Aziza Ahmed, JD, MS
Aziza Ahmed is Professor of Law and the R. Gordon Butler Scholar of International Law at the Boston University School of Law. Her work focuses on the law and politics of science, social movements, and health.
Conference Speakers
Kellan Baker, PhD, MPH, MA
Dr. Kellan Baker is the Executive Director of Whitman-Walker Institute, the research, policy, and education arm of Whitman-Walker, a community health system in Washington, DC that includes a Federally Qualified Health Center. Kellan is a health services researcher, educator, and health policy professional with a focus on health equity research and policy, particularly for LGBTQI+ populations. Kellan holds affiliate faculty appointments at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and he received his PhD in health policy and management from Johns Hopkins, MPH and MA from George Washington University, and BA with high honors from Swarthmore College.
Michele Bratcher Goodwin, JSD, JD, LLM
Michele Bratcher Goodwin is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She is currently the Abraham Pinanski Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She is the 2022 recipient of the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Award as well as the 2022 Trailblazer Award from the Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles. In 2020-21, she received the Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research, the highest honor bestowed by the University of California. She is also the first law professor at the University of California, Irvine to receive this award. In 2021-22, she was named the Provost’s Distinguished Visiting Faculty Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute as well as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hastings Center. She is the author of Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and The Criminalization of Motherhood. She is also host of the popular podcast On The Issues at Ms. magazine.
Naomi Cahn, JD, LLM
Naomi Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law, Nancy L. Buc ’69 Research Professor in Democracy and Equity, and Co-Director of the Family Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law. Cahn is a co-author of casebooks in family law and trusts and estates and has written numerous articles exploring family law, reproductive rights, and feminist theory. She has written books for both academic and trade publishers, including Red Families v. Blue Families (OUP 2010, with June Carbone); and Fair Shake (Simon & Schuster, forthcoming 2024, with June Carbone & Nancy Levit). Cahn taught for over two decades at GW Law before joining the UVA faculty.
Sara Clarke Kaplan
Executive Director, Antiracist Research & Policy Center; Associate Professor of Literature and Critical Race, Gender & Culture Studies
American University
David S. Cohen, JD
David S. Cohen is a professor of law at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law where he teaches constitutional law, sex discrimination and the law, and reproductive rights and justice. He is the coauthor of two books about abortion, Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Antiabortion Terrorism (Oxford 2015) (with Krysten Connon) and Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America (California 2020) (with Carole Joffe). He is on the board of the Abortion Care Network and works with the Women’s Law Project representing abortion providers in Pennsylvania in various legal matters. With his current coauthors, Greer Donley and Rachel Rebouché, he has spearheaded the movement of abortion-supportive states to adopt shield provisions, laws that protect abortion providers and patients from antiabortion state efforts to punish them.
Clare Coleman
Clare Coleman is President & CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA). Clare led NFPRHA and its 1,000 organizational members through the most damaging policy attacks in the history of Title X, America’s family planning program, repeatedly suing the US government in 2018-19 to prevent irreparable harm to Title X, which serves millions of people with low incomes who otherwise may go without critical contraceptive and sexual health care. Clare came to NFPRHA in 2009 directly from service delivery, serving as the CEO of Planned Parenthood Mid-Hudson Valley (NY) from 2006-2009. Clare graduated from Smith College.
Bethany Corbin, Esq., LLM
As a healthcare innovation and femtech attorney, Bethany helps thought-leading companies revolutionize the global women’s health sector. With almost a decade of hands-on legal experience, she empowers femtech companies to achieve their goals with well-crafted legal and strategic counsel designed to disrupt the “standard” model of healthcare delivery. Bethany is a prolific speaker and writer on femtech, privacy, and ethical technology. She hosts the Legally Femtech Podcast and serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Women’s Health Innovation Series. Her strategic insights have been featured in top news outlets, including Forbes, Fortune, BBC, NPR, Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, and more!
Lawrence "Bopper" Deyton, MD, MSPH
Lawrence Deyton, MSPH, MD, is the Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy and Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Public Health at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He previously served at several federal agencies for over 30 years. Dr. Deyton was the founding director of the Center for Tobacco Products at the FDA. Prior to joining FDA, Dr. Deyton served in leadership positions at the US Department of Veterans Affairs including as Chief Public Health and Environmental Hazards Officer for the VA Health Care system. Dr. Deyton was a founder of the Whitman Walker Clinic, a community-based LGBTQ and AIDS service organization in Washington, DC, in 1978. He earned his MD from GWU and his MSPH at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Deyton has been a volunteer physician for the Washington D.C. VA medical center for 23 years and continues to see and treat patients, specializing in HIV and AIDS.
Caitlin Gerdts, PhD, MHS
Dr. Caitlin Gerdts serves as the Vice President for Research at Ibis Reproductive Health. Her research has included clinical and epidemiologic studies, conducted in close partnership with abortion activists and feminist accompaniment groups, on self-managed abortion, access to abortion in restrictive legal contexts, and digital technologies to support abortion access. Dr. Gerdts holds a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, a Masters in Health Sciences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, and has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications.
Diana Greene Foster, PhD, MA
Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences; Director of Research, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH)
University of California, San Francisco
Lewis Grossman, PhD, JD
Lewis Grossman is a Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History at American University Washington College of Law. Professor Grossman teaches and writes in the areas of food and drug law, health law, American legal history, and civil procedure. He is the author of Choose Your Medicine: Freedom of Therapeutic Choice in America (2021) and coauthor of Food and Drug Law: Cases and Materials. He is currently completing an article on over-the-counter reproductive health drugs and represents an amicus group of scholars opposing the withdrawal of FDA’s approval of mifepristone in a U.S. district court in Texas. He earned a Ph.D. in History from Yale University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. from Yale University.
Jasmine Harris, JD
Jasmine E. Harris is a Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She is a leading law and inequality scholar with expertise in disability law, antidiscrimination law, and evidence. Her recent academic articles have appeared in Columbia Law Review, New York University Law Review, and University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Harris serves as a co-editor of the preeminent evidence treatise, McCormick on Evidence. Harris also writes frequently about disability law for popular audiences with by-lines and commentary in such publications and media outlets as the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Ms. Magazine, Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio. Harris graduated with honors from Dartmouth College and Yale Law School. She clerked for Harold Baer, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York and practiced complex commercial litigation at WilmerHale and public interest law at the Advancement Project. Harris serves as a board member of The Arc of the United States where she chairs the organization’s Legal Advocacy Committee.
Laura Hercher, MA, MS, CGC
Laura Hercher (MA, MS, CGC) is Director of Student Research at the Sarah Lawrence College Joan H. Marks Graduate Program in Human Genetics. She is a frequent commentator on ethical, legal and social issues related to genetic and genomic medicine including such publications as Scientific American, the MIT Technology Review, the Nation Magazine and the New York Times, among many others. As a genetic counselor and bioethicist, she works as a consultant and advisor in academic and commercial settings, and she is the ethical, legal and social issues section editor for the Journal of Genetic Counseling. She is currently at work on a book about the societal implications of reproductive genomic medicine in the United States, tentatively entitled The Ghettoization of Genetic Disease. Laura is a co-founder of The DNA Exchange, a blog for the genetic counseling community, and host of the De Novo Media podcast, “The Beagle Has Landed,” popular with genetic professionals, science media and sci-curious people everywhere.
Limayli Huguet, JD
Limayli Huguet, J.D., is Helpline Counsel for If/When/How, where she supports the Repro Legal Helpline by working to help people navigate and understand the laws around abortion and a variety of reproductive experiences. Prior to joining If/When/How, Limayli was an If/When/How Reproductive Justice Federal Fellow placed at All* Above All focused on ending the Hyde Amendment and working toward securing abortion access for all regardless of income. After her fellowship, Limayli remained on at All* Above All to help build out their medication abortion and immigrant justice campaigns. Originally from San Diego, California, Limayli earned her J.D. from the American University Washington College of Law and is licensed to practice in the District of Columbia.
Courtney G. Joslin, JD
Courtney Joslin is a Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law. Joslin is a leading expert on family and relationship recognition, with a focus on same-sex and unmarried couples. Her publications have appeared/forthcoming in the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review Forum, Iowa Law Review, Southern California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Yale Law Journal Forum. She is a co-author (with William N. Eskridge Jr. & Nan D. Hunter) of Sexuality, Gender, and the Law, and a co-author (with D. Kelly Weisberg) of the forthcoming edition of Modern Family Law.
Jill Lens, JD
Professor Jill Wieber Lens is the Robert A. Leflar Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the University of Arkansas School of Law. She is a leading expert on legal recognition and treatment of stillbirth and pregnancy loss generally, including the many overlaps between pregnancy loss and abortion. Her recent work has appeared in the Vanderbilt Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Iowa Law Review, and Boston University Law Review. She has published popular writing with the New York Times, Time, Slate, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Ophra Leyser-Whalen, PhD
Dr. Ophra Leyser-Whalen (she/her) is a medical sociologist at the University of Texas El Paso. In 2020 she was the recipient of the American Sociological Association Sex and Gender Section Feminist Scholar Activist Award and the Sociologists for Women in Society Feminist Activism Award. Her interdisciplinary research often includes student mentees/ researchers and focuses on reproductive justice, with an emphasis on infertility, contraception, reproductive health and access during disasters, and abortion. She also employs community-engaged work, having worked with several Texas abortion funds.
Laura Lindberg, PhD
Laura Lindberg is professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, where she directs the program in sexual and reproductive health. She also is a founding member of Youth Reproductive Equity, a collaborative promoting equity in abortion access for young people. She previously was a Research Scientist at the Guttmacher Institute for nearly twenty years. As a social demographer, Dr. Lindberg focuses on measuring the trends, determinants, and consequences of sexual and reproductive health in the U.S. She has been funded by the National Institutes of Health to conduct research aimed at improving the measurement of abortion in U.S. surveys.
Yvonne Lindgren, JSD, JD, LLM
Yvonne (“Yvette”) Lindgren is an Associate Professor of Law at UMKC School of Law. Her research and scholarship focus on reproductive rights and justice, constitutional law, family law, and health law policy. Upon earning her J.S.D. at U.C. Berkeley Law, she served as a two-year post-doctoral fellow at Berkeley Law’s Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice. Her most recent scholarship has appeared in Cornell Law Review, Washington University Law Review, and North Carolina Law Review. She earned her LL.M. and J.S.D. from U.C. Berkeley School of Law, her J.D. from Hastings College of the Law, and her B.A. from U.C.L.A.
Melissa Madera, PhD, MST, MA
Melissa Madera, PhD is the founder and director of The Abortion Diary, an abortion story-sharer and listener, an independent consultant, a special projects consultant for Plan C, a researcher on Project SANA (self-managed abortion needs assessment), and the former director of research and partnerships at Choix Telehealth Clinic. Melissa is also a Society of Family Planning 2019 Changemakers in Family Planning Awardee and a board member of inroads (the International Network for the Reduction of Abortion Discrimination and Stigma). An expert on abortion story-sharing and listening, she works to center the voices of people who have had abortions and end abortion stigma in all facets of her life.
Maya Manian, JD
Maya Manian is a Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Health Law and Policy Program at American University Washington College of Law. Professor Manian is a nationally recognized expert on reproductive rights and justice. Her scholarship investigates the relationship between constitutional law, family law, and health care law, with a particular focus on access to reproductive health care. She publishes and presents widely on abortion rights, and has authored numerous law journal articles and book chapters on the subject. Her current work uses sociological methods to understand how legal restrictions on abortion care might constrain a wide range of women and pregnant people’s medical care. Professor Manian earned her juris doctorate magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. She is currently a PhD candidate in medical sociology at the University of California San Francisco.
Sara Matthiesen, PhD
Sara Matthiesen (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor of history and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at George Washington University. Professor Matthiesen's first book, Reproduction Reconceived: Family Making and the Limits of Choice after Roe v. Wade (University of California Press, 2021), reframes the decades following Roe as a labor history of family making under state neglect. Reproduction Reconceived was awarded the Sara A. Whaley Prize for the best monograph on gender and labor from the National Women’s Studies Association in 2022. Her second project, Home Abortion after Roe, traces the persistence of "self-managed" abortion and mutual aid efforts that took place beyond the clinic and the law.
Alan B. Morrison
Alan B. Morrison is the Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest & Public Service at The George Washington University Law School where he teaches civil procedure and constitutional law. For most of his career, he worked for the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which he co-founded with Ralph Nader in 1972 and directed for over 25 years. He has argued 20 cases in the Supreme Court and continues to file amicus briefs and assist lawyers in the preparation for oral arguments there. His work related to this conference focuses on the powers of the federal and state governments to ban, authorize, or regulate some or all aspects of abortions.
Kimberly Mutcherson, JD
Kimberly Mutcherson is Co-Dean and Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey. Dean Mutcherson is a reproductive justice scholar whose work focuses on assisted reproduction, abortion, and maternal-fetal decision-making among other topics. Cambridge University Press published her edited volume, FEMINIST JUDGMENTS: REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE RE-WRITTEN in 2020. Dean Mutcherson was a co-recipient of the 2022 M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers and the 2021 Association of American Law Schools inaugural Impact Award as one of the creators of the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project. Dean Mutcherson received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Caitlin Myers, PhD
Caitlin Knowles Myers is the John G. McCullough Professor of Economics at Middlebury College as well as the co-director of the Middlebury Initiative for Data and Digital Methods. Her research applies the statistical tools of causal inference to study the effects of abortion policies and access on people’s lives. She led the economists’ amicus brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was signed by more than 150 economists. In addition to being published in academic journals, her scholarship has also been featured in the popular press such as The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and The Atlantic. Professor Myers currently maintains the abortion access dashboard (https://abortionaccessdashboard.org) where she is disseminating timely information on the changing landscape of abortion access.
Jenny O’Donnell, ScD, MSc
Jenny O’Donnell is the Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at the Society of Family Planning and a Lecturer in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. At the Society, Jenny leads research-related strategies responsive to a shifting landscape and in service of the vision of just and equitable abortion and contraception informed by science. This includes guiding competitive funding opportunities through the grants life cycle, creating research capacity building programming , and standing up collaborative research efforts, such as #WeCount. A Maternal and Child Health/Children, Youth and Families Center of Excellence trainee, her independent research focused on qualitatively and quantitatively exploring the intersection of place and individual attributes on access to reproductive health services in rural communities in Central Appalachia. Her research has been published in Social Science and Medicine, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, Reproductive Health Matters, Women’s Health Issues, and the Journal of Maternal and Child Health. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College and a Master of Science and a Doctorate of Science from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Anya Prince, JD, MPP
Anya Prince is a Professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. Her teaching and research interests explore health and genetic privacy, with a particular focus on the implications of big data. Her interdisciplinary work has been published in legal, bioethics, and medical journals, including Boston College Law Review, Iowa Law Review, JAMA, and the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. Prior to joining Iowa Law, Professor Prince was a VAP at Indiana University’s Robert McKinney School of Law, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the UNC Center for Genomics and Society, and a Skadden Fellow at the Cancer Legal Resource Center.
Radhika Rao, JD
Radhika Rao is Professor of Law and Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair at UC Law San Francisco. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she clerked for Justices Harry Blackmun and Thurgood Marshall. She has been a visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School, the University of Michigan Law School, and a Fulbright Distinguished Professor at the University of Trento in Italy. She is the author of numerous articles, some of which have been translated into Italian and Chinese. She served on the California Advisory Committee on Human Cloning and currently serves on the California Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee.
Rachel Rebouché, JD, LLM
Dean; James E. Beasley Professor of Law
Temple University Beasley School of Law
Jennifer Reich, PhD, MA
Jennifer Reich is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research examines how individuals and families weigh information and strategize their interactions with the state and service providers in the context of public policy, particularly as they relate to healthcare and welfare. She is author of two award-winning books, Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System and Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines and editor of the books, Reproduction and Society and State of Families, as well as the NYU Press book series, Health, Society, and Inequality. She has written more than 50 articles and book chapters that explore vaccination, reproductive health, welfare, multiracial families, public assistance, and recovery after disaster. Her work has been featured in news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and Newsweek, and on the Netflix show, Bill Nye Saves the World
Whitney Rice, DrPh, MPH
Whitney S. Rice, DrPH, MPH, is a Rollins Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral, Social and Health Education Sciences at the Emory Rollins School of Public Health, and Director of the Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast (RISE). As a health services researcher, Dr. Rice is committed to the pursuit of greater equity in sexual and reproductive health outcomes, care delivery, and scholarship. Her research program has examined implications of social and structural determinants (e.g., stigma, discrimination, policy change) of psychosocial and health outcomes, healthcare access and use, in family planning, HIV prevention, and perinatal health settings.
Sara Rosenbaum, JD
Sara Rosenbaum J.D. is Emerita Professor of Health Law and Policy, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, where she previously held the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professorship and served as founding Chair of the School’s Department of Health Policy. Professor Rosenbaum has devoted her career to advancing the health of medically underserved populations. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and has served on numerous governmental and other committees, including the CDC’s Director’s Advisory Committee and the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP). She was appointed by Congress as a founding Commissioner of Congress’s Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), which she chaired from January 2016 through April 2017. Professor Rosenbaum is the recipient of many honors and awards, among which are the National Academy of Medicine’s Adam Yarmolinsky Medal, the American Public Health Association Executive Director Award for Service, and the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health Welch-Rose Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Health of the Public. Professor Rosenbaum also is a past recipient of GW’s Trachtenberg Prize for Research.
Anne Rossier Markus, PhD, MHS, JD
Anne Rossier Markus, PhD, MHS, JD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management in the GW School of Public Health has interdisciplinary training in (Swiss) law, public policy/health policy, policy analysis/policy research, and public health. She has 30 years of experience studying private/public health insurance and publicly-funded health programs, such as Medicaid/CHIP, health centers, and maternal and child health services, as well as health reform in the U.S. and abroad. Prior to joining GW, Anne was a policy analyst for the National Business Group on Health.
Paul Schiff Berman, JD
Paul Schiff Berman, the Walter S. Cox Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School, is one of the world’s foremost theorists on the interactions among legal systems. He is the author of over sixty scholarly works, including Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012 and the Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Previously, he was Dean of the George Washington University School of Law and Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He also served as law clerk to Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. His most recent scholarly work is "Conflicts of Law and the Abortion War Between the States."
Asha Scielzo, JD
Asha Scielzo is the Director of the Health Law and Policy Program at AU Washington College of Law. She teaches a variety of experiential courses on the topics of health care fraud and abuse, corporate compliance, governance, digital health, and health care business transactions. She also leads the law school’s Health Care Compliance Certificate, which is accredited by the Compliance Certification Board. Professor Scielzo brings over 20 years of health care industry experience to the classroom. She is privileged to serve as the President-Elect Designate for the American Health Law Association, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and the South Asian Bar Association of Washington, D.C.
Adam Sieff, Esq.
Adam Sieff is a First Amendment and constitutional litigator at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. An authority on emerging issues involving online speech regulation, he represents internet, media, and technology clients in First Amendment, Section 230, copyright, trademark, antitrust, and regulatory litigation and appeals, including preemption and constitutional challenges. He also represents nonprofit organizations in pro bono constitutional rights, voting rights, and civil rights impact litigation including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Adam is a Lecturer in Constitutional Law at the USC Gould School of Law. He holds a J.D from Stanford Law School and an A.B. from Columbia University.
Reva Siegel, JD, MPhil
Professor Reva Siegel is the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor at Yale Law School. Professor Siegel’s writing analyzes questions of law and inequality and explores how courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution (see here). These themes have shaped her work on reproductive justice. Recent papers include Memory Games: Dobbs’s Originalism as Anti-Democratic Living Constitutionalism — and Some Pathways for Resistance, 101 Texas L. Rev. (forthcoming 2023), and papers on equality and reproductive justice co-authored with Cary Franklin—and with Melissa Murray and Serena Mayeri. She is the co-author, along with Murray and Mayeri, of an equal protection amicus in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. For a recent post synthesizing themes and linking to some of the sources in this work (see here). Professor Siegel is a member of the American Philosophical Society, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an honorary fellow of the American Society for Legal History. She serves on the board of Advisors and the Board of Academic Advisors of the American Constitution Society and on the General Council of the International Society of Public Law.
Bruce Siegel, MD, MPH
Dr. Bruce Siegel is President and CEO of
America's Essential Hospitals. Since joining America’s Essential Hospitals in 2010, Siegel has used his health care management, policy, and public health experience to advance the association’s advocacy, leadership development, and health equity work. America’s Essential Hospitals has grown dramatically under his stewardship, becoming a stronger voice for hospitals caring for low-income and other marginalized patients. He served previously as director of the Center for Health Care Quality at The George Washington University and as president and CEO of two member systems: the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and Tampa General Healthcare. He also served as New Jersey’s commissioner of health.
Rabbi Barry Silver, Esq.
Rabbi Barry Silver is the founder ?of Cosmic Judaism, Who's Who of American Law. A civil rights attorney, singer song writer, legislator, and founder of the local Temple of Understanding, Rabbi Silver is a self-described “rabbi rouser” named “The most effective environmental legislator” by the Sierra Club. Barry used Civil RICO to bankrupt Operation Rescue which ended their national blockades of abortion clinics forever and was the first to use religious freedom to challenge the post Dobbs anti-abortion laws. Barry was named Feminist of the Year by NOW, is featured in the acclaimed documentary, “Under G-d”, has appeared in all national media, and is listed in Who’s Who for his outstanding contributions to the betterment of society.
Sonia Suter, JD, MS
Sonia M. Suter is the Kahan Family Research Professor of Law, the Henry St. George Tucker III Dean’s Research Professor of Law, and the Founding Director of the Health Law Initiative at The George Washington University School Law School. A former genetic counselor, she has published widely on issues at the intersection of law, medicine, genetics, and bioethics, with a particular focus on reproductive rights and justice and emerging reproductive technologies. She is co-author of Genetics: Ethics, Law and Policy and Reproductive Technologies and the Law and participates in national working groups, advisory boards, and as a consultant to policymakers.
Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH
Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH is a public health social scientist trained in epidemiology and demography. She is Professor at University of California, San Francisco and faculty at ANSIRH. Her expertise is in abortion safety and access in the U.S., state-level abortion restrictions, and medication abortion. She is Principal Investigator of the California Home Abortion by Telehealth study which evaluates the safety, effectiveness, and acceptability of telehealth for abortion. She is also leading a trial on interest in a late period pill, using misoprostol alone. She earned her BA from American University, MPH from Columbia University, and PhD from Johns Hopkins University.
Amita Vyas, PhD, MHS
Amita N. Vyas PhD is an Associate Professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health where she leads the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health and served as the Editor-in Chief of the journal Women's Health Issues from 2017-2022. Her work has primarily focused on reproductive, maternal and adolescent health and she is currently leading a study in Washington D.C. to examine health inequities and maternal morbidity. In 2015 Dr. Vyas produced the film Girl Rising India, and launched a national campaign in India to shift gender norms related to adolescent girls' education and gender based violence.
Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA
Tracy A. Weitz PhD, MPA (she/her), is a Professor of Sociology and Director for the Center on Health, Risk, and Society at American University in Washington, DC, where she is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP). Her prior leadership roles include U.S. Programs Director for the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (STBF) and Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and co-founder and director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Weitz is a Deputy Editor for Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.