Midwifery
Program Faculty
 Kelly B. Brown, DC, CSCS is a licensed Chiropractor, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, a Certified Acupuncturist, a Certified Mixed Martial Arts/Self Defense Instructor and is currently completing her Childbirth Educator Certification.
She received her DC at Life University, and her undergraduate degrees at Brenau University and Hofstra University.
Dr. Brown has had three homebirths and credits the support and guidance of her midwife as the inspiration in her work. Her focus is in perinatal fitness, nutrition and alternative healthcare. It is her belief that every pregnant woman should have access to midwifery care.
She lives in Colorado with her husband and their three children. She volunteers her time teaching women self defense and crisis prevention.
 Sharon Craig Economides, BA, CPM, was born at home with a midwife, she has worked as a homebirth midwife, in a birth center, and in the hospital setting in Russia, the Philippines, Afghanistan and California.
As an undergraduate, Sharon studied English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley and is a Masters degree candidate in Midwifery through the University of Sheffield in the UK. She is a freelance writer for Midwifery Today, Sojourners, Pakistan's The Friday Times and other publications.
She works with Awakenings Birth Services, a traditional midwifery and homebirth service in the San Francisco Bay Area.
 Sharon DeJoy, MPH, LM, CPM was drawn to midwifery because of her birth experiences. After a negative, but transformative, pregnancy and birth experience with an obstetrician, she went on to have two midwife-attended births. She became a doula in 1998 and a Florida licensed midwife in 2007.
Sharon received her bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a master’s degree in public health from the University of South Florida, where she is a doctoral candidate in public health. She is also pursuing a certificate in women’s studies. Sharon has taught online undergraduate classes in Maternal Child Health at the University of South Florida, as well as maternity care classes for health and human services professionals at local community colleges in the Tampa Bay area. Being a faculty member at Aviva Institute allows Sharon to unite two of her great joys: midwifery and teaching.
Sharon lives just outside of Miami with her husband and three children.
 Andrea Dixon, CNM, calls herself an Aquarian birth junkie, the eldest of five, she reveled in the miracle of birth from an early age. From the first NAPSAC group of Ann Arbor, Michigan in the 70’s, studying midwifery in Boulder, Colorado, and becoming a CNM in 1987, Andrea has covered nearly all the bases in the world of Midwifery. Sole proprietor of Family Way Midwifery in Mt. Shasta, California 1988-95, she home-birthed mountain families in the largest geographical county in northern California, while managing a midwife service for the Redding Birth Center, California. Andrea served women from there to the Hospital at St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Missouri and most recently a both a private homebirth and busy inner city hospital group practice in Indianapolis.
Her midwifery practice was heightened in 1988 by her homebirth assisted by direct entry midwives, with mothering further enhanced by homeschooling her daughter, with a midwifery friendly partner, through 8th grade.
She was the secretary of Missouri Midwives Association, past treasurer ACNM Chapter IV, current Board Member Indiana Midwives Association and Global Gifts. Andrea has been active in peer review and guild presentations for both associations and remains ever anxious to serve the sisterhood.
 Carolyn Drake, CPM, MA, BA has been midwife over 20 years. She received her midwifery training in 1981 in El Paso, Texas at The Maternity Center.
She holds a BA in Social Science and a MA in Women's History, both from Boise State University in Idaho. Her specific field in Women’s History was the history of midwifery and the genesis of male dominated medical births. Her work has included extensive study into the history of midwifery and childbirth in Europe and in America. Her Master’s thesis is entitled, Birth Stories: Transforming Our Culture. She developed and taught a summer midwifery workshop, teaches childbirth education classes and is conducting a writing class to enable recent mothers to write their birth stories.
She was a founder of the Georgia Midwifery Association, a former president of the Idaho Midwifery Council.
In addition to births, her work with families and pregnant mothers extends into the world of photography. Her love for photographing pregnant women, newborns and those early, magical moments in a new family’s life will be displayed in Celebrating Motherhood, a collection of pregnancy, newborn and family portraits that she is still in the process of photographing. Her goal is to spread awareness and openness about pregnancy, breastfeeding and normal birth.
Carolyn lives in Chattanooga with her husband, Keith. Between them, they have three grown daughters and two grandsons, both born with Carolyn’s helping hands. Carolyn is also an Approved Preceptor.
 Chris Duffy, BS, LM, CNHP, ND is a licensed midwife with a degree in naturopathy from Trinity School of Natural Health. Her BS from University of Houston-Downtown in Interdisciplinary Studies includes concentrations in nursing, computer science, graphic design and photography. She is a Certified Natural Health Professional offering proactive natural options for health stewardship.
She is also a web developer and adjunct instructor for Lone Star College. She operates The Web Works!, a web design and hosting company in symbiotic relationship with her midwifery practice. And she serves as Director of Publications & Technology and Webmaster for Greater Houston Midwives' Alliance.
Chris lives in Houston, Texas with her husband of 35 years, and has a small home birth practice.
Virginia (Ginger) Frazer, ND, LM became enamored of birth with animals at an early age. Passion was realized in 1989 when, during naturopathic medical school; the light bulb “I can deliver babies!? flashed and that was it. She attended Bastyr University in Seattle from 1988 to 1992 receiving her doctorate in naturopathic medicine. In 1993 received her midwifery certificate after precepting in the Seattle area. Undergraduate education in Environmental Studies at University of California at Santa Cruz; BS degree in human health sciences, Bastyr University 1992.
She is in solo practice in natural family medicine. She and her partner deliver babies across a wide geographic area. The community is a small city/agricultural desert region on the Columbia River.
She loves cats and enjoys doing a variety of styles of needlework/embroidery.
 Beverly Frommel, MS is a doula, natural childbirth advocate, wife, mom to three children. She has previously taught courses for the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University and has been a research assistant for a professor at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. She has taught both online and on campus for over five years and has a love for distance education.
She earned her BS in Health Care Management from Lander University in Greenwood, SC and her MS in Health Care Administration from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She also has about half of her coursework towards her PhD in Health Services Research, where she spent her time and research on home birth midwifery.
She currently works as a high school science teacher in addition to her courses with Aviva and her doula work. Additionally, she is pursuing her second Masters degree this summer online with Montana State University.
She has a supportive husband and three wonderful children, ages 9, 6, and 4
 Maggie Geraci, JD, has believed in the power of birth since giving birth to her first child in 1989 at a freestanding birth center. However, time and circumstance led her down another path and she obtained her B. A. degree in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences from the University of South Florida in 1996 and her law degree from Florida State University College of Law in 1999. After working for a time with the Florida Legislature, she was able to turn her attention to her passion for birth and children. She became a La Leche League leader in 2002, a certified doula and a trained childbirth educator in 2003 . She previously a midwifery and the law course at a midwifery school that has since closed. Maggie currently is the Director of Leon County Teen Court, a non-judicial diversion program for first time juvenile offenders, but her passion for birth and babies continues. Along the way, Maggie gave birth to six beautiful children, three of whom were born at home, with midwives in attendance, and she has been blessed to be invited to the births of numerous other precious babies. She continues to be an active La Leche League leader and natural birth enthusiast.
She feels that if she can’t be a midwife, nothing could be better than helping others become midwives!
 Astrid Grove, LM, CPM is a licensed homebirth midwife, a community herbalist, and a practitioner of The Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Massage. Being the daughter of an osteopathic physician, she was raised in an environment which focused on preventative health care. She has lived her entire adult life seeking and learning all that she can about how to be as healthy as possible herself and in turn how to help others find this for themselves.
She received her Bachelor's degree in Eastern Medicine and Philosophy from UMASS at Amherst. She has studied extensively with herbalists Ellen Evert Hopman, Pam Montgomery, and Susun S. Weed. She is also a graduate of Birthwise Midwifery School of Maine.
She has been in practice in Vermont since 2006 and has just relocated to the west coast where she is slowly sinking her roots into this new land. She lives in Bellingham, Washington with her husband and her three cats.
 Bonnie Urquhart Gruenberg, CNM, WHNP, MSN. In addition to be a very busy midwife, Bonnie is a writer, artist and photographer. Her first book, Hoof prints in the Sand, Wild Horses of the Atlantic Coast was published by Eclipse Press in 2002. Her second book, Essentials of Prehospital Maternity Care, was published by Prentice Hall in 2005.
and the Birth Emergency Skills Training (B.E.S.T.) Manual for out-of-hospital birth providers in 2008 and has developed the BEST course.
She has worked as a paramedic, and a midwife in a home birth practice serving the Amish communities. She currently works at the Hamilton Health Center in Harrisburg, PA, providing midwifery care to medically undeserved low-and high-risk clientele, with higher acuity co-managed with obstetrician and perinatologist.
She received her MSN from University of Pennsylvania, and her BSN from Southern Vermont College. She is married with two grown children.
 Regine Marton, MS, CNM, RN received her MS in Midwifery from SUNY Stony Brook NY. She was born in France, knew about her passion about Midwifery and Reproductive Health since she was about 7 years of age. However, before becoming a midwife and a perinatal consultant in the US, she chose another path, adult learning, and started teaching French and English as a second language for multinationals in France and Brazil.
She has been a doula, continues her training as a Watsu provider and is a certified Aquanatal coach. She became progressively interested in Global Health as well as religious anthropology linked to health practices in various societies, and started networking with midwives from various backgrounds, from France, Mexico and Brazil. She is also partnering with several Brazilian NGO's where she teaches online for the Humanization of Childbirth in Brazil.
She currently lives in Recife, Brazil, and has three grown children.
 Anna Merrill, MS, LCCE, CD is a certified childbirth educator (Lamaze) and labor support doula (DONA). When not teaching or attending births, Anna is finishing her doctorate in health education and doing research at Columbia University Additionally, Anna holds a MS degree in health education from Columbia University, a MA degree in psychology from Pepperdine University and is a Certified Health Education Specialist. Previously, she was active in HIV/AIDS education and counseling and has taught both child and adult learners across various settings. Anna lives in New York with her husband and is passionate about helping women through the childbearing year.
 Sylvia Bortin Patience, CNM, MSN, FPN, has practiced midwifery since 1976, when she began as an apprentice trained home birth midwife in Idaho. In 1984, she was certified as a Nurse Midwife from Stanford University and licensed in California. She received her Masters Degree in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco and her Family Nurse Practitioner with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, from the Boise
State University.
Sylvia has attended births in hospital and free standing birth center practices, as well as home births. She and her partner have just closed their nine year home birth practice, Labor of Love, in Santa Cruz, California. The youngest of Sylvia’s three grown children was born at home, and she has been honored to midwife her daughter-in-law and daughter at the births of her three grandchildren.
 Kim Perry, CPM. CNM has been involved in home birth since 1983 and was drawn to midwifery because of her own birth experiences. She became an apprentice trained midwife in 1991, a CPM in 1996, and a CNM in 2003.
She has taught in two Associate Degree Nursing programs since 2005 and has precepted apprentices through the CPM certification process. She has been an advocate of midwifery licensure in the State of Illinois for over 20 years, co-founded Illinois Families For Midwifery, and is a Board member of the Coalition For Illinois Midwifery.
Kim has an extensive background as a distance learner, having graduated from Excelsior College’s nontraditional Associate Degree nursing program, followed by an online BSN program from Husson College in Bangor, Maine, and finally a distance learning Master’s degree program in New York. Kim holds a Master’s degree in Nursing (Nurse Midwifery) from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is licensed to practice midwifery and nursing in both Illinois and Iowa.
 Tamy Roloff LM, CPM, CD
started attending births in 1984 and apprenticed several years in Illinois before deciding to wait until her children were older to complete her midwifery training. She became a La Leche League Leader in 1995, a DONA certified doula in 1998, a Certified Childbirth Educator with ICEA in 2000, and a DONA Approved Doula Trainer in 2003.
In 1997, she returned to midwifery, after apprenticing she worked as a primary midwife under the tutelage of her dedicated preceptors while attending Seattle Midwifery School as a non-matriculating student completing her didactic training for her CPM and her LM for Washington State in 2003.
Tamy has currently been finishing her bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at Eastern Washington University via online classes which she loves.
She recently moved to Long Beach, an area of Washington State that has no midwives, and is establishing a new midwifery practice, where she is an Approved Preceptor. Her family owns an organic market that they also moved to Long Beach. She been married 28 years and has four grown, homeschooled children. She also has one grandson and another grand baby on the way. Tamy recently assisted her oldest daughter with a home waterbirth and is currently the midwife for her youngest daughter.
 Erin Ryan, CPM, LM grew up in the Midwest as one of five kids. She has always been interested in birth and put it together with midwifery while studying abroad in the UK.
After graduating with her BA in Interdisciplinary Studies at University of California Berkeley, Erin began attending births as a doula and soon began an apprenticeship in the Bay Area. In 2000, she graduated from the National Midwifery Institute, a distance midwifery program, where she has served on the Advisory Board.
She has homebirth practice in Central Vermont, where she lives with her husband James and sons Finn and Harmon- both born at home.
She is an Approved Preceptor.
 Daphne Singingtree, CPM began her path in midwifery in 1974 and had an active home and birth center practice until her retirement in 2002. She started teaching in 1979, and her life's work has been midwifery education.
She was a founding member of the Midwifery Educators Coalition, the forerunner of Midwifery Education and Accreditation Council (MEAC), and served on the MEAC Board of Directors 1997-2001. She was the Vice Chair of the Oregon State Board of Direct Entry Midwifery, 1999-2001, and served as the Education Committee Chair for the Midwives Alliance of North America. A founding member of the Oregon Midwifery Council.
She was the founder and director of the Birthsong School of Midwifery from 1979 to 1989 and of the Oregon School of Midwifery (OSM) from 1993 to 2002.
She is the author of the Birthsong Midwifery Workbook, the Emergency Guide to Obstetric Complications, and Training Midwives: A Guide for Preceptors, as well as many other publications and resources for midwifery educators. She is a student at Ashford University were she is completing her Bachelor's in Organizational Management, and working towards a Master's Degree in Education with a concentration on Learning with Technology.
She is the mother of four grown children and has three grandchildren all born at home. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.
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Lacation Program Faculty
Director of Lactation Education
 Melinda Hoskins, MS, CNM, IBCLC
Melinda more than thirty years of experience in maternal and child health with both hospital and birth center experience. In 1999, Melinda became an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant, or IBCLC. The decision to become certified as a lactation consultant grew out of her longstanding interest in breastfeeding and support of mothers in establishing this most important aspect of the mother-baby relationship. Melinda’s master’s thesis (completed in 1979) looked at telephone support of first-time breastfeeding mothers. In addition, she has taught pediatric and maternity nursing at nursing programs in Oregon, California and Nevada. In 2004, Melinda fulfilled her long-term dream of becoming a CNM, through the distance education program at Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing. She currently holds the position of Assistant Professor in the Orvis School of Nursing at University of Nevada Reno. She also has a private practice focusing on women’s health called The Nurturing Space. In addition to being the Director of Lactation Education here at Aviva Institute.She lives in Minden, Nevada with her family physician husband, David Hoskins.
 Linda Barnhart RN, IBCLC has been a lactation consultant since 2001. She has been a labor and delivery RN since 1977 in numerous hospitals in the US and Canada. She is passionate about breastfeeding and the important part it plays in the natural birth process. Linda believes those first few days are the most important to getting the breastfeeding family off to the best start.
Linda has had experience supervising students in their clinical preparation as nurses in the labor and delivery, nursery, postpartum unit.
Linda works with breastfeeding mothers in hospital and staffs the busy outpatient breastfeeding clinic that serves all mothers in the community, whether their babies were born in hospital or at home. She enjoys a relationship with the two midwifery groups that deliver at each hospital and in the community.
Linda is the co-chair of the Niagara Regional Breastfeeding Coalition and also sits on the joint breastfeeding working group comprised of members of the Niagara Health System and Niagara Regional Public Health Department.
Linda lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada with her husband of 28 years and has 3 wonderful children, 26, 23 and a 17 year old still at home. All 3 were breastfed, naturally.
 Carrie Finger, IBCLC, LCCE has been a lactation consultant since 1996. She is the co-founder of the North Carolina Breastfeeding Coalition. She has a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and is a Certified Lamaze Childbirth Educator. She is currently teaching numerous and varied prenatal classes in a large hospital chain. Previously, she worked for over 12 years as a lactation consultant in a busy hospital and is pleased to now be working in a learning environment where birth is honored and recognized as a normal and sacred process.
She is a wife and mother of two pre-teenagers. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, but originally from the mountains of NC. She loves to mountain bike, paint large abstract paintings, and see live music.
 Lori J. Isenstadt, IBCLC, CCE, CBA Lori has taught childbirth classes at home and hospital settings and has attended births as a doula for over 20 years. Along the way, she has had the pleasure of becoming close friends with midwives and other woman in her community who share her passion for mothers and babies. Fueled by a strong desire to educate families, Lori helped to co-found The Long Island Homebirth Group and participated fully in the Long Island Midwifery Support Group.
She was a breastfeeding educator and a peer counselor for a number of years, in 2001, received the title of IBCLC and now has a private practice with breastfeeding mothers.
Lori lives in beautiful and sunny Arizona with her husband Alan of 29 years and three children, 24, 21 and 19, who were all breastfed for an extended period of time.
 Dianne E. Oliver, MA, IBCLC is a lactation consultant with a part-time private practice. She spent 10 years as a La Leche League Leader. Helping other mothers breastfeed and experience this very natural, basic, enriching relationship has been her passion for over 15 years.She has a Master's Degree is in Holistic Counseling Psychology from Lesley College, and got her undergraduate degree at University of California - Santa Barbara.
She is the mother of four children, three of whom were born at home with the assistance of a midwife. She lives with her family Southern California, not far from the beaches of Ventura County where her her family all enjoy skateboarding, music, and the weather.
 Lorraine P. Redmond, BS, IBCLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Food Science from Florida State University.
Lorraine has sixteen years of experience counseling over 2000 breastfeeding mothers and babies in the United States and Germany. She has been a La Leche League Leader since 1993 and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 1998. She leads support group meetings, teaches breastfeeding classes, trains breastfeeding peer counselors, holds workshops for health professionals and maintains an active private practice. She worked as a public health educator in Guam working with families in pregnancy, infant health, and family planning.
Lorraine is living her dream in Salida, Colorado with her husband and two children.
 Regina Maria Roig-Romero, BS IBCLC has been helping women breastfeed, and teaching others how to do so, since 1990. She received her B.S. in Childhood Education from Florida International University. Currently, she is pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Health from that same university.
She was a Leader and Associate Coordinator of Leader Accreditation for La Leche League International for several years. In 1996 she became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and immediately went to work for the Miami-Dade County Health Department’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, in Miami Florida. As their Senior Lactation Consultant she has been intimately involved in the creation and growth of their breastfeeding program, which has since been recognized by the U.S. government as one of the three best, most innovative breastfeeding programs in the country. Regina has extensive experience as a clinician and as a teacher, successfully guiding several women from a wide variety of backgrounds to board-certification as IBCLCs. She is fluent in English and Spanish and currently serves approximately 65 low-income Hispanic women per month through the WIC program.
Regina’s own La Leche League Leader inspired her career, and taught her to treasure the midwifery model of care. A very caring midwife delivered her second and third children. She believes lactation consultants must bring precisely the same type of care to the work that they do, and it is because of this that she is excited to be working for Aviva Institute.
She is the mother of three children. Regina loves reading, nature photography, and animals, especially dogs. |
Jenifer Holloman B.S., M.Ed became an English teacher as a way to combine two of her great loves: literature and writing, and working with people. She received her Bachelor of Science degree at Lesley College that allowed her to teach in the Boston Public Schools for ten years. She demanded that students always work at their highest "level best" and had the opportunity in the course of her career to work with students at all ability levels from the struggling student new to this country, to the gifted and talented students who excelled in every class. She tailors all her curriculum to meet all these needs. In the process she earned a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership from Bridgewater State College, and dabbled in an M.Div degree from Andover-Newton Theological School, and Harvard Divinity School, as a way to combine her passion for people and their emotional and spiritual needs and her intense love of intellectualism. She is a doula, and works on staff at Aviva Institute and the Disabilities Service Coordinator. 
Courtney Watson, MA Ed, became familiar with the world of midwifery at the age of 14 when her sister became a doula. Courtney and her husband have two small children. The first was born at home. The second was born in a birth center and delivered by Courtney’s sister.