Meghan Bohren is an Associate Professor and Head of the Gender and Women’s Health Unit, at the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. She leads primary mixed-methods, implementation research, and systematic reviews related to improving women’s experiences with pregnancy and childbirth care, and works primarily with groups who are disadvantaged by systems of power. A/Prof Bohren has a particular interest in using innovative qualitative research methods to bring community and health worker voices to public health and clinical guideline development.

Martha Vazquez Corona is a PhD candidate and a research assistant at the Gender and Women’s Health Unit working in global maternal health. She has professional experience in clinical nutrition, human rights advocacy, and health promotion in Mexico, and has a Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne. Martha is interested in the intersections of gender, human rights, and sexual and reproductive health. Her PhD project uses qualitative participatory research methods to explore the maternity care experiences of international students and migrant women living in Melbourne.

Shahinoor Akter is a medical anthropologist with a PhD in Public Health and Behavioural Science from the University of Newcastle. Her research interests lie at the intersection of maternal and child health, global health equity, and qualitative and mixed-methods research. She is passionate about using evidence-based research to inform interventions that will improve the health and well-being of women and children from marginalised communities worldwide.

Sarah Min-Lee Khaw is a midwife, PhD candidate, and Master of Public Health graduate. Her research interests are in migrant and refugee women's maternal health and rights, community-based doulas, and culturally-responsive maternity care. Her PhD project uses qualitative research methods to explore how community-based doulas support women from migrant and refugee backgrounds.

Shurfa Buhary is a Research Assistant at the Gender and Women’s Health Unit. She is a Master of Public Health graduate from the University of Melbourne and has a professional background supporting a range of quality improvement initiatives in the primary care sector. As part of her master's degree and her role as a research assistant, she has conducted qualitative studies with migrant women, exploring their maternal health experiences in Australia. Through her work, Shurfa seeks to facilitate equitable and culturally safe access to maternal healthcare.

Alya Hazfiarini is passionate about equal access to women's sexual and reproductive health rights. She has a Master of Public Health from University of Melbourne and experience in maternal health research projects in rural areas of Indonesia before coming to Australia. As a Research Assistant and PhD candidate in the Gender and Women's Health Unit at Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne, she supports a range of global women's health research projects aiming to improve women's access to respectful, equitable and high quality maternity care.

Jenny Cao is a public health professional with a background in health promotion, research and advocacy across the government, academic, and not-for-profit sectors. Jenny’s research interests are in global health, maternal and newborn health, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. At the Burnet Institute, her work has focused on access to abortion and clinical interventions to reduce maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality including systematic reviews, and qualitative research. She is committed to social justice and work which addresses health inequities for women and girls, particularly those from systemically marginalised communities in Australia and globally.

Hannah graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2020 with a MPH following the completion of her research thesis examining the maternity care experiences of women from migrant and refugee backgrounds birthing in Australia. Since then she had held a number of policy roles in the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, with a focus on preventive health and priority populations. Hannah is currently an Assistant Director in the Primary Care Reform Branch.

Red is an executive and non-executive leader and advisor to the for-purpose sector. They are currently CEO of Birth for Humankind and Founder (Principal Consultant) of the collaborative social change consultancy, Influence Global. With an activist’s heart, governance nerd’s head, and Master’s in Anthropology of Development and Social Transformation, Red is passionate about understanding how change happens. Much of their work centres on applying intersectional feminist principles at all levels of organisational culture, governance and operations. Red is Chair of Speak Australia, that promote LGBTIQA+ inclusion in regional Victoria and Deputy Chair of WIRE, a generalist support service provider for women and gender diverse people.

Kerryn O’Rourke is a social science and public health researcher with expertise in social and health equity. She is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s School of Population and Global Health, and also works as a Senior Research Fellow in the Realist Research, Evaluation and Learning Initiative (RREALI) at Charles Darwin University, conducting commissioned realist reviews and evaluations. For her PhD, Kerryn evaluated Birth for Humankind’s volunteer doula support program for women living with socioeconomic adversity and has an ongoing interest in promoting equity and dignity in maternity care.

Rosi is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Monash University. She is working with Nepalese migrant women in Melbourne to document their lived experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as their feminist activism and advocacy. She has previously worked in health promotion for the Multicultural Centre for Women's Health (MCWH).

Karen Block is an Associate Professor in the Gender and Women’s Health Unit, School of Population and Global Health. She is also Deputy Director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute where she leads the Migration and Mobility research program, and Academic Convenor of the Anti-racism Hallmark Research Initiative at the University of Melbourne. Her research includes a range of projects involving immigrant and refugee-background young people, women and families focused on social inclusion across the life course, health inequalities, gender-based violence, anti-racism, evaluating complex interventions, and working in collaborative partnerships with communities and community-based organisations.

Mridula Shankar is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights with a particular interest in improving understanding of reproductive health behaviours and outcomes through application of innovative approaches to measurement and study design. Her current research with the AIM-Gender study seeks to elucidate structural, regulatory, behavioural and gender-based factors affecting the participation of pregnant women in clinical trials with a view to co-designing solutions and strategies to address the under-representation of their health needs in biomedical research. Her recently completed doctoral research sought to identify and elucidate evidence gaps on induced abortion, specifically in relation to quality of care and women’s pathways to medication abortion self-care in Nigeria and India. Her work in this area is driven by an enduring interest in examining and addressing disparities in people’s ability to exercise the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health and rights. She co-teaches the Gender and Health graduate-level course at the University.

Professor Caroline Homer AO is Deputy Director, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne and Emeritus Professor of Midwifery in the Faculty of Health at the University of Technology Sydney. She is the Chair of the Australian’s National Health and Medical Research Council, Deputy Chair of the Australian Medical Advisory Board for the Medical Research Future Fund and Chair of WHO’s Strategic Technical Advisory Committee for Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (STAGE). Caroline has been part of WHO guideline panels for many years including the recent postnatal care guidelines.

Caroline has led research and development in midwifery, maternal and newborn health for more than 25 years in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific region. She has been a key contributor to multiple State of the World’s Midwifery reports since 2014 and was a lead researcher on the Lancet Series on Midwifery. She works closely with WHO and UNFPA on strengthening midwifery.

She also holds honorary professorial roles at Deakin, Monash, Cardiff, King’s College London and the University of Melbourne.