IBCLC Using Research Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Glenda currently works at Duke University Hospital as an inpatient IBCLC. She has been with Duke since September 2017. Prior to working at Duke she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville School of Nursing, primarily teaching the maternal newborn courses. She graduated with a BSN from the University of Louisville in 1990, a MSN from Old Dominion in 2004, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Louisville and will graduate May 2018. She is testing a new breastfeeding assessment instrument she created. She first became certified as an IBCLC in 1997 and took the certification exam for the 3rd time April 2017. She has worked maternal newborn, women’s health, and lactation during her 27 years as a RN. She has presented internationally (but the conference was in Louisville), nationally, and locally. She is a member of ICLA and USLCA.

Indira Lopez-Bassols has supported birthing and breastfeeding families for the past 17 years. She has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant for 13 years and currently works as a clinician, educator and researcher. As a clinician IBCLC, she has led the Specialist Breastfeeding Clinic (Central London Community Healthcare NHS trust) for complex breastfeeding dyads for the past 6 consecutive years. As the Director of the Centre for Breastfeeding Education and Research, she created 13 years ago the Breastfeeding London Course, a 1 year-long international in-depth training course for HCPs who want to become IBCLCs. She is currently doing Doctoral studies within the Mother, Infant and Child Health research group (MIRU) in the School of Health Sciences at Dundee University. Her PhD examines breastfeeding education for HCPs, the interplay between learning needs and motivation. 

Nikki Lee started as an LPN in 1971, got her RN and BSN, and a graduate degree. She is an author, a teacher, a holistic lactation consultant, a craniosacral therapy practitioner, and a baby body worker (teaching Infant Massage and TummyTime! She is mother to 2 wonderful (breastfed for a long time) daughters, wife to 3 interesting men, only one of whom was the right one for the past 37 years, Rafe!

Her publications include the books, Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Breastfeeding Therapy and A Breastfeeding Owner’s Manual; the monographs, “Benefits of Breastfeeding and Their Economic Impact” and “Sexuality and Breastfeeding” and the educational pamphlet “How to help yourself through labor”. She has been the reviews editor for the journal Clinical Lactation, and has worked as the lactation consultant for the division of Maternal, Child, and Family Health at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health since 2006.

Mercedes Thomas is an advanced practice nurse, lactation consultant, writer, and health consultant. She is also the author of the best-selling book What in the Baby?!?: The Modern Mama's Guide to Confidently Caring for Your Baby and Surviving the Postpartum Period, written to help expectant mothers and new parents transition into the new normal of parenthood.

She has been in the nursing field for over a decade. Mercedes completed her undergraduate nursing studies at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, and went on to earn her Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner degree from the University of South Alabama.

In 2020, Mercedes was named the Washington Parent Pick in the category of breastfeeding support. She has also been recognized by the founders of Black Breastfeeding Week as a "brave innovator" in her pursuits to support lactation care and education in her community. Her health articles have also been featured in outlets like Medical News Today, Verywell Health, and GoodRx.

As an extension of her immense passion for supporting parents, Mercedes also created the My Global Family app to connect parents to health and education service providers, reliable resources, and other families worldwide.

In Mercedes' downtime, you can find her globetrotting with her family, and advocating for families to have access to equitable, quality healthcare and breastfeeding services.

Sonia Semenic is an Associate Professor at the Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) and a Nurse Scientist at the McGill University Health Center. After many years of experience as an IBCLC and Clinical Nurse Specialist in maternal-child health, Sonia completed a PhD in Nursing and postdoctoral training in community health. Her research aims to better understand the process of knowledge translation (KT) in perinatal health, with a particular focus on the implementation of evidence-based practices to protect, promote and support breastfeeding. She currently co-leads the Knowledge Translation Platform for the Quebec Nursing Intervention Research Network, and teaches graduate courses on knowledge translation in nursing practice.

Zainab Yate is a Biomedical Ethicist, with a specialist interest in infant feeding. Zainab is Vice Chair and named qualitative lead on a paediatric flagged Research Ethics Committee Panel for the Health Research Authority (HRA) in the UK, reviewing research protocols for over a decade. Zainab's previous working background is in Public Health and Commissioning the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. She had also been a volunteer breastfeeding peer supporter with the NHS for a number of years, is the owner-author of the resource site for mothers and healthcare practitioners on Breastfeeding / Nursing Aversion and Agitation and author of "When Breastfeeding Sucks".

Wilai Rojjanasrirat, PhD, RN, IBCLC, FILCA, FAAN is a Professor and Director of Research and Scholarship at Graceland University’s School of Nursing in Independence, Missouri. Her background is in midwifery and maternal and child health nursing.

She is an international board certified lactation consultant. She earned her Bachelor’s in Nursing and Midwifery from Thailand and Master’s and Doctorate and Post-Doctorate in Nursing from the University of Kansas. She teaches in graduate nursing program. Her research focuses on promoting and supporting breastfeeding, psychometric development, and educational outcome evaluation.

Using telehealth in providing lactation support, evaluation of the breastfeeding outcomes among late-preterm, near term, and term infants, and evaluation of the Business Case for Breastfeeding Program’s impact among employed breastfeeding mothers in Kansas are among some of the research projects.

Dr. Rojjanasrirat has multiple publications and recently contributed to a book chapter on Employment and Breastfeeding in Wambach & Spencer, Breastfeeding and Human Lactation, 6th edition in 2021. She served as a former president of the Pi Eta Chapter of the Nursing Honor Society, a board member of the KC Board of Directors of Kansas City, Kansas, and a former president of the Greater Kansas City Lactation Consultant Association for several years.

Aimee Grant is a Senior Lecturer and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow at Swansea University Centre for Lactation, Infant Feeding and Translation. She has researched marginalised pregnancy and early motherhood for the past decade, including those living in poverty, stigmatised locations and Disabled women. Aimee's current research is an 8 year longitudinal study using visual methods to understand Autistic experiences "from menstruation to menopause". She is the author of two Documentary Analysis texts (Routledge, 2019; Policy Press, 2022), and is currently writing The Autism Friendly Guide to Pregnancy (and the fourth trimester).

Indira has supported birthing and breastfeeding families for the past 17 years. She has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant for 13 years and currently works as a clinician, educator and researcher. As a clinician IBCLC, she has led the Specialist Breastfeeding Clinic (Central London Community Healthcare NHS trust) for complex breastfeeding dyads for the past 6 consecutive years. As the Director of the Centre for Breastfeeding Education and Research, she created 13 years ago the Breastfeeding London Course, a 1 year-long international in-depth training course for HCPs who want to become IBCLCs. She is currently doing Doctoral studies within the Mother, Infant and Child Health research group (MIRU) in the School of Health Sciences at Dundee University. Her PhD examines breastfeeding education for HCPs, the interplay between learning needs and motivation.

Gayle Subramaniam is a lactation consultant, educator and author. She has over 15 years experience in research where, as chair of research teams, she has written, produced, and presented research internationally. Gayle is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Breastfeeding Education and Research (CBER), delivering lactation education internationally in preparation for the IBLCE exam and publishing peer-reviewed research. She is also an Associate Editor with the Journal of Human Lactation (JHL). Gayle has a small private practice in London, UK, and is a clinician with the UK National Health Service (NHS) providing lactation care to families. Gayle has volunteered extensively in the community with The National Childbirth Trust (NCT), a national charity for pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood in the UK and the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers (ABM), a major breastfeeding charity in the UK.

Wilai Rojjanasrirat, PhD, RN, IBCLC, FILCA, FAAN is a Professor and Director of Research and Scholarship at Graceland University’s School of Nursing in Independence, Missouri. Her background is in midwifery and maternal and child health nursing.

She is an international board certified lactation consultant. She earned her Bachelor’s in Nursing and Midwifery from Thailand and Master’s and Doctorate and Post-Doctorate in Nursing from the University of Kansas. She teaches in graduate nursing program. Her research focuses on promoting and supporting breastfeeding, psychometric development, and educational outcome evaluation.

Using telehealth in providing lactation support, evaluation of the breastfeeding outcomes among late-preterm, near term, and term infants, and evaluation of the Business Case for Breastfeeding Program’s impact among employed breastfeeding mothers in Kansas are among some of the research projects.

Dr. Rojjanasrirat has multiple publications and recently contributed to a book chapter on Employment and Breastfeeding in Wambach & Spencer, Breastfeeding and Human Lactation, 6th edition in 2021. She served as a former president of the Pi Eta Chapter of the Nursing Honor Society, a board member of the KC Board of Directors of Kansas City, Kansas, and a former president of the Greater Kansas City Lactation Consultant Association for several years.

Liz Brooks is a private practice International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and licensed lawyer, with expertise in criminal, administrative, non-profit, ethics, and lactation-related law. Liz offers in-home lactation consultations, and bedside care and teaching in two Baby-Friendly-designated hospitals.

She has been a leader in organizations for IBCLCs, breastfeeding promotion, and non-profit human milk banking. She authored the only textbook on legal and ethical issues for the IBCLC, and writes on health care ethics, equity, and conflict-of-interest in several books, blogs, and peer-reviewed journals.

She is a popular international conference speaker, offering practical tips with wit and wisdom for anyone who works with lactating and human milk-using families. Liz self-identifies as a cisgender hetero white woman with unearned privilege, and uses she/her/hers pronouns.

Tom Johnston is unique as a midwife and lactation consultant and the father of eight breastfed children. Recently retired after 27 years in the US Army, he is now an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Methodist University where he teaches, among other things, Maternal-Child Nursing and Nutrition. You may have heard him at a number of conferences at the national level, to include the Association of Woman’s Health and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN), the International Lactation Consultant’s Association (ILCA), or perhaps at dozens of other conferences across the country. In his written work he routinely addresses fatherhood and the role of the father in the breastfeeding relationship and has authored a chapter on the role of the father in breastfeeding for “Breastfeeding in Combat Boots: A survival guide to breastfeeding in the military”.