All our accomplishments are made possible by the continued effort of a handful a people who help sustain the project, coordinate all activities, and volunteer in Guatemala.
Board members
James Carbone, Board President
James is the former President and owner of The Wellness Corporation headquartered in Central Massachusetts. The Wellness Corporation develops Wellness Programs, EAP programs, Medical and Mental Health Utilization Review Systems and Complementary Medicine Networks for over 400 companies, hospitals and institutions of higher learning throughout the United States. They service over 700,000 lives in all-50 states, England and Europe.
James received his nursing diploma from Somerville Hospital School of Nursing, his undergraduate degree from Worcester State College and his Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of Minnesota in 1984. He is a widower and has three children. James is currently President of MMI and the ACAM Center Advisory Board. The Center was built in the Western Highlands of Guatemala in 2002 with the help of The Wellness Corporation and many generous donors in the United States. James has committed himself to the long-term growth of this valuable resource in one of the most impoverished areas of Guatemala.
NIkki May, CNM, FNP, MSN
Nikki is a certified nurse-midwife and educator with over 45 years of experience. She received her midwifery training at Frontier Nursing Service in Hyden, KY, where she also implemented comprehensive pediatric services for a rural Appalachian community, accessible only by horseback or jeep. There, she saw many of the same challenges facing the local population served by ACAM: environmental and cultural degradation, poverty, lack of education, lack of adequate roads, lack of clean water, etc. After moving to Boston, MA, Nikki was the founder of one of the first comprehensive midwifery services in the area. She also co-founded The Cambridge Birth Center,a free standing Birth Center in Cambridge, MA, which serves many low-income women from Latin America. She speaks Spanish and is slowly learning Mam.
Nikki met four of the founding ACAM midwives at a midwifery conference in Oaxaca, México in 2003. She travelled back to Guatemala with them and was so impressed by the strength, determination and ingenuity of the women that she quickly became a part of the ACAM family. She has since become both a board member and a frequent volunteer to the ACAM Center in Guatemala. While in the U.S., Nikki does fundraising, grant writing, management and shipment of supplies, as well as volunteer management. Nikki feels lucky to have the opportunity to both share her skills with the midwives of ACAM and simultaneously learn of their culture, tradition and healing practices.
Mary Ellen Galante, cnm
Mary Ellen is a certified nurse midwife with over 30 years of experience as a nurse midwife and community health educator. Her passion for global health led her to work long-term in rural Haiti, Mexico, and Guatemala, with an emphasis on maternal child health and nutrition. After meeting the ACAM midwives, she traveled to Guatemala to learn more about their dreams to improve care for the families in their Mam-speaking communities. She began supporting her colleague Nicole May in the founding of Maya Midwifery International, as it grew in partnership with the ACAM midwives. In 2016, as MMI's Program Manager, Mary Ellen helped initiate ACAM's mobile clinics project, a role she has continued to the present. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mary Ellen has cared for immigrant women in the Boston area with the Cambridge Midwives and the Boston Medical Center Midwifery practices. In 2014 she completed her Master of Public Health degree at Boston University, and she now works as a Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), in private practice, in addition to her work with MMI. Mary Ellen is fluent in Spanish and Haitian Creole.
Carol Bedrosian, Board Member
Carol Bedrosian founded Spirit of Change Magazine in 1987 as a holistic resource for New England. The print magazine reaches an audience of 100,000 readers twice a year issue with uplifting, transformative body/mind/spirit health information, and www.spiritofchange.org posts new information and events daily, as well as archiving over 30 years of past articles. Along with her daughter Michella Brudner, Carol is co-producer of the Natural Living Expo each fall, New England’s largest annual holistic event. Carol is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, a board member of Maya Midwifery International, and a grandmother. For more information about Spirit of Change or to contact Carol, email carol@spiritofchange.org.
Andrea catalano
Andrea Catalano discovered her passion for reproductive health as an intern in the Health Promotions Office at the University of California in Santa Cruz. She has spent over a decade working to improve outcomes for women with a special interest in vulnerable populations. Andrea has lived and worked in Latin America and the Caribbean for over 5 years in a variety of capacities, including serving as a Health Educator in the Peace Corps in Honduras. She led the strategic planning and implementation for two national initiatives, family health and HIV/AIDS prevention, while working closely with Ministry of Health officials. Andrea has continued to dedicate her career to coalition building and stakeholder engagement on a domestic level, most recently within the Division of Reproductive Health at the CDC. There, she partnered with national organizations including ACOG and SMFM to launch a verification program aligned with the Levels of Maternal Care guidance to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes. She has been honored to co-author several scientific publications and has spoken at dozens of conferences and workshops. She holds a Master of Public Health with a focus on Global Sexual and Reproductive Health from Emory University. Currently, Andrea is the Clinical Director at the Planned Parenthood Health Center in Charlotte, NC.
Jan Saunders, DEM, CPMT
Jan has worked in Maternal-Child Health for over twenty years as Home Birth Midwife, Doula, Mentor to Apprentice Midwives and Doulas, Massage Therapist, and Childbirth Educator. In addition to her birth work she is currently Coordinator of the Cambridge Doula Program, a multilingual/ multicultural program at Cambridge Hospital and Cambridge Birth Center in Cambridge, MA. Jan has been an ACAM Board Member since 2004. She participates in educational exchanges in Guatemala, planning, and fundraising efforts.
Cheryl Hamlin
Cheryl Hamlin is an obstetrician / gynecologist working at Mount Auburn Hospital. She did her residency at Boston Medical Center (then Boston City Hospital). She has always been interested in global health and has traveled to work in Africa and Latin America. She speaks Spanish and enjoys working with Latina women. She learned about the Birth Center from Nikki May. She was very impressed by how it really is a Guatemalan-run organization with the midwives there running the Center, incorporating modern medicine with their traditional practices. She learns so much from them and plans to stay involved and visit often.
Judy Luce, CPM
Judy Luce, a homebirth midwife for 35 years, was present at Weston Priory when Guatemalan families arrived in 1984 as part of the Sanctuary Movement. She and her husband Tom were part of the original support group for Guatemalan refugees via Guatemala Watch of Vermont. In August,1999 she accompanied one refugee couple on their trip home after 17 years of exile. During this visit she met with the ACAM midwives and heard Antonina speak of their dream to have their own birth center. An exchange that began small, with North American midwives donating midwifery supplies to Mayan midwives and inviting them to midwifery and herbal conferences in the US, rapidly evolved into plans for a birth center and midwifery education center that was dedicated in 2004 and includes a clinic and community meetiing space. Judy has traveled to Guatemala over a half dozen times and is continuously inspired by the creativity, ingenuity, and skill of women who have, at the most, a 6th grade education, and who work under the most difficult conditions.
Jane Carbone
Jane Carbone is Director of Development at HRI, a non-profit affordable housing development company in Cambridge, MA, and has over 32 years of experience producing affordable housing. During her tenure at the organization, she has participated in the growth of HRI’s portfolio to over 1,500 units. She is responsible for managing HRI’s development staff of project managers and overseeing their work, from all aspects of the development process (pre-development through construction). She is a pioneer in incorporating sustainable and environmentally friendly building practices into their new developments, as well as the adoption of green, healthy renovation practices in the entire portfolio, including Passive Haus. Jane received her BA in Environmental Design and City Planning from UMass Amherst and is a licensed construction supervisor and LEED AP.
Claire Bettler, CNM, MSN
Claire is a community-based midwife in Albuquerque, NM. She became involved with MMI in 2015 when her family stayed at ACAM’s birth center, and she had the opportunity to work with the midwives there. Having attended births in rural hospitals, birth centers, and homes, she was thoroughly impressed with and inspired by these talented, resourceful women who were so committed to caring for their community’s babies and families. Since returning to the US, she has continued her involvement with MMI and has been a member of the Board since 2016. Claire is deeply committed to supporting global midwifery, and incorporates aspects of community-oriented care, which she learned from the ACAM midwives, into her work as both a hospital-based and a home birth midwife. She is the owner of Anidar ABQ Midwifery and also a passionate collector of the ACAM midwives’ spectacular weavings!
susannah E. Canfield Hurd, MPH
Susannah has been working in the field of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH) for more than 15 years. She has worked for a range of organizations, including The Population Council, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, and International Planned Parenthood Federation, where she has overseen programs and direct service delivery, including financial oversight, research, evaluation, training, advocacy and communications, throughout the world. Since 2009, Susannah has worked as a Senior Consultant for Global Health Visions (GHV) and then Director, and now Vice President, providing strategic guidance, research and policy analysis, advocacy strategy recommendations, program planning, evaluation, and high-level initiative support for clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (PMNCH), White Ribbon Alliance, Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, PATH, Management Sciences for Health, and RESULTS. Some of Susannah’s recent work has included a detailed landscaping of regional, national, and sub-national accountability efforts for maternal and newborn health, with particular focus on those led by or involving civil society; an in-depth analysis of civil society engagement in the Global Financing Facility for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health; and advocacy strategy development for IntraHealth International.
Susannah holds a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, focused on Population and Family Health; and a Bachelor of Science degree from Bates College. She serves on the board of Maya Midwifery International.
Elisa vandervort
Elisa Vandervort is a family nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife who has worked with community-based organizations engaged in issues of social justice for more than 20 years. She joined the MMI Board of Directors in 2019. Elisa speaks fluent Spanish and has extensive field experience in Central and South America, along the US-Mexico Border and in East Africa as a clinician and educator with additional experience in program implementation and program management. Elisa developed expertise in cervical cancer prevention for low resource settings through her work with the Vermont-based NGO Grounds for Health and in simulation as a trainer with the Seattle-based NGO PRONTO International.
She holds a BA from Cornell University in English and Latin American Studies and an MSN from the Yale University School of Nursing. Elisa recently completed post-masters training as a nurse midwife at the University of Utah and spent twenty months as a nursing educator with Seed Global Health and Peace Corps at the University of Dodoma in Tanzania. As a nurse midwife, Elisa has focused on pre-service and in-service education in low resource settings with an emphasis on humanistic training approaches in the classroom, skills lab, through simulation and at the bedside as a preceptor. Elisa remains dedicated to supporting capacity building efforts in the global south, with an emphasis on strengthening maternal child health life-saving skills and respectful maternity care among frontline health workers. She currently works full scope as a midwife in central Vermont.
Kimberly Navarro, cnm
Kimberly is a Certified Nurse Midwife, Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, poet and scholar, who is passionate about ameliorating maternal health racial disparities, combating maternal mortality, and providing high quality healthcare to marginalized communities globally. Kimberly has over 10 years of experience in diverse fields of healthcare including women's health, school health, public health, global health and has experience as a community activist domestically and globally. Her career trajectory shows her dedication to underserved communities began as a student nurse partnering with non-profit organizations and churches to provide free health screenings and education to her community. Kimberly’s commitment to the underserved extends into her professional career with her work in Federally Funded Health Clinics, scholarly writing and entrepreneur endeavors. As founder of Haven of Maternity Experience (HOME), LLC, Kimberly envisions a world with a safe haven for the maternity experience of all women. Her goal is to defend and protect the health rights of women and families globally.
Kimberly obtained a Bachelor’s in Nursing from William Paterson University, and a dual Masters in Science of Nursing as Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse Midwife from Rutgers University. She then obtained a masters certificate as teacher of health education and school nurse from Felician University. Finally, she completed two years of study at Rutgers University’s PhD in Urban Systems before she relocated to Los Angeles, California, and transferred to Pepperdine University’s PhD program in Global Leadership and Change, where she is completing her dissertation on the topic of maternal mortality racial disparities and alternative prenatal care strategies using a diversified and inclusive midwifery workforce, collectivism, global mind and cultural competence.
Timothy Frey, MD MPH
Tim is an interventional radiologist working in Beverly, Massachusetts. He completed residency at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and fellowship at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Prior to training in radiology he worked as an emergency physician, dividing his time between practicing emergency medicine in the United States and participating in global health projects in a several different countries. The projects ranged from village level primary care to construction of and measuring the impacts of water and sanitation systems. As a radiologist, he continues to work internationally through training of indigenous midwives and village health care workers in the use of ultrasound to improve prenatal care.
Tim holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Engineering, and an MD from the SUNY/Buffalo School of Medicine and Biological Sciences. He also earned a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in international health from the Harvard School of Public Health. He speaks Spanish and serves on the boards of Maya Midwifery International and Partners in International Development.
Kc Bly
KC Bly is a certified nurse midwife and educator with 14 years of experience supporting healthcare initiatives in underserved domestic and international settings. He joined the MMI team in March 2020 and assumed the Midwife Mentor role at the ACAM birth center in Guatemala just at the inception of the COVID pandemic. KC and the ACAM midwives quickly implemented evidence-based and culturally appropriate infection prevention measures at the birth center, balancing humor and fear while confronting the challenges facing the local communities with the COVID-19 pandemic. KC has clinical expertise in serving the unique needs of diverse immigrant populations in Northern California and New England, as well as indigenous communities in Mexico and Guatemala. He has contributed to maternal-child health research in Guatemala and Indonesia. KC was first introduced to Maya midwives of the rural Guatemalan highlands in 2010, as a volunteer on a project evaluating the relationship between poor air quality and birth outcomes. KC earned his Bachelor's Degree in Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies from the University of California Santa Cruz and his Master's in Nursing from the University of California San Francisco. KC also previously served as co-chair of the Gender Bias Task Force of the American College of Nurse Midwives' Ethics Committee.
