Naomi Bar-Yam, PhD, ACSW, has been working in maternal and child health for over 30 years as an educator, researcher, advocate, and writer. She is past president of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) and the founding director of Mothers' Milk Bank Northeast, which provides safe donor milk to hospitals and families throughout the northeastern US. An expert on access to perinatal health care and policies that support breastfeeding, she has been a consultant to the Centers for Disease Control (on a panel that created "The CDC Guide to Breastfeeding Interventions”), to the United States Breastfeeding Committee (developing an issue paper addressed to CEOs and legislators on breastfeeding and the workplace), and to the March of Dimes (developing educational material for women and families who are medically and socially vulnerable to high-risk pregnancy). She also developed a curriculum for hospital personnel about combining breastfeeding with their work. She reviews articles submitted to the Journal of Human Lactation, Breastfeeding Medicine, and other publications related to breastfeeding, milk banking, and access to perinatal child care. As the founder and Director Emerita of Mothers' Milk Bank Northeast, she is thoroughly versed in the technical, procedural, and ethical aspects of milk banking. She often speaks at professional conferences, hospital staff trainings, and grand rounds about milk banking and breastfeeding policies.

Liz Brooks, JD, IBCLC, FILCA, is a lawyer/litigator (since 1983) and private practice lactation consultant (since 1997) who offers lively explanation of the overlap between clinical lactation support, ethics, and the law. Breastfeeding helpers (like IBCLCs) struggle with ethical, moral, and legal conundrums in their everyday work settings. With plain language and humor, Liz explains how the everyone can work ethically and legally, and offers pragmatic tips for immediate use in daily practice. She has served on the boards of directors of the International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA), the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC), and Human Milk Banking Association of North American (HMBANA). She wrote the only textbook focusing on IBCLC ethics and law, authored chapters and articles in several texts and journals, and is a well-received speaker, writer, and educator in her field.

Melissa Cole, MS, IBCLC, RLC is a board certified lactation consultant, neonatal oral-motor assessment professional, and clinical herbalist in private practice. Melissa has been passionate about providing comprehensive, holistic lactation support and improving the level of clinical lactation skills for health professionals. She enjoys teaching, researching and writing about wellness and lactation-related topics. Melissa holds a bachelor of science degree in maternal child health and lactation consulting and her master’s work is in therapeutic, clinical herbalism. Melissa actively conducts research and collaborates with several lactation and health care professional associations. Before pursuing her current path, Melissa’s background was in education and cultural arts, which has served her well in her work as a lactation consultant and healthcare educator. She loves living, working and playing in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her 3 children. Melissa Cole - Teaching Topics and Objectives Melissa Cole - Speaker Packet

Cynthia Good, MS Clinical Psychology, is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Psychotherapist, author, consultant, and internationally recognized speaker. She is also Certified in Acute Traumatic Stress Management, and formerly served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University in Washington, USA where she taught counseling skills. She has a strong interest in the emerging field of lactational psychology. She is the Director of Perinatal Mental Health and Parent Support at Sandbox Therapy Group in Washington, USA and serves as Program Chair for GOLD Lactation. She formerly served as Research Associate in the Publications Department of La Leche League International, faculty of Parkland College in Illinois, USA, and Education Manager at the International Lactation Consultant Association. She has authored, contributed to, and provided editorial review of numerous publications related to lactation, culture, psychology, and social justice.

Dr. Hazelbaker maintains a private practice in Columbus, Ohio. She has been a La Leche League Leader for over 30 years and a practicing lactation consultant for nearly 30 years. She incorporates her special training in Cranio-Sacral Therapy and Lymphatic Drainage Therapy into her lactation practice. She authored the "Assessment Tool for Lingual Frenulum Function" and invented the Hazelbaker(TM) FingerFeeder. She is one of the few lactation consultants who earned a graduate degree in human lactation (Master's.) Dr. Hazelbaker also holds a doctorate in Psychology, specializing in Energetic and Transformational Healing. Dr. Hazelbaker mothered her five children through long-term breastfeeding and is the proud grandmother of two breastfed grandchildren, Aidan and Eva.

Bonnie Holt Logsdon (she/her) is a Registered Dietitian (RD), International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), Certified Lactation Educator™ (CLE©) through CAPPA, a DONA trained birth doula, professional speaker, and parent with over eighteen years of experience in community-based practice. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics from Western Kentucky University. Through her private practice in the Louisville, KY area, Bonnie advises families during the prenatal and postpartum period for both lactation and nutrition support.  In addition to her private practice, Bonnie serves as a Lactation Education Trainer with the Childbirth and Postpartum Professionals Association and has shared her expertise as a lactation-specific Independent Expert Witness during legal proceedings. Her recent committee and advisory board service includes 2018-2020 President of the Kentuckiana Lactation Improvement Coalition, and current member of the United States Lactation Consultant Association and the Birth Care Network of Louisville, KY. Bonnie is committed to giving personalized, affirming care to each family and individual and promises to provide support in a compassionate, non-judgmental way to meet families where they are and help them meet their chest/breastfeeding or nutrition goals. When not doing the job she loves, Bonnie spends time with her husband and son, cooking and experimenting with new foods from around the world, and traveling and visiting as many National Parks as possible.

Alia Macrina Heise is not only an expert on the topic of dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER), but she is a former sufferer of the condition, herself. She has been in the field of lactation since 2004 and the topic of D-MER has been her sole pursuit since 2007 when she first identified and named the condition. Her passion is to bring more understanding of the condition to mothers and health care providers, as well as to spread awareness and education on the subject.

Lisa Marasco has been working with breastfeeding mothers for 35 years and has been Internationally Board Certified since 1993. She holds a Master's degree in Human Development with specialization in Lactation Consulting and was designated a Fellow of ILCA in 2009. Lisa is co-author of Making More Milk: The Breastfeeding Guide to Increasing Your Milk Production,  a contributing author to the Core Curriculum for Interdisciplinary Lactation Care, and a new Cochrane Collaborative author. She is recently retired from WIC of Santa Barbara County but continues to research, write and speak. In addition, Lisa is affiliated with La Leche League of So. Calif/Nevada, and serves on the Breastfeeding Coalition of Santa Barbara County.

Dr. Merewood directs the CHAMPS initiative and the Center for Health Equity, Education, and Research (CHEER). She is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine, Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences at the BU School of Public Health, and Consultant to the Indian Health Service, the Rocky Mountain Tribal Epidemiology Center, and several American Indian  tribes. Her areas of interest are the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative; breastfeeding and working with minority populations; research; and international health. Anne gained her undergraduate and PhD degrees at Cambridge University, England, and her Masters in Public Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. She has published over 50 papers in the medical peer reviewed literature.

Kathy Parkes is a registered nurse, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, a Fellow of the International Lactation Consultant Association, has a Masters in Nursing-Education,and a Bachelors in psychology. She has been board certified since 1992, and has worked with mothers and babies in a wide variety of breastfeeding situations in both hospital and private practice settings. Kathy provides evidence and research-based lactation inservices, presentations on breastfeeding, parenting, and well-woman care, and lactation consultations through Breastfeeding Perspectives, her private practice. One of Kathy's specialties is lactation choices following pre-natal, post-natal, and infant loss. She is also a Certified Health Counselor, specializing in pregnancy and lactation and a Certified Attached at the Heart Parenting Educator.

Barbara D. Robertson, IBCLC, has been involved in education for over 34 years. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education in 1988 and her Master’s in Education in 1995. Barbara left teaching elementary students in 1995 to raise her two children. Barbara is now the Director of The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor and of the brand new business LactaLearning. The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor will still continue to serve breast/chestfeeding families and now LactaLearning will be dedicated to all of Barbara’s professional lactation trainings. Barbara has developed two 95 hour professional lactation training, a group training and a completely self study training with Nancy Mohrbacher. Barbara’s idea of creating professional book groups has exploded with her hosting Making More Milk with Lisa Marasco, Supporting Sucking Skills with Cathy Watson Genna, Breastfeeding Answers, 2^nd Edition with Nancy Mohrbacher, and new for the fall, Safe Infant Sleep with Dr. James McKenna.  Barbara will be hosting a one day online conference in the fall with Lisa Marasco and Cathy Watson Genna using all of her tech savvy skills to make this a one of a kind experience. Barbara is also a speaker for hire on a wide variety of topics including Motivational Interviewing.  Barbara volunteered for the United States Lactation Consultation Association as the Director of Professional Development for 4.5 years.  She just retired as Associate Editor for Clinical Lactation, a journal she helped create for USLCA. Barbara has free podcasts, a blog, and Youtube videos which can all be found on her websites lactalearning.com and bfcaa.com. She has written many articles as well. She loves working with parents and babies, helping them with breast/chestfeeding problems in whatever way she can.

Sara Chana Silverstein is an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), classical homeopath, master herbalist, businesswoman, wife and mother of seven children. She is a highly sought-after public speaker, presenting an array of topics in an intelligent, compelling, and exciting way. Her specialty is using herbs in breastfeeding. Sara Chana has worked with over 12 thousand breastfeeding moms over the past 25 years specializing in sore nipples, chronic yeast, failure to thrive, low milk supply, over productions, and integrating alternative medicine with conventional medicine.  Her specialty is the use of Herbal Medicine while breastfeeding. Sara Chana travels the country doing TV segments for ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox news shows. She also guests lectures at Medical schools teaching pediatric residents about breastfeeding. She is a consultant to many obstetricians, midwives and pediatricians in the New York metropolitan and Los Angeles area, and she guides mothers in how to ask the proper questions of their doctors to ensure that they and their children receive the most appropriate and comprehensive healthcare.  

Marian Tompson is one of the seven Founders of La Leche League International. She currently serves on the International Advisory Council for WABA (World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action.) Marian spends every spare minute gathering information, raising critical questions and stimulating needed research about breastfeeding in the context of HIV/AIDS and is the founder, President and CEO of AnotherLook, a not-for-profit corporation.

Marsha is a registered nurse and international board certified lactation consultant. She maintained a large clinical practice at a major HMO in Massachusetts, is a published author and an international speaker. Consulting with hospitals, providing in-service presentations, speaking at conferences and workshops and advocating for breastfeeding at the state and federal levels occupy her professional time. She is currently on the board of directors of the Massachusetts Lactation Consultant Association and is the Executive Director of the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy.

Catherine Watson Genna has been an IBCLC in private practice in NYC since 1992. She has a special interest in the anatomical, genetic and neurological influences on infant sucking skills, and writes and speaks on these topics. Catherine's research with Columbia University and Tel Aviv University departments of Biomedical Engineering includes using ultrasound and cervical auscultation to study sucking and suck:swallow coordination in infants with ankyloglossia as well as biomechanical aspects of breastfeeding. She is an avid clinical photographer and the author of Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants (Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2016, 2013 and 2008) and Selecting and Using Breastfeeding Tools (Praeclarus Press, 2009). She served as the founding associate editor of Clinical Lactation for it's first 7 years.

Nancy has been providing breastfeeding help and support for 40 years and has been a national speaker for 30. She has been a perinatal educator and consultant since the late 1970's. Her second career is that of a Marriage and Family Therapist. Her passion is to explore the larger picture of the mother-baby dyad in the context of the breastfeeding relationship.

Laurel Wilson, IBCLC, RLC, BSc, CLE, CCCE, CLD is an author, international keynote, speaker, and pregnancy and lactation specialist. She served as the Executive Director of Lactation Programs for CAPPA, the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association for 16 years and now is on the Senior Advisor Board. She served on the Board of Directors for the United States Breastfeeding Committee from 2016-2019 and currently serves as an Advisor for InJoy Health and is on the board for Kindred Media and the Colorado Breastfeeding Coalition. She owns MotherJourney, focusing on training perinatal professionals on integrative and holistic information regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. She has her degree in Maternal Child Health: Lactation Consulting and is an international board certified lactation consultant. Wilson is the co-author of two books, The Attachment Pregnancy and The Greatest Pregnancy Ever and contributing author to Round the Circle: Doulas Talk About Themselves. She loves to blend today’s recent scientific findings with the mind/body/spirit wisdom. Laurel has been joyfully married to her husband for almost three decades and has two wonderful grown sons, whose difficult births led her on a path towards helping emerging families create positive experiences. Laurel spends her free time reading piles of research, hiking in the mountains with her dogs, kayaking, and cooking. She believes that the journey into parenthood is a life-changing rite of passage that should be deeply honored and celebrated.

Marie Zahorick, MS, APRN, FNP-C, IBCLC became a La Leche League Leader in 1999 and an IBCLC in 2005.  After several years of working as a hospital-based bilingual IBCLC, she attended nursing school and eventually became a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner.  In the meantime, she continued working as a hospital-based lactation consultant doing inpatient, outpatient, and Level III NICU lactation support at a variety of hospitals and with a wide variety of patient populations.  After graduate school, Marie was recruited to work as a nurse practitioner in psychiatry.  She was fellowship-trained to manage patients in the acute inpatient setting, partial hospitalization, outpatient office, and OB patients in the general hospital setting.  She specializes in women’s psychiatry, especially medical management of women who are pregnant or lactating. Her expertise includes psychopharmacology in pregnant and lactating women as well as general psychopharmacology.  She is experienced at diagnosing and treating mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, perinatal/postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, postpartum psychosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, premenstrual and perimenopausal mood disorders, and personality disorders. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband and three adult children in the transient stage of life.  Her children all breastfed for at least two years but now just make faces when confronted with that fact.