Our Leadership Team

Samsarah Morgan is the Mother of five sons and the grandmother of three. She is a community elder, activist, counselor and educator.

She has been a doula for over 40 years and has served over 1000 births.  She is the executive director & founder of Nia Healing Center for Birth and Family Life (Www.niaoaklandbetterbirthfoundation.com), Oakland Better Birth Foundation, Better Birth Association of Harlem, NY, and Shiphrah’s Circle Community Doula Program. 

She has trained bay area doulas for over 20 years for her own organization. Since 2016, she has been honored to be a trainer for SMC Full Circle Doula Birth Companion Training Program (formally ICTC, International Center for Traditional Childbearing). She is the doula coordinator for SMC Consulting as of March of 2020.

She has written for several publications and is the author of  the book “The Birth Plan.” Her new book “Birth A Black Woman’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving” is expected soon.

Samsarah also serves on the Board of the Pacific Family Fund which supports reproductive choice for families wishing to birth at the Bay Areas Pacifica Maternity Center.

Samsarah is an apprentice midwife studying under midwives Laura Perez, LM, CPM and Judy Luce, LM, CPM. She is a student at the National School of Midwifery.

D’Anne Graham has been a birth activist for over 30 years. She was instrumental in the passage of the Certified Professional Midwife licensing law in Virginia. During the late 1990s, D’Anne, along with an ideologically diverse group of people, began a grassroots movement to decriminalize Virginia homebirth midwives. Shortly after they began lobbying for a licensing law, the midwife who attended her birth was arrested for manslaughter. She worked as a policy analyst, media liaison, legislative lobbyist, and community organizer.

Her homebirth was a transformational experience to which she believed all women should have legal access. While laboring with her fourth child during her first homebirth, she asked her unlicensed Traditional midwife how far was she dilated, to which her midwife replied ‘Where do you think you are?” The exchange was life-changing, as D’Anne realized she could know her own body, and birth is something that she does, not something that is done to her. Her son was born later that night into her own hands.

After the resolution of her midwife’s trial, D’Anne took a writing sabbatical to Ireland. She went to Belfast, Northern Ireland at the invitation of David Irvine, a signer of the Good Friday Agreement, to observe the Northern Ireland peace process, particularly, people of divergent beliefs learning to live and work together for a greater vision.

In 2005, after returning from Ireland, D’Anne returned to her university studies in Virginia. In 2006, her paper, ”Childbirth is a Social Justice Issue,” was integrated into one of her professor’s class curriculum and D’Anne was invited to return as a guest speaker on the topic. In her senior year, she was awarded a fellowship to historicize Virginia midwives, and presented that paper, Virginia Midwifery: Past as Prologue at several policy and historical forums. The Virginia Humanities recently awarded her a fellowship to complete her book, A Parcel of Murdering Bitches: Childbirth and Women’s Autonomy from the Virginia Colony to the #MeTooMovement.

A teacher at heart, D’Anne, recently taught at the Hebei Normal University for the Nationalities Chengde, China until she was forced to evacuate from the COVID outbreak. She is thrilled to be active again in the advancement of midwifery.  With D’Anne’s six children and five grandchildren’s diverse ethnicity, she brings a passion for equity, access, and social justice for all aspects of life and community.

Jessalyn Ballerano (she/they) is a certified SMC Full-Circle Doula, a CAPPA-Certified Childbirth Educator, and received a full scholarship to the University of Rochester, where she completed an honors Anthropology degree and thesis on modern concepts and practice of agency, authoritative knowledge, and choice in American hospital birth. She brings a systemic awareness and firm advocacy for client-centered, physiological care and education to her work with families since 2014 in Oakland, the Bay Area of California, and virtually nationwide.

Jessalyn developed her private practice as a birthworker by immersing herself in preliminary midwifery education, then through learning, apprenticeship and program support at The Oakland Better Birth Foundation, a grassroots organization dedicated to addressing racial disparities in maternal, infant and family care. She also serves the OBBF Board as the Communications Coordinator, where she collaborates with Founder Samsarah L. Morgan and many others in keeping alight the story of people-centered, midwifery-led, physiological approaches to care, birth, and nurturing.

Residing in Eugene, Oregon , Jessalyn is Program Coordinator for the perinatal health equity non-profit Nurturely.  She views reproductive health and prenatal and birth care in particular as keystone processes by which society thrives or struggles, and brings a critical perspective to her compassionate pursuit of just, informed, dignified care for birthing people and all humans.

Morgan White is the Director of the Birth Equity Advocacy Project. Previously, Morgan spent over a decade working at various levels of government, most recently working for the office of United States Senator Kamala D. Harris as her Los Angeles Field Representative. Prior years were spent on the staffs of Atlanta City Councilwoman Yolanda Adrean, the late Representative Congressman John Lewis, and a number of campaigns and political party operations throughout Georgia, North Carolina, and California. She previously sat on the Board of Directors for Citizen Advocacy of Atlanta & Dekalb, a non-profit that advocates for the developmentally and physically disabled community, and currently serves on the Advisory Board to that organization.

Morgan’s experience in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate focused heavily on Civil Rights, Economic development and Homeland Security as well as Women and Children’s rights. Additional legislative experience includes federal-state program coordination, transportation & infrastructure legislation as well as socially responsible policy implementation. Accompanying her experience in state government, she has assisted local governments in successfully securing economically beneficial contracts along with fostering community beneficial relationships with local organizations and the City.

Morgan is a 2010 graduate of Hampton University where she earned a B.A. in Political science. She is trained in Social Devaluation, Effective Listening Management and evaluating the corporate social responsibility of companies as it relates to DEI and Business Human Rights. She is a native of Atlanta, Georgia and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Jinny Pagle grew up in the deserts of Southern California and moved north in her teens to study International Relations and French at UC Davis. After traveling across several continents and attending business school, she settled in the East Bay with her now husband in 2009.

Currently living in Richmond, California, she is a mother of three beautiful children, birthed with the assistance of midwives. Since the birth of her first child, she has been supporting families through the transition from pregnancy, to birth, and postpartum integration.

Jinny is now a practicing midwife in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is passionate about helping families make autonomous decisions that work best for them in their unique situations. As a recent midwifery school graduate, she is also passionate about supporting students through their journey and creating new midwives in every community.

In her spare time, she raises chickens, grows delicious food, knits, creates in the kitchen, and dances.

Cristina Marisol Urista is a doula, student midwife and advocate. She became a registered nurse in 2018 and studies at the University of California San Francisco, where she expects to graduate as a nurse midwife in 2023.

From a long line of parteras, Cristina is is committed to uplifting traditional midwifery and also brings the legacy of the indigenous Mexican midwife to her work with FAM. As long-time doula, she has served countless Bay Area families and has frequently served and engaged with organizations such as the Oakland Better Birth Foundation, the Chicana/Latina Foundation Leadership Institute, and Squat Journal. In 2020, Cristina received the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship for the Bay Area Chapter.

Kofi Bullock is a husband, father and certified birth and postpartum doula. While his wife was pregnant, He searched for resources specific to him transitioning into fatherhood that would highlight his roles and responsibilities as a birth partner. He found little to none. After his daughter was born, He decided to become a doula for dads, where He educates expecting fathers on their roles and how to best support their partners.

Jennell Lynch, is a career executive, mother of four and wife, uses her dynamic insight and experience from working in male-dominated industries to create customized programs that dramatically increase retention rates for organizations. She is committed to honoring and preserving the valuable assets women bring to the workplace. With a master’s degree in organizational management and marketing and 20 years experience in finance, politics, technology, and sports/entertainment, Jennell has learned the granular details that can create a healthier career environment for working women. Jennell most recently served as Vice President for the National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC). The NAIC, the largest network of diverse-owned private equity firms and hedge funds in the United States, is comprised of more than 50 member firms representing over $90 billion in assets under management. Throughout the years, she has led initiatives that help organizations and women gain internal support, knowledge, and resources for working women who are expecting or already mothers. Now, as a trained doula, founder of the Executive Doula Agency, and co-founder of the Right Lanes, Jennell helps women and businesses navigate the intersection between career, giving birth and personal life.