After working together for +20 years, we co-founded Doing Right by Birth in 2024. This new project combines our +50 years of clinical experience caring for pregnant and parenting people who use drugs and their infants & our work consulting with public health and government at city, state, and federal levels. During our time we have been fortunate to partner with community-based organizations, legal advocacy groups, affected individuals with the goal of further supporting & improving the dyad, family, and community.
MD, MPH, FAAP
Health equity, racial justice, community engagement, research, policy translation, implementation and application, substance use and mental health continuum (prevention, harm reduction treatment, recovery) community engaged metric development, Medicaid, health care workforce expansion and diversification, school health, adolescent health and wellbeing
MD, MPH, FACOG, DFASAM
Pregnancy and birth, drug exposure and drug use, addiction treatment and recovery, stigma and discrimination, health equity and ethics, carcerality and resistance, family policing and alternatives
Bishop Marcia Dinkins is a visionary leader and advocate for environmental and climate justice, racial equity, and community empowerment across the Appalachian region and beyond. As the founder of the Black Appalachian Coalition (BLAC), she has spearheaded groundbreaking initiatives to combat air and water quality issues, tackle systemic environmental racism, and mobilize collective action for sustainable, community-driven change. Bishop Dinkins’ work is rooted in a deep commitment to uplifting marginalized communities—particularly Black Appalachians—who have long borne the brunt of environmental hazards and industrial exploitation.
Under her leadership, BLAC has launched transformative campaigns such as Freedom to Breathe, which challenges industries to take responsibility for pollution and empowers communities to demand the clean air they deserve. Bishop Dinkins also founded Black Women for Change, an organization dedicated to advancing racial, economic, and environmental justice by dismantling health inequities that affect Black women and families. Through Black Women for Change, she is developing a comprehensive Black Women's health agenda and policy platform, addressing key issues such as health equity and access, maternal and reproductive health, mental health and trauma support, environmental health and justice, economic empowerment, and workplace health, community advocacy and leadership, and research and data collection.
Bishop Dinkins is a Ph.D. candidate in Leadership and Change at Antioch University and is also completing a Doctor of Ministry. She is known for her powerful public speaking, strategic community mobilization, and unwavering commitment to justice. She leads efforts to build a more equitable and resilient Appalachia, inspiring others to join in the fight for a healthier future.
Tracie M. Gardner, Executive Director of the National Black Harm Reduction Network (NBHRN), and former Senior Vice President of Policy Advocacy at the Legal Action Center, has worked for more than three decades in the public health, public policy, and not-for-profit fields. With a focus on substance use and the impact of the War on Drugs and incarceration on Black communities in the United States, Ms. Gardner is a nationally recognized expert on health and communities of color. Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Letitia James appointed Ms. Gardner to the state’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board, which provides recommendations for how New York’s opioid settlement funds should be used in communities across the state.
Tracie received a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College. In 2022, Ms. Gardner’s alma mater recognized her career with the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association Achievement Award.
Her proudest achievement is as a parent to her two sons, Caleb and Elijah Wright.
Miriam Mack is the Campaigns & Advocacy Director, Senior Legal Counsel at Movement for Family Power, where she uses litigation, policy advocacy, and organizing to help grow, support, and build capacity for the movement to abolish family policing.
Miriam is a Black mama, movement lawyer, and learner committed to working toward a world rooted in racial, reproductive, and birth justice. She fundamentally believes that building this world is achievable and is dependent on our divesting from systems of punishment, oppression, and isolation, investing in systems of care, support, and interconnectedness, and centering the expertise and leadership of those most impacted by policing systems.
Prior to joining MFP, Miriam was the Policy Director of The Bronx Defenders’ Family Defense Practice, where she led a team of advocates focused on creating and supporting policies and campaigns that narrow the pathways to (and ultimately end) New York’s family policing system. Also while at The Bronx Defenders, Miriam represented hundreds of parents facing family policing cases, including neglect, abuse, and termination of parental rights cases. Miriam also previously worked at the ACLU of Massachusetts and Ropes & Gray LLP. Miriam clerked for the Honorable Solomon Oliver, Jr., in the Northern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Justice Geraldine S. Hines of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
Miriam has a law degree from Boston University School of Law and holds an undergraduate degree in History from Columbia University.
MD
Dr. Moghimi is a board-certified psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist with extensive experience working with Medicaid populations as a managed care executive and as a community psychiatrist in Washington DC . He has successfully implemented multiple clinical and social initiatives to improve health outcomes of complex populations utilizing predictive data analytics, social needs partnerships, digital behavioral health platforms, and peer-driven models. He was recognized as Modern Healthcare's Top Diversity Leaders Inaugural Class of 2021 for his efforts in improving access to care.
Dr. Moghimi has launched innovative value-based programs in the BH/SUD space, incentivizing providers to improve integrated/coordinated care that address whole-person health and social determinants. He has extensive clinical experience in FQHC settings and integration of MAT programs into primary care. He has served on the mayoral appointed DC health information exchange policy board and CRISP clinical committee since 2018, improving utilization of HIE into point of care decision making and population health. He also provides consultation services to startups that are working to improve access to high quality BH/SUD services and improving network adequacy.
Dr. Moghimi is an active community leader serving on multiple boards and is a graduate of the Leadership Greater Washington Signature Program class of 2021.
PhD, MS
Nichole Nidey, PhD, MS is a maternal-child health epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. She is also a faculty member with the Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative. Her research, advocacy, and service focus on improving access to and the quality of care for pregnant and postpartum patients with substance use disorders (SUD).
In 2019, Dr. Nidey founded the EMPOWER Project, a collaborative of over 20 individuals with lived experience of substance use during pregnancy and postpartum. EMPOWER members co-design and co-lead research and initiatives aimed at transforming care and reducing stigma for perinatal patients with SUD. Through her work, Dr. Nidey is committed to fostering patient-centered research and policy change to improve maternal and infant health outcomes.
Lauren focuses on in-depth legal research in support of If/When/How’s litigation and policy team and state and grassroots advocates. Previously, Lauren led state policy work related to RH/RR/RJ as Policy Counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families; tracked and analyzed state bills on reproductive rights and health as a Senior State Legislative Fellow with the Center for Reproductive Rights; and worked at the intersection of reproductive justice and LGBTQ liberation as an If/When/How Reproductive Justice Fellow at the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
MD MPH FACOG
Jamila Perritt MD MPH FACOG is a fellowship trained, board-certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist and President and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health (PRH), a physician led nonprofit that mobilizes the medical community, educating and organizing providers, using medicine and science to advance access to reproductive health care for all people.
Dr. Perritt has a comprehensive background in family planning and has worked more than 20 years in the reproductive health, rights and justice spaces. She provides on the ground, community-based care focusing primarily on the intersection of sexual health, reproductive rights and social justice. In addition to her work as a clinical provider in the Washington, DC area, she has led PRH since 2020.
Dr. Perritt is a graduate of Howard University College of Medicine and completed her residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. She completed a fellowship in Complex Family Planning at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. During her fellowship training, Dr. Perritt received a master’s degree in public health from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. Perritt is a passionate advocate for reproductive health, rights and justice which has allowed her to work closely with many organizations in support of access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including Advocates for Youth, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Dr. Perritt serves via Mayoral appointment as co-chair of Washington DC’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee. She is a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and has served as Chair of ACOG’s Committee for the Health Care for Underserved Women. She is a writer with Echoing Ida, a community Black women and nonbinary writers that seeks to shift culture and build movements through narrative change, the Black Maternal Health Federal Policy Collective, a founding member of the collective, Centering Equity and Racial Literacy in Family Planning (CERCL-FP), and a co-convener of the Federal Repro Strategies Coalition (FRSC).
She has been featured in multiple media outlets, including C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, PBS NewsHour, NPR, Glamor Magazine, MedPage Today, RewireNews, and The New York Times.
Joelle Puccio is a person who uses criminalized drugs and a registered nurse who has worked in Perinatal and Neonatal Intensive Care since 2004. They are a co-founder of the Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction, whose mission is to improve the lives of pregnant and parenting people who use substances. They have been invited to speak at conferences convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Academy of Neonatal Nurses (ANN), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and more. They traveled the country in their RV with their 2 cats as a travel nurse from 2017-2023, in order to learn about the experience of families affected by perinatal substance use and pregnancy criminalization in varying geographic areas. They are now settled in Phoenix Arizona, pursuing their Master of Public Health, working at a specialized facility for infants experiencing withdrawal, and putting down roots in local harm reduction communities. They became passionate about advocating for people who use drugs after realizing that everything they had been taught about drugs from childhood through nursing school was wrong.
JD, MA
Lisa Sangoi (she/her) is committed to working in service of reproductive justice, having spent the past decade plus advocating against the separation of children and families through the child welfare and criminal legal systems. She has participated in or co-led several advocacy and organizing campaigns to roll back laws, policies and practices that punish mamas for exercising their reproductive decision making. She has also had the privilege of providing legal representation to women targeted by the child welfare and criminal legal systems through trial and appellate advocacy.
She spends quite a bit of time learning about criminalization of pregnancy and parenting, and she regularly consults on related cases and legislation throughout the country. Her writing has been published in academic journals, print media and advocacy reports, and she presents often on these injustices. She founded and co-directed Movement for Family Power for five years, an organization that uses movement lawyering to support grassroots organizing around foster system reform and abolition.
She has previously worked at Mothers Outreach Network, NYU Law Family Defense Clinic, Pregnancy Justice, Women Prison Association Incarcerated Mothers Law Project, and Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice. She has a law degree from NYU School of Law, a master’s degree in Human Rights from Columbia University, and undergraduate degrees in Math and Philosophy from NYU.
PhD
Jonathan JK Stoltman, PhD is Director of the Opioid Policy Institute, a research think tank that uses multi-pronged approaches to better understand gaps in treatment and recovery services and co-Director of Reporting on Addiction, an effort to improve the accuracy and empathy of news coverage about addiction.
In 2019, he completed his PhD in Lifespan Developmental Psychology from West Virginia University and has worked as a researcher focusing on opioid addiction treatment and recovery since 2013. During this time, Jonathan’s academic work has appeared in leading journals, conferences, and media outlets.
MD, MPH
Erinma Ukoha, MD, MPH, is a board certified obstetrician-gynecologist, maternal-fetal medicine physician, and assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her clinical, research, and advocacy work focuses on high-risk pregnancies, decriminalization of pregnancy and substance use, abolition in medicine, and addressing health disparities and race-based medicine. She is also a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health and a member of the New York Informed Consent Coalition. She is passionate about collaborating with community-based organizations and impacted individuals to advocate for policy change.
Dr. Ukoha obtained her Medical Degree and Master's of Public Health from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco and her fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine at Columbia University. She is a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She is also a member of the Society of Family Planning and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, where she serves on the Health Policy and Advocacy Committee and Data to Action Training and Activation Academy Advisory Group.
MPH
Jamie Wood is a social justice advocate with a Masters in Public Health, concentration in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He worked at the Open Society Foundations for 15 years where he wore many hats in Program Management and Operations. His tenure consisted of dedicated focus in different subject areas from women's rights, civic engagement, innovation in health equity and mutual aide, equity in health systems financing, criminal justice reform, and drug policy reform. Previously, Jamie worked at Amnesty International USA in its Executive Office, and as a volunteer coordinator for an NGO on the Thai/Burma border that offered free schooling and housing programs for stateless communities. He has also worked for a number of coffee, ice cream, and retail stores across NYC. His current focus has been in direct services, strengthening the continuum of care for the elderly and cognitively impaired, as well as direct outreach and winter clothes distribution for unhoused communities.