Gianna Fay RN, MSN, CNM, WHNP-BC

Gianna is a Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP-BC) who lives in Detroit, MI. Gianna has been a birth worker since 2011 and has worked in a variety of settings to include community birth centers, large hospital teaching facilities and private practice.

Gianna's introduction to birth work was in community birth centers in Southern California where she saw first-hand the positive impact that personalized, midwifery-led care can have on a pregnant family. While working with the Alaska Native community in Anchorage, Gianna learned the value of culturally congruent care where the healthcare system uniquely meets the needs of the community they serve by uplifting their voices and prioritizing their values.

As a Black mother and midwife working in metro Detroit hospitals, Gianna has gained a clearer understanding of her purpose to serve vulnerable families by using her presence to bridge the gap between their desires and the experience of the care they receive during pregnancy. Gianna is excited to join the BCE team and push towards the goal of safety, abundance and liberation for all birthing families through access to community birth centers in Wayne County, MI.

When Gianna is not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their three young children, exploring toddler-friendly activities in the metro Detroit area

Diana N. Derige, MPH, DrPH

Dr. Derige is the incoming Strategy Officer for Birth Center Equity, where she leads the strategic development by shaping and planning for the burgeoning enterprises. Diana has held a variety of leadership positions, and most recently was the Vice President of Health Equity Strategy at the American Medical Association’s inaugural Center for Health Equity.

Over the past twenty years, she has supported local and national investments by serving as a convener, collaborator, and catalyst, responsible for nurturing opportunities for affecting positive systemic change in communities. She was the senior editor of the 2018 Latina Maternal Review. Dr. Derige has held positions of adjunct faculty at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, co-director of the Center for Latina Maternal and Family Health Research at the University of Houston, program officer at both the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Chicago Community Trust and National Director of MCH Initiatives at Urban Strategies.

Diana holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and women’s studies, a master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan, and a Doctor of Public Health from the University of North Carolina.

Ebony Marcelle, DNP, CNM, FACNM

Dr Ebony Marcelle is the Director of Midwifery at Community of Hope that includes Family Health and Birth Center. Formerly the Administrative Chief of Midwifery Service at Medstar Washington Hospital Center she completed her nursing education at Georgetown University and Midwifery at Jefferson University. She recently completed her Doctorate at Frontier University.

In 2019 she was inducted as a Fellow into the American College of Nurse Midwives. In 2018, she completed Duke University and Johnson & Johnson Nursing Leadership Fellowship. She adjunct faculty at Georgetown University and has consulting company Midwifery Melanated LLC which focuses on rebuilding systems to address racism and health equity in Black Maternal Health. Her advocacy work has included multiple congressional briefings creating awareness around the need for policy changes to reduce maternity care disparities.

Known for her passion in midwifery and midwifery’s role in reproductive justice, she has built culturally aware clinical models of care specifically for under resourced Black women. She is currently serves on the following boards: National Association for the Advancement of Black Birth, March for Moms, American Association of Birth Centers and is a collaborator with Black Mamas Matter Alliance. In 2019 she was appointed to the District’s Inaugural Maternal Mortality Review Committee.

She resides in Washington, DC, with her husband, stepson, and daughter.