Laurel Wilson, IBCLC, CLE, CCCE, CLD is a TEDx and international speaker, author, pregnancy and lactation expert, and consultant. She served as the Executive Director of Lactation Programs for CAPPA, the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association for 16 years and now is on the Senior Advisor Board. She served on the Board of Directors for the United States Breastfeeding Committee from 2016-2019. She also is on the Advisory Board for InJoy Health. She owns MotherJourney, focusing on training perinatal professionals on integrative and holistic information regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. She has her degree in Maternal Child Health: Lactation Consulting and is an internationally board certified lactation consultant. As the co-author of two books, The Attachment Pregnancy and The Greatest Pregnancy Ever, original Editor of the CAPPA Lactation Educator Manual, and contributing author to Round the Circle: Doulas Talk About Themselves, she loves to blend today’s recent scientific findings with the mind/body/spirit wisdom. Laurel has been joyfully married to her husband for nearly three decades and has two wonderful grown sons, whose difficult births led her on a path towards helping emerging families create positive experiences. She believes that the journey into parenthood is a life-changing rite of passage that should be deeply honored and celebrated.

An advocate for women, Jodi Hall has dedicated herself to understanding the impact of traumatic events on the childbearing years, and toward creating solutions designed to change lives. Jodi shares her knowledge on topics related to trauma in the lives of mothers through workshops and training sessions for healthcare professionals, counsellors and social service workers throughout the world.
Jodi has worked as a doula since 1995, and a woman’s abuse counsellor where Jodi gained experience working directly with women experiencing abuse.  It is through years of sharing spaces with women experiencing abuse, that Jodi’s much sought after way of ‘being with’ women was nurtured.

Jodi Hall holds a PhD in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences from the University of Western Ontario.  Jodi has been instrumental in various research studies on marginalized women’s access to services that promote health. She resides with her family in London, Ontario, where she co-runs a private counseling practice with Amanda Saunders, MSW, RSW and Holly Gibson, MSW, RSW, who are also skilled birth workers, called Sharing Spaces.

Laurel Wilson, IBCLC, CLE, CCCE, CLD is a TEDx and international speaker, author, pregnancy and lactation expert, and consultant. She served as the Executive Director of Lactation Programs for CAPPA, the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association for 16 years and now is on the Senior Advisor Board. She served on the Board of Directors for the United States Breastfeeding Committee from 2016-2019. She also is on the Advisory Board for InJoy Health. She owns MotherJourney, focusing on training perinatal professionals on integrative and holistic information regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. She has her degree in Maternal Child Health: Lactation Consulting and is an internationally board certified lactation consultant. As the co-author of two books, The Attachment Pregnancy and The Greatest Pregnancy Ever, original Editor of the CAPPA Lactation Educator Manual, and contributing author to Round the Circle: Doulas Talk About Themselves, she loves to blend today’s recent scientific findings with the mind/body/spirit wisdom. Laurel has been joyfully married to her husband for nearly three decades and has two wonderful grown sons, whose difficult births led her on a path towards helping emerging families create positive experiences. She believes that the journey into parenthood is a life-changing rite of passage that should be deeply honored and celebrated.

Leslie has been providing lactation support in Central New Jersey for over 18 years - as a La Leche League (LLL) leader since 2002, an IBCLC at Mercer County WIC from 2014 to 2016, and as a private practice IBCLC since 2011.

Leslie grew up in New York and New Jersey. She graduated from Cook College/Rutgers with a BS in Biochemistry, and from Rutgers University/UMDNJ with a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Leslie's difficulties with early breastfeeding, the help she received from LLL, and challenges with returning to work laid the foundation for her understanding of the importance of skilled and compassionate lactation and infant feeding support.

Divya Sinha Parikh MD, IBCLC, FAAP is a board certified pediatrician practicing in Columbus, OH. She received her medical training at The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed her residency in general pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital at Case Western Reserve University. She formerly served on the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative Committee at MetroHealth Hospital Systems in Cleveland, OH and created a breastfeeding medicine clinical rotation during residency. Within her practice, she has extensive experience managing lactation concerns and has taken a special interest in mentoring current and aspiring breastfeeding providers. She has presented her work at local and national meetings.

Dr Reitter is a fetal maternal medicine specialist working at present as the lead consultant at the Obstetrics and prenatal medicine department at Sachsenhausen Teaching Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany. One of her main research interest focuses on upright birth. She is lead author in major work regarding upright breech delivery and provides opportunities for pregnant women. She is actively engaged in national and international teaching programs related to breech.

She finished her medical training in Germany, started her career in UK, has worked in India, the US and recently in Sydney/Australia.

Professor Lisa Amir is a general practitioner and has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 1989. She is the author of over 120 peer-reviewed articles on breastfeeding. She works in breastfeeding medicine at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She is a Principal Research Fellow at Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University and is the Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal, International Breastfeeding Journal.

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.

Catherine Watson Genna BS, IBCLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in private practice in New York City. Certified in 1992, Catherine is particularly interested in helping moms and babies breastfeed when they have medical challenges and is an active clinical mentor. She speaks to healthcare professionals around the world on assisting breastfeeding babies with anatomical, genetic or neurological problems. Her presentations and her writing are enriched by her clinical photographs and videos. Catherine collaborates with Columbia University and Tel Aviv University Departments of Biomedical Engineering on research projects investigating the biomechanics of the lactating nipple and various aspects of sucking and swallowing in breastfeeding infants. She is the author of Selecting and Using Breastfeeding Tools: Improving Care and Outcomes (Praeclarus Press 2009) and Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants (Jones and Bartlett Learning 2008, 2013, 2017) as well as professional journal articles and chapters in the Core Curriculum for Lactation Consultant Practice and Breastfeeding and Human Lactation. Catherine served as Associate Editor of the United States Lactation Consultant Association’s official journal Clinical Lactation for its first seven years.

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”.