioid crisis, emphasizing prenatal opioid exposure and associated health outcomes, opioid overdose events, and harm reduction. He uses Geographic Information Systems to examine the accessibility and acceptability of treatment.

Candace Stewart, MPH

MOTHER Lab Lead

Unit Lead

Candace Stewart completed her Master of Public Health with a concentration in Health Policy and Management at Stony Brook University, and holds a Juris Doctorate with a concentration in Health Law and Policy.

She has previously served as a Quality Improvement Research Associate at the Yale-New Haven Stroke Center and as Research Program Coordinator for the World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program.

Team

Staff

Select any card to read that person’s biography.

Alysha Noel

Senior Administrative Coordinator

Staff

Alysha Noel is a results-driven professional with a diverse background in operations management and community engagement.

Judith Jeanty, MPH

Center Research Project Manager
Annual BMHC Conference Coordinator

Staff

Judith Jeanty is from New Jersey, where she received her Bachelor of Science from Montclair State University and her Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Community Health and Prevention from Drexel University.

She was previously a program management officer at the New Jersey Department of Health, where she managed statewide doula-funded programs. Her research interests include maternal and child health, health disparities, and reproductive health, specifically among Black women and low-income communities. She is passionate about increasing access to doula services and achieving health equity.

Team

Researchers & Students

Student roster rotates by season.

Dr. Farida N. Yada

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Researcher

Dr. Yada’s background is in Biology, Public Health, and Health Services Research. She is passionate about reproductive health, access, utilization, and quality of maternity services across the Black Diaspora, with a focus on immigrant Black women.

She plans to use her research skills to leverage current knowledge and contribute to the growing body of evidence on birth equity. Dr. Yada is particularly interested in making information about respectful maternity care, disrupting obstetric racism, and culturally appropriate maternity care accessible to families and providers alike.

Dr. Heather Olden

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Researcher

Dr. Olden is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow tackling racial disparities in severe maternal mortality. She matriculated from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with a dissertation focused on hospital readiness for Medicaid expansion covering doula services in Massachusetts.

She specializes in qualitative data collection and analysis, organizational strategic planning, and community and patient engagement.