Ihotu Jennifer Ali, MPH, LMT, CLC (she/her) is a public health educator, researcher, and integrative massage therapist specializing in myofascial release therapies including the Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy®, Craniosacral Therapy, Prenatal, and Infant Massage as a Spinning Babies Aware Practitioner®. She is founder and owner of Black Moon Bodywork, LLC which offers massage therapy blended with health coaching in integrative and indigenous practices to support hormone balance, sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive justice.

Ihotu’s decade of experience in femme and family health includes years as a DONA certified birth doula and lactation counselor, prenatal yoga teacher and dancer, rape crisis counselor, Institute for Integrative Nutrition coach, and director of pre-conception health programs funded by the March of Dimes. She has collaborated with midwives and physicians in Haiti, Nigeria, Congo, and Morocco, and worked in health policy and research with the U.S. Congress, Clinton Foundation, United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and Columbia University’s School of Public Health. Raised between Minnesota, New York City, and West Africa with respect for both indigenous and evidence-based medicine, Ihotu strives to offer innovative care that is affordable, consent- and trauma-informed, gender fluid and ancestrally rooted. Her writing, public speaking, and coaching brings together emerging science in hormones and gut-brain health, functional medicine, Reproductive Justice and Afrofuturism movements, and intercultural commentary on the busy modern lifestyles, social pressures and anxieties, violence and unresolved trauma often at the root of today’s chronic health conditions.

Swati Scott is a well accomplished community dietitian and lactation consultant working in Victoria, BC, Canada. Her experience spans across public health, acute care, primary care, education and most recently in community health. She has focused extensively on maternal- infant health and nutrition in the early years. She fervently helps families make mealtime the bridge between nutrition and a time for connection. She believes that prenatal nutrition, breastfeeding, healthy family meals set the stage for robust health. She continues to play an active role in local, provincial and global committees that serve maternity, infancy and the early years. She keeps herself updated with new research and continues to solidify her knowledge and skills through participation in baby friendly networks and conferences on childhood nutrition and perinatal health.

Theresa Nesbitt, RN MD ("Dr. Theresa") is an Obstetrician-Gynecologist with special training in Maternal Fetal Medicine. Her interests these days lie in promoting lifelong wellness for women with a focus on nutrition, reproductive health and breastfeeding. She is the Director of Family Health Coaching, editor of Babies and Breastfeeding Magazine and author of Evolutionary Eating: How We Got Fat and 7 Simple Fixes. She anticipates publication of her newest book Building a Baby Brain Bite by Bite - How to Eat Before, During and After Pregnancy next year. Her interest in brain growth and development, nutrition and developmental kinesiology have helped her to look at placentation, lactation and nutrition for reproductive fitness through a new lens.