Kathryn Lane Berkowitz, CLA, CCE, CPD is certified as a Childbirth Assistant  through Informed Homebirth / Informed Birth and Parenting (now ALACE), a certified childbirth educator through ALACE, and as a Postpartum Doula trainer through CAPPA. Kathryn is also a Lamaze trained childbirth educator, pursuing certification. She is a retired LLL Leader and continues to support nursing mothers in her community.  Kathryn completed a direct entry midwifery apprenticeship with CPMs in home birth practice.

More recently, Kathryn has focused her practice on working as a postpartum doula and mentoring those who aspire to work in the perinatal field. She also enjoys teaching evidence based, custom designed childbirth classes for expectant parents.

In addition to her work in birth, Kathryn is a bead and fiber artist. She and her family make their home in central North Carolina, at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She and her husband home educated their three sons and one daughter, now all grown. A first grandchild is joyfully expected in early 2008.

Madrona Bourdeau CPM, LDM lives her life with intention and compassion as a practicing midwife for thirty years. She started her path to midwifery in 1976 with the births of her three children, two of whom were born at born at home. Like most of the midwives of her era, her education was through self study, workshops and apprenticeship. She completed her apprentice in 1983 and worked on legislation until she moved to Oregon in 1988. She was the policy management advisor to NARM from 2001 thru 2003, and has worked with the Oregon Midwifery Council as the Portland area representative. She is a NARM Qualified Evaluator, and a Approved Preceptor.

She finds that her love for birth and midwifery has continued to grow and she loves holding the space for families as they go through the passage of birth. Teaching has been a long time love, she is also a faculty member at a local midwifery college as well as being a childbirth educator since 1978.  

She lives in Portland Oregon and is an avid knitter and spinner - she can almost always be found working on a knitting project.

Tina M. Braimah BS, CD has been serving families as a doula and apprentice midwife in Southeast Michigan since 2003.  She is trained through both ALACE and DONA, and certified through DONA.  Although midwifery is her passion, Tina works as an engineer in the automotive industry.  She holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University.

Tina has experience teaching in a variety of settings, including the Virginia public school system and as a graduate student at University of Virginia.  She also volunteered as a SAT/ACT preparation instructor for underserved youth in the Detroit area.

Tina now resides in Durham, North Carolina with her husband and two sons, both born at home in the hands of midwives.  In her “free time” she advocates for the legalization of the CPM credential in NC and educates women about natural birth options.  While her children are small, she’s taking baby steps down her path to midwifery. 

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 recieved 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.

Claudia Conn, CPM, BS, has had an active practice that has spanned over 26 years in Georgia and Tennessee. Her BS is in Zoology from Duke University, however midwifery and homebirth is her passion and calling for most of her life. She says " I believe that a woman’s body is designed to give birth and that pregnancy and birth are normal processes. Beyond that, I believe that birth is meant to be a key event in a woman’s life, and that home-based midwifery care can appropriately provide for issues of safety without compromising the very human and even spiritual aspects of birth."

She is a mother of three children ranging in age from 25-14, all of whom were planned homebirths. She has an active home birth practice of 5-7 births a month and is an Approved Preceptor.

Sharon Craig, 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. 

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.

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:one born with an OB in the hospital, one born at a birth center with a midwife, and the last born with three wonderful nurses who caught because she arrived before the midwife could!  Beverly learned that wonderful birth is possible in a variety of settings and the key is a tremendous support professional.  She knew then that she had to be part of helping more women have better births in any way possible!

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!

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.

She is the developer of Birth Emergency Skills Training (B.E.S.T.) for out-of-hospital birth providers. And PreHospital Emergency Obstetric Management (POEM).

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 underserved 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.

Jennifer D. Hanson, LM, CPM, BA, MAT Jennifer comes to Aviva thrilled to be able to merge her two loves, midwifery and teaching. After receiving her undergraduate degree in psychology from Vassar College and her graduate degree in English and education from Tufts University, Jennifer taught English for twelve years.

Her midwifery education began with the birth of her son, and, when the moment became right, she completed her formal training through the distance education program at Seattle Midwifery School. As she writes, “Midwifery grabbed me and I recognized elements in me that had not been brought forth; the nurturing aspect of creating deeply personal relationships with women, their families and babies; the advocacy aspect of bringing birth back to a place that fosters women's ultimate transformational experience; the primal aspect of dealing with the essence of humanity in its most raw state. I could not help from pursuing this direction because not doing so felt like denying the completion of myself. So I have been a midwife and love what I do. I also find that I have a deep commitment to education and to the progression of midwifery, specifically as it relates to the political and social aspects of women's lives and the lives and well being of their families. It therefore seems a forgone conclusion that I be involved in midwifery education.”

In addition to being on the Development Team and faculty here at Aviva Institute, Jennifer has a small homebirth practice in rural Vermont where she lives with her family, and is an Approved Preceptor.

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.

Thalia M. Hufton, CPM has three grown children who were all born at home and a husband who has been supportive and caring throughout their 32 years of marriage--25 of those years as a spouse of a very busy midwife.  She received her Certificate from Association of Texas Midwives in 1983; a Certificate as a Natural Health Consultant, from Stratford Career Institute in 2004, and a BA in Journalism from Ambassador University in England in 1975. 

She served on Board of Directors of the Association of Texas Midwives for 14 years, and is currently serving as the Education Chair for the Texas State Midwifery Board.

She has owned and been Director of a licensed birth center for over 12 years; and been involved in all aspects of midwifery--legislation, training courses, apprenticing students, educating clients, improving medical relationships, and working with other midwives in the area.  Thalia loves teaching just about anything!, public-speaking, gardening and herbs, scrapbooking and reading.  Her favorite place to be is at the beach.

Thalia is also an Approved Preceptor and operates an Affiliated Clinical Site. 

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. 

In addition to being on the Development Team and faculty here at Aviva Institute, she has a growing home birth practice in the Illinois/Iowa Quad Cities area, and is an Approved Preceptor.

“I love seeing students grow and develop into beginning practitioners, and it is my goal to help each student to meet his or her learning goals to the best of my ability.  Being a midwife means being a lifelong learner, and working with students challenges me to delve deeper, to ask “Why?”, and to look for new ways of looking at what we “know” about birth. It seems the more I learn the more I want to know, and the more I know, the more I realize that our current knowledge is just the beginning.”  
 

Caroline Peterson, DC, MPH/PhD Candidate became fascinated with pregnancy and birth in the early 1990s when she began practicing natural family medicine. She is a prenatal and perinatal anthropologist and epidemiologist whose recent research points to the profound impact relationships have on breech presentation.

She got her BA in anthropology at the College of William and Mary, 1989, her DC at the Los Angeles College of Chiropracticand is currently completing a PhD in anthropology and an MPH in epidemiology at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Her clinical practice and research focus on relationships, the mind/body/spirit connection, and their impact on conception, pregnancy, labor/delivery, and infancy.

She is just starting her midwifery apprenticeship and lives in El Paso, Texas.

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.

Tamy believes that midwifery students who understand the work of the doula and have the opportunity to experience birth in that capacity alone without having any of the clinical responsibilities of the midwife will develop into even more compassionate and understanding midwives.

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Sandra Lynette Ross, BS is the founder director of Education and Health Development Trust (2003), and its sister NGO, Girl-Child International (2005) of Ghana, Africa.  Just beginning her midwifery training here at Aviva Institute, she bring years of experience working in the areas of education, cultural diversity, and worldwide maternal/child health.

She is a Nonviolent Crisis Intervention certified instructor, an HIV Educator, and has worked with US Embassy (Cameroon, Gabon and Ghana), USAID, International Research Foundation / UN African Affairs Committee, and International Foundation for Education and Self Help development, education, health and immigration projects. She recently served as the USAID consultant for its EngenderHealth 4-year project, Action for West Africa Region-Reproductive Health (AWARE-RH).

She is Kansas City, Missouri native and spends her time between Missouri and Ghana, where is works as the Field Director in charge of Accra maternity clinic development; midwife development-training, in the USAID Ghana Sustainable Change Program. In addition to teaching in the areas of her expertise, she is coordinating the Aviva Ghana Midwifery Exchange Project.

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.

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.

Courtney earned a BS in Math Ed from the University of Central Florida and an MA Ed in Math from Western Governors University.  She has been teaching mathematics for four years.

Teaching mathematics at Aviva will combine two of Courtney’s favorite topics, math and healthy births.

Helena Wu, LM, CPM has been attending homebirths since November 1990 in the southwestern Vermont area. She trained by apprenticing with different midwives and loves teaching midwifery students and others about natural birth. She has been a La Leche League leader and childbirth educator and is the Northeast Coordinator for Birth Arts International.

Her grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts were all born at home with midwives back in China and Hong Kong. The youngest of her three grown children was born at home before the doctor arrived! Preserving the right of women to birth in the sanctity of their own homes is important to her.

Helena studied herbal medicine at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine. She grows and wild crafts herbs, makes remedies, teaches classes and sees clients for health consultations. Teaching people how to listen to the plants is deeply satisfying to her. She is on the Council of the Northeast Herbal Association and a member of United Plant Savers, and is an Approved Preceptor.

“My work is about restoring our relationship with Spirit and Nature, the source of all true healing. Whether it is working in the realm of birth or plant medicine, these are the “experts” we consult to discover the where, what, how and when of our path to wholeness. “

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

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 currently teaches classes combining Hatha Yoga and Body Centered Psychotherapy. Her classes emphasize ways to identify unwanted habits held in neural patterns and muscle memory, release body blocks and self-limiting beliefs, and reclaim natural ease, balance and radiance. Participants leave with simple practices for honoring, nourishing and enjoying the themselves freely. The emphasis is on the internal experience, and freeing yourself from judgments of your body.