Abaki Beck, MPH, (she/her) is a Health Services Research, Policy, and Administration PhD student. Prior to her doctoral studies, Abaki worked on research and program evaluation in various settings, including for a university-based social policy institute, a higher education in prison program, a member of Congress, and a community-based organization on the Blackfeet Reservation. She has also organized with numerous community-based groups, including co-founding a mutual aid fund for formerly incarcerated people in 2020. She earned a Master’s in Public Health from Washington University in St. Louis in 2020 and a Bachelor’s in American Studies from Macalester College in 2015. Contact: [email protected]

Becca Freese, MS, (she/her) is a senior biostatistician at the Biostatistical Design and Analysis Center of the University of Minnesota's Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). She completed her Masters of Science in Biostatistics at the University of Minnesota in 2018 and has worked for the CTSI ever since. In her role, she collaborates with faculty investigators to plan and carry out public health studies, including large multisite clinical trials. Becca is particularly interested in projects related to equitable access to health care and public policy. Contact: [email protected]

Ingie Osman, MPH, (she/her) is a Research Project Specialist in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health at the University of Minnesota. She joined the Division in 2021 after completing her Masters of Public Health in Community Health Promotion at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Ingie’s work is broadly focused on the impact that criminal legal system involvement has on community health and wellbeing, and is centered around partnering with communities directly impacted by these systems. Contact: [email protected]

Katie Pierson, MA, (she/her) has a BA in American History from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in American History from the University of Minnesota. After 15 years of non-profit consulting, she provides content, coaching, mentoring, and technical assistance to diverse healthy youth development research teams, building traction in support of health equity and systems change. She loves using her academic training, creative writing chops, and professional advocacy experience to translate and disseminate the science into public-facing products, policy, and practice. Contact: [email protected]

Liz Ramey, MS, CCRC (she/her) is a regulatory specialist with the Department of Pediatrics Clinical Research Services. She started a career in research as a coordinator working in pediatric diabetes. Her current focus has developed into specialization in regulatory work on studies across the Department of Pediatrics, including E4P. She enjoys learning about the intersection of research regulations, ethics and the communities for which these studies serve in order to bring about compliant and successful studies to improve others' health and wellbeing. Contact: [email protected]

Anne Siegler, DrPH, MPH, (she/her) is a public health practitioner with expertise in criminal justice and substance use. She completed her masters in public health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health with a focus on maternal and reproductive health, and completed her doctoral degree in epidemiology from the City University of New York. Dr. Siegler works with non-profits and government agencies to build quality programming through data-driven design, implementation, and evaluation.  She has led evaluations of programs in the fields of criminal justice and correctional health, substance use, and harm reduction. She served as Director of Monitoring and Evaluation for Correctional Health Services, NYC Health + Hospitals, from 2015-2017. Contact: [email protected]

Karenna Thomas, MPH, (she/her) is a staff researcher in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health. She holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Social in Behavioral Sciences from Yale School of Public Health with concentrations in US Health and Justice (USHJ) and Maternal and Child Health (MCH). Her research focuses on reproductive rights behind bars and impacts of mass incarceration on community health, with specific interests in reproductive justice and activism-based research. Contact: [email protected]

Gabrielle Daniels (she/her) is the current Program Assistant of the Alabama Prison Birth Project and offers direct birth doula services to APBP clients. A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Gabrielle has a broad background in research, public health, public education, theology, and birth work. Gabrielle’s educational background includes her Bachelors of Science from Iowa State University (2010), Master of Public Health from the Yale School of Public Health (2016), and Masters of Arts in Christian Studies from Duke Divinity School (2017). Her research and service interests have focused on the social determinants of health for women and children; the intersection of theology, medicine, and culture; historical memory work related to racial injustice in America. Her faith, work, and background continue to inform her efforts to serve the needs of vulnerable populations both domestically and abroad.

Melissa Zielinski, PhD, (she/her) is an Assistant Professor and Clinical Psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She directs the Health and the Legal System (HEALS) Lab, a diverse group of scholars and clinical trainees focused on the intersections among trauma, mental illness, addiction, and the legal system (e.g., prisons, drug treatment courts, jails, crime victims). Much of her work has focused on justice-involved women, many of whom are survivors of sexual and domestic violence and have unique needs like pregnancy care. Her research is helping to identify how to best intervene, how to get treatments that work in to these systems, and how to promote long-term recovery.

Mollee Smith, PhD, (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and is research faculty in the Health and Legal System (HEALS) Lab at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Trained as Criminologist with expertise in qualitative research methods, Dr. Smith’s program of research examines the intersection of health and the legal system, with particular focus on justice-involved specialty populations, including aging incarcerated individuals, pregnant and postpartum people, and persons affected by substance use disorders. Her recent work focuses on the delivery behavioral health care for justice-involved individuals with mental health conditions, history of trauma exposure, and substance use. 

Ashley Minihan (she/her) is the Owner of Empowered Beginnings. Ashley holds Certifications as a  DONA Doula, Childbirth Educator, Lactation Counselor, Passenger Safety Technician, Spinning Babies Parent Educator and Circle of Security Facilitator as well as Parents as Teachers, Touch Points and has earned a Family Development Credential. Her goal is to support prenatal and postnatal families as they navigate parenthood. Ashley prides herself in respecting everyone’s choices in a non-judgmental way by offering emotional support during the journey of parenthood.

Brenda Baker, PhD, RNC, FAAN (she/her) is an assistant professor of nursing at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, 2021-2022, and a recipient of a March of Dimes Nurse of the Year Award. Baker is the founder of the Georgia Prison Motherhood Project, a collaboration between Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and the Georgia Department of Corrections. 

Baker is actively involved in policy and advocacy efforts related to care of incarcerated women and their children and serves on state and national committees representing the unique needs of incarcerated women. Her research has focused on health disparities experienced by incarcerated pregnant women, substance use disorders among women, and the role of social support in the transition to motherhood. Baker has examined and published on the topics of mothers of preterm infants, evidence-based care for pregnant women and newborns, and maternal and neonatal outcomes of incarcerated women.

Alexus Roane (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Sociology and a 3rd year MPH student in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan. She obtained her B.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies and Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her current research interests center using a reproductive justice theoretical framework to address reproductive health disparities for Black birthing people at the nexus of their experiences with violence and/or criminalization. As a Ford Predoctoral fellowship scholar, her current qualitative research project examines Black birthing people’s experiences with pregnancy and maternity care decision-making in rural North Carolina maternity care deserts. Alexus is also a pregnancy loss doula studying to become full-spectrum alongside serving as a collective member of Black Women Birthing Justice. 

Born in Guatemala, Evelyn Yaeggy (she/her) is the founder of Vida Midwifery Collective in Minnesota. She is a home birth midwife, a certified prison doula through Minnesota Prison Doula Project, and a certified one-on-one peer counselor through Intentional Peer Support. She is also a certified Parenting Inside Out facilitator for incarcerated folx. Evelyn is passionate about working with the community, whether it is in her Vida Midwifery Practice providing perinatal care outside of the hospital setting or being a doula for clients at the prison. She enjoys facilitating parenting and mothering classes for families at several locations in Minnesota.

Alicia Roach's (she/her) journey as a Doula began over 20 years ago, before she knew of the term Doula. She started supporting friends and family members through pregnancy, labor and delivery and postpartum, loving every minute of it.

Her journey into motherhood was faced with many challenges and traumatic experiences, essentially setting her on the path to become a Doula. Knowing how naturally skilled she was with supporting births, Alicia knew this was the career she needed to pursue. She believes that every voice deserves to be heard, regardless of their situation, with advocacy being one of her biggest passions aside from being a Doula.

Sara Zia, MA, (she/her) has an academic background in Philosophy from UCLA and UVA. She is a Certified Professional Midwife and doula and has over a decade of experience teaching yoga in her community. In 2018 Sara began teaching yoga at her local prison and drafted an evidence-based proposal for perinatal support programs. In 2019 Sara collaborated with prison staff to design and implement programs serving Virginia’s pregnant prison population with childbearing year support. She is Founder and Executive Director of the Virginia Prison Birth Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to building on this work.

Our team’s work is guided by a national Community Research Council composed of nine formerly incarcerated individuals, many of whom experienced pregnancy/postpartum while they were incarcerated and/or do professional work in this space.

Community Research Council members help strategically guide this work by:

• Sharing their expertise and lived experience
• Informing how our research team approaches different projects related to pregnancy and incarceration
• Providing tangible direction and feedback related to participant recruitment, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination
• Helping make decisions about how to implement findings that come from the research to turn them into real-world change
• Helping share information through a variety of dissemination methods
• Providing a vision for future projects, including identifying priorities for future research

Cheri Branham, certified social worker and peer support specialist, became a CRC member while the supporting of building a prison doula project in Wisconsin. Her passion stems from her own lived experience of having a prison birth in 2014. She was incarcerated for a crime less revocation for getting prescribed Medical Assisted Treatment without consent from her Probation Officer. While believing she was making the right choice, Probation did not agree. She was told she would be going to treatment while in jail, but when no treatment would accept her, she went to prison to give birth to her first child. The treatment inside empowered her to make a change anyway she could. Cheri began building relationships with jails and prisons, became a prison doula, supported a volunteer pilot at a local jail, and fearlessly shared her story with the hope of better support for people who are pregnant and postpartum and incarcerated across the state. Being apart of the CRC has given Cheri the ability to share her story to bring awareness and participate in research that can shape policies. Her goal is to eliminate barrier, so that others don’t have to have the same experience she had. 

Victoria Lopez is a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist and has also completed her CPRS Forensic Endorsement training. She is a part of Revive Recovery as well as Re-Entry and Rebuilding Lives. She works for Direct Recovery Support (DRS) as a CPRS, where she supports individuals who have been impacted by substance use and incarceration and she is the regional representative for Families First (Head Start) for Southern Minnesota. She is also currently working towards her degree in Psychology. Victoria's experience being released through the Minnesota Healthy Start Act gives her a unique perspective on how to better support parents and families in our state. She hopes to continue to use both her lived and professional experience to continue making positive change in Minnesota and beyond.

Kristie Puckett, MA, is a civil rights activist, abolitionist, and policy strategist whose personal experiences with poverty, addiction, domestic violence, and incarceration fuel her commitment to transformative justice. As Chief of Staff at Second Chance Federation, she leads organizational infrastructure and strategic partnerships for the national nonprofit law firm launching in April 2026. Kristie co-founded KEP² (Squared), a consulting firm centering leadership directly impacted by advocacy and systems change. She is the first directly impacted consultant at the Center for Effective Public Policy and co-leads the National Resource Center for Justice-Involved Women, shaping national policy responses for justice-impacted women. Her legislative advocacy includes successfully lobbying for North Carolina's Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act during her tenure as Deputy Director of Engagement at ACLU of North Carolina. She has held leadership roles including Chair of the SRCC Women in Incarceration Workgroup and Commissioner on NC CRED, and received the Dogwood Award from NC Attorney General Josh Stein for her advocacy on behalf of incarcerated pregnant women. Kristie serves as an advisor on national research initiatives concerning policing, pretrial justice, political violence, and perinatal incarceration, ensuring policy is rooted in lived experience and community knowledge.

Alicia Roach's (she/her) journey as a Doula began over 20 years ago, before she knew of the term Doula. She started supporting friends and family members through pregnancy, labor and delivery and postpartum, loving every minute of it.

Her journey into motherhood was faced with many challenges and traumatic experiences, essentially setting her on the path to become a Doula. Knowing how naturally skilled she was with supporting births, Alicia knew this was the career she needed to pursue. She believes that every voice deserves to be heard, regardless of their situation, with advocacy being one of her biggest passions aside from being a Doula.

My name is Brittany, I am from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have firsthand experience in the prison and judicial systems. Additionally, I have personally experienced the challenges of having a child while incarcerated. Despite these obstacles, I have overcome them and am now dedicated to helping and supporting women who have faced similar hardships. My goal is to contribute to systemic change and find effective solutions to these issues. 

Rea Smith (she/her/hers) is a dedicated public servant with professional, academic, volunteer, and lived experience. She began her career in healthcare and health insurance before joining the State of Minnesota in 2020 as the first formerly incarcerated Assistant Ombuds for Corrections, where she investigated systemic concerns and analyzed policy impacts on marginalized communities. Her professional interests include racial equity, mental and behavioral health, neurodivergence, disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline, and centering directly impacted people in policy decisions. For over a decade, Rea has volunteered with organizations across the Twin Cities, supporting re-entry and community transformation. She holds a B.A. in Psychology (2021) and a Master of Public Administration degree (2024), both from Metropolitan State University. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her children.

Allison Ihle (formerly Crawford), PhD, RN (she/her/they/them) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Health at San Antonio’s School of Nursing where she conducts health research involving childbearing communities influenced by incarceration. As a registered obstetrical nurse with post-doctoral training in digital health, Dr. Crawford is an expert on creating interventions to address the barriers women experience who have criminal justice oversight. Her research directly informed two Texas state laws passed in 2019 (HB 1651) and 2021 (HB 1308) to improve healthcare for women in Texas county jails. Recently, in 2025, Dr. Crawford has been awarded Top 25 Nurses in the State of Texas by the Texas Nurses Association and selected to be a 2025 inductee as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing for her contribution to nursing science and public health. Dr. Crawford’s research is currently funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HD103634-03S2 and IIMS/CTSA. The long-term goal of her research is to develop and test scalable and tailored interventions that enable self-efficacy and access to care discreetly and affordably using technology for those with risks associated with the criminal legal system. Affiliation: The University of Texas Health Science Center School of Nursing; Contact: [email protected]

Noël Marsh (she/her) is a feminist ethnographer who works at the intersections of medical anthropology and public health. She is currently pursuing a PhD in medical anthropology and a MPH in Behavioral and Community Health Sciences (with a focus in Maternal and Child Health) at the University of Pittsburgh. Her dissertation research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation and Wenner Gren Foundation, explores the politics of providing doula support to incarcerated pregnant people in the United States, especially as these efforts are linked to broader social movements for reproductive justice. As an undergraduate student at the University of South Carolina, she contributed to an implementation science project that assessed how midwifery-based, group prenatal care (CenteringPregnancy) was introduced and taken up by obstetric practices across South Carolina. Her general interests include care, social support, reproductive health, reproductive justice, incarceration, race/class/sex/gender, and feminist methodologies. Affiliation: University of Pittsburgh Department of Anthropology; Contact: [email protected]

Carolyn Sufrin, MD, PhD, (she/her) is a medical anthropologist and an obstetrician-gynecologist specializing in family planning at Johns Hopkins University. She is associate professor in the Department of Gyn/Ob and the associate director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine at the School of Medicine and in Health, Behavior and Society at the School of Public Health. She has worked extensively on reproductive health issues affecting incarcerated women, from providing clinical care in jail, to research, policy, and advocacy. Her work is situated at the intersection of reproductive justice, health care, and mass incarceration, which she examines in her book, Jailcare: Finding the Safety Net for Women Behind Bars. Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Gyn/OB; Learn more about Dr. Sufrin at her website arrwip.org. 

Megan Nguyen is a third-year undergraduate at the University of Minnesota majoring in Biology. Alongside this, she has a personal interest in learning about the psychological factors that impact individuals in the criminal justice system and how that may potentially intersect with biological fields of study. The application of mental health research to more physiological studies has been her passion for a long time. She has aspirations of applying to medical school and working with a variety of populations in the community.

My name is Lauryn Oberlander and I am currently a junior at the University of Minnesota studying Sociology of Law, Criminology and Justice with a minor in Public Health. I am interested in helping those who have been affected by the criminal justice system and learning their stories! I am excited to learn more about the experiences of marginalized communities and those affected by social issues and hope to eventually become a social worker in prisons. I am very excited to be a part of the team and can't wait to work alongside others who share similar interests!