To email faculty see Directory

Kathryn Lane Berkowitz, LCCE, CPD, CLA, CIR decided to become a doula because she understands how important it is for expectant and new mothers to have compassionate, knowledgeable support during pregnancy, birth and postpartum.  As the mother of four grown children who were all born prematurely she has personally experienced the many challenges of giving birth and breastfeeding under difficult circumstances, and the value of kind support.

Her philosophy is that women and their partners should have the freedom to explore many ways to cope with the challenges of labor and birth.

Since 1993,  she has served as a doula in many settings, including homes, hospitals and freestanding birth centers.  Her certifications include Certified Childbirth Assistant (ALACE 1993), Certified Childbirth Educator (ALACE 1996), Certified Labor Doula (CAPPA 2002), 2009 Certified Childbirth Educator (AVIVA 2009) and Certified Childbirth Educator (LAMAZE 2009)

She has had advanced training in homeopathics, herbal remedies, and aromatherapy for pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, she is a Certified Integrative Reflexologist, specializing in maternity
care.  She attends one or two conferences a year as related to her work. She has published several
articles, most recently in the International Journal of Childbirth Education.

Jordana Brown, MS, RD, is a Registered Dietitian with a Master’s Degree in Nutrition and Food Science.  She completed both her undergraduate and graduate course work at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.  She has worked both as a clinical dietitian and as a faculty member in various colleges and universities for over 10 years.  She brings to Aviva a great deal of experience as an educator in addition to being a parent and breastfeeding advocate.
Jordana is a busy wife and mother of five young children; four boys and one girl.  Jordana and her family live in Minnesota, where it is cold most of the year!

Sharon Craig Economides, BA, CPM,MSc, ICBLC, was born at home with a midwife, she has worked as a homebirth midwife, in a birth center, and in hospital settings in Russia, Haiti, the Philippines, Afghanistan and California. 

As an undergraduate, Sharon studied English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley and received her Masters degree 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. She is in the process of moving to Afghanistan where she will be training midwives as well as serving on Aviva Faculty.  

Andrea Dixon, CNM, 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 was a founder of the Georgia Midwifery Association, a former president of the Idaho Midwifery Council.

In addition to having an active birth practice, 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.

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 Santa Cruz, California 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.

Carrie Finger, IBCLC, LCCE has been a lactation consultant since 1998. 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. 

Nicole L. Foras, MD grew up the Midwest in a holistic home having been raised using herbs and many alternative healing modalities where planned homebirths were the norm and breastfeeding was expected. She always knew medicine was her calling and after a two year hiatus from school to live and work in Hawaii, she decided to travel to another tropical location for medical school. Two years in the Caribbean for didactic training and two years in the Chicago area for clinical training, during which time she delivered her niece at home and her son’s birth was attended by a midwife at home. Having grown up in the salon and beauty industry she originally planned on specializing in either plastic/ reconstructive surgery or dermatology until she discovered what a passion she had for women’s health, babies, and giving women empowered birthing options. She made a change in her choice of specialty deciding Family Practice would allow her the ability to practice the ways she chose; doing home or hospital births, using herbs, and practicing Reiki and other alternative healing modalities.

She lives in Wisconsin with her beautiful family, riding horses, practicing yoga and empowering her patients to take their health into their own hands.

Halimah Martin, M.Ed., CNM Worked for many years in a partnership with another faculty member, Sylvia Patience, as a home birth midwife. She currently works in homecare for high-risk pregnant women. She has worked in a hospital as an L&D nurse, teaching and doing counseling for a high school teen-age-mother program, and teaching reading to adults with learning disabilities. I have a BA degree in English from Connecticut College, a Masters in Education from Stanford, an AA degree in nursing from Cabrillo Community College, and a midwifery certificate from the Community-Based Nurse-Midwifery Education Program (CNEP) at the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing in Kentucky. 

She looking forward to sharing the knowledge she has acquired working with mothers and babies over the last 25 years in this latest and greatest venue, cyberspace and forming cyber-relationships with students and faculty members.

She is the mother of five children, and lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Jenifer Holloman B.S., M.Ed received a Bachelor of Science degree from Lesley College and went on to earn a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership from Bridgewater State College, later taking courses in the realm of the M.Div degree at Andover-Newton Theological School, and Harvard Divinity School, as a way to combine her passion for people, their emotional and spiritual needs and her intense love of intellectualism.

Her current focus is on improving the care of mothers and babies through grass roots organizing and political action in her home state. She trained as a doula, and may continue to pursue midwifery in the future.  She lives with her husband and two daughters in Cape Cod, Massachusetts where she raises goats and other livestock. She is passionate about birth politics and the care of mothers during the childbearing year and has a garden that is the delight and envy of all who see it.

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.  

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.

Blaise Myers, MPH, CHES became interested in the world of childbirth and breastfeeding upon the birth of her son. She received her Bachelor’s in Biology from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, her Master’s degree in Public Health through a distance education program at Walden University. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist and works with the local public health department. She loves to working with students that are learning science and strives to show how it fits in with daily life. 

She lives with her husband and son in Odessa, Texas.

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, 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.

Valerie Vickerman Runes, RN, JD, was a home birth midwife from 1983 until 2001, attending the births of over 1000 babies. She retired from clinical practice after a protracted legal battle to be able to attend home births in Illinois. She has an open and public defiance of what she feels to be the unconstitutional application of Illinois’ non-existent “law”. She consequently attended law school to become better aimed to continue the battle. She received her JD from De Paul University. She is an editor and a co-author of From Calling to Courtroom: A Survival Guide for Midwives.

She has four adult children, three of which were born at home. She lives with her husband in Illinois.

Tamara Taitt, MS is a midwife and marriage and family therapist with a varied background in women’s health activism and midwifery. Tamara completed her midwifery training in 2005 at Miami-Dade College and has been working in Maternal, Infant and Child Health (MICH) for the last five years. Her current work and research interests focus on perinatal health disparities, perinatal bereavement and exploring the mental health issues that are pervasive during the perinatal period.

Tamara has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Princeton University and a Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Nova Southeastern University, where she is a PhD candidate in Family Therapy.  She has a keen interest in the sustainability of the midwifery profession, birth politics and advocacy, and woman's reproductive health issues.  Tamara is currently Region 3 Representative for the Midwives Alliance of North America, President of Florida Friends of Midwives, and the director/owner of Mind, Body & Baby, LLC. She lives in South Florida, twenty minutes north of Miami with her partner and two dogs.

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. 

Aradia Sunlight, LMT, CPFS, is a Licensed Massage Therapist and a Certified Yoga Instructor, Watsu Practitioner, Waterdance Practitioner, a Reiki Master and a Thai Massage Practitioner.

Along with her brother, Terran Nuadha, she provided the original backing for the founding of Aviva Institute, including hiring its principal administrators, and remains its majority owner.  She served as President of its Executive Board and its Chief Executive Officer for the first three years of its existence, and continues to serve as Secretary of the Board.

She has lived, taught and worked at some of the foremost healing retreat centers in the world, including Pura Vida in Costa Rica, Brietenbush Hot Springs in Oregon, and Harbin Hot Springs in California. She studied Thai Massage in Thailand and she completed her certificate in Yoga Education at the Yoga Vidya Gurkul in Nasik, India. She has taught at the Oregon School of Midwifery and at various workshops and retreat centers across the US and the world.

She lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner, and is an involved auntie to her home born nieces and nephews