Prof. Grace M. Omoni is an Associate Professor of Midwifery at the University of Nairobi (UoN) with over 34 teaching and clinical years of experience in capacity building and research work. She is also the Director of the School of Nursing Sciences, University of Nairobi.

Prof. Omoni has collaborations with The University of Manchester U.K, University of Salford, U.K, and University of Maryland and has successfully initiated collaboration with AMREF and UoN in starting an E-Learning upgrading program from RN to BScN.

She is a Consultant Editor for two Scientific Journals namely: The African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health and Journal of Sexuality and Health. She is the current President of the Confederation of African Midwives Associations (CONAMA), and the Chair of LAMRN

Dame Tina Lavender is Professor of Midwifery at the University of Manchester and Director of the Centre for Global Women’s Health. She also holds an honorary contract at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester and a Visiting Professorship at the University of Nairobi. She leads a programme of research, Midwifery and Women’s Health; her main research focus being the management of prolonged labour and partogram use.

Dame Tina has published extensively in this field.  She is Co-editor in Chief of the British Journal of Midwifery and Associate Editor of the African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health.

Dame Tina is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives and European Academy of Nurse Science. She is also the faculty Academic lead for fundraising (Global Health theme). Dame Tina also acts as a regular Advisor to the World Health Organization, particularly in relation to guideline development.

Dr Gaynor D Maclean is an international consultant in maternal and newborn health; a midwife with extensive experience in clinical practice, teaching, research and Statutory Body service.  She worked for some years in India early in her career.

In 1991 she worked as a consultant to the World Health Organization (Geneva) in order to author the 1st edition of the WHO Safe Motherhood Educational Modules. She has subsequently worked with numerous government and non-governmental organizations.  Her work has focused on promoting safer childbirth, with assignments in countries where maternal mortality remains high, mainly in Africa and SE Asia. She has long been associated with AMRN and along with a Swedish colleague undertook an evaluation of that project for Sida in 2007. Gaynor has been a member of the Steering Group for LAMRN since its inception in 2012.

Currently, Gaynor works on Safe Motherhood projects, and efforts associated with promoting skilled attendance during childbirth.  She has carried out literature searches and desk reviews on these topics; some of this work was in preparation for the launch of the global skilled attendance initiative and technical consultation at WHO Geneva.  Gaynor writes and edits training manuals, professional texts and reports; speaks at national and international conferences and has recently received several awards in recognition of her contribution to promoting safer childbirth and midwifery worldwide Her book ‘Electives and international midwifery consultancy: a resource for students, midwives and other health professionals’ was published by Quay Books in 2013.

Yana Richens is professional Global advisor to the Royal College of Midwives, a position she holds part-time.  Yana is a consultant midwife at University College London Hospital, she leads on the services for pregnant women who have complex social problems, obesity, those who have undergone bariatric surgery and become pregnant. She has published widely on inequalities in maternity care, and has edited several books.

Yana was the first midwife to be awarded the prestigious Mary Seacole Fellowship by the Department of Health in 2004 and shortlisted by Good Housekeeping magazine as inspirational woman of the year in 2005.  In 2011 she was recognized by the Queen with an OBE in recognition of her services to nursing and midwifery in 2011, and an honorary doctorate by Birmingham City University 2012.

Yana was a founder member of the Chief Nursing Officers’ national advisory group, which seeks to provide specialist advice on black and ethnic minority issues in the NHS. Yana co-founded the Female Genital Mutilation National Group, which is now a registered charity to improve the lives of women oppressed by the practice of genital mutilation, and to improve the clinical training of staff caring for this group of women.  The group have successfully lobbied for a national reporting system of FGM, FGM National Group.

She is co-editor of the British Journal of Midwifery, an editorial board member of the Nursing Standard. Yana is a NICE fellow and has served as an invited member of two national guidelines, and clinical standards, these include women with complex social needs and antenatal perinatal mental health commissioned by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.  Yana has been an invited member of an international guideline development group on neonatal resuscitation for World Health Organisation.
In 2013 Yana was successful in being awarded a National Institute for Health Research to undertake a doctorate at Manchester University.

Mrs. Enid Mwebaza; R/N/M, BNS, PGD HIV Counseling, MPHL is a Nurse/Midwife by profession and a Reproductive Health Specialist; She holds a Bachelors’ Degree in Nursing; a Post Graduate Diploma in HIV Counseling and Master’s Degree in Public Health and Leadership. She is currently working with Jhpiego as a Program Advisor: Scale-Up of a new and innovative Low-dose, High-frequency (LDHF) training approach to in-service training for health care workers in Uganda. Jhpiego is an affiliate of the Johns Hopkins University. Enid is the outgoing Commissioner Nursing (Chief Nursing Officer) at the Ministry of Health, Kampala-Uganda. During her term of office, sheinitiated the development of the Nursing Policy and the Scheme of service for the nursing cadre. In addition she has participated in the development of the practical midwifery handbook and registered midwifery curriculum including midwifery curriculum for eLearning under AMREF and has continued to work closely with the African Health Profession Regulatory Collaborative for Nurses and Midwives (ARC) plus the country QUAD members to develop the Scope of practice for nurses and midwives in Uganda

In addition, Enid was a founder member and is Secretary of the Board of Directors for the White Ribbon Alliance- Uganda. Her work with the board involved the development of sustainable public/private partnerships and to expand programs in line with the Civil Society Organizations in the area of safe motherhood. She is also a Board member for Butabika Psychiatric School of Nursing and also serves on many other National steering committees at the MoH

In 2010 she was awarded the first Authentic Leadership Award by the AKU and the 2010 outstanding Nursing Alumni Award from Aga Khan University where she has also worked as a part-time faculty in Midwifery till 2011.

Professor van den Broek is a recognised international expert in global maternal and newborn health. At LSTM she established and leads the Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health (CMNH). This is currently one of the largest academic groups in Europe with an internationally recognised portfolio of work that incorporates priority interventions for reducing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity. Four key thematic areas include; skilled birth attendance, emergency obstetric care, quality of care and maternal morbidity.

CMNH works through effective links with governments and international partners across sub Saharan Africa and Asia to promote the health of women and their babies in low and middle income countries through high quality research, teaching and technical assistance.

Professor van den Broek has designed and conducted large population based randomised controlled trials of single interventions for improved maternal and newborn outcomes. She has used this experience to develop complex packages of interventions and to design and conduct operational research programmes in multi-country settings in both Asia and sub Saharan Africa.   Impact has been ascertained through the development and application of new monitoring and evaluation frameworks and indicators to measure quality of care and maternal morbidity.

Professor van den Broek enjoys the challenge of bringing the discipline of good research methodology to the planning and evaluation of complex development programmes that aim to strengthen health systems where this is expected to directly benefit maternal and newborn health.

Dr Matthews Mathai is the Coordinator of the Epidemiology, Monitoring and Evaluation Team and the Focal Point for Maternal and Perinatal Health in WHO’s Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health. In his former position at WHO, he worked in Making Pregnancy Safer contributing to the development, update and implementation of WHO’s Integrated Management of Pregnancy and Childbirth (IMPAC) guidelines and tools.

Before joining WHO, Dr Mathai was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India until 2005. He has worked in many countries in Asia and the Pacific, training health workers in reproductive health, particularly in maternal and perinatal care. He established and directed the Regional Training and Research Centre in Reproductive Health at the Fiji School of Medicine, Suva, Fiji (1996-97).

Dr Mathai did his medical studies and postgraduate training in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, followed by further training at the University of Liverpool in feto-maternal medicine. He was awarded PhD in International Health by the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm and is a Fellow ad eundem of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Dr Mathai has authored or co-authored over 120 scientific articles and book chapters.

Roy Daley was recruited to The University of Manchester in 2012 to support the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC) global health initiative. He has more than 15 years’ experience in supporting research and development in health and education related settings. Prior to joining the University he worked for the consultancy arm of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in new business development and programme delivery managing proposal development and consultancy contracts for a range of international donor agencies and clients. Previous to this he was responsible for managing the training, conference and project work undertaken by an international health consultancy organisation providing public health interventions in the areas of drug use and sexual health.

Roy supports the delivery of the MAHSC global health strategy and the development of associated research funding applications. He currently provides project management support to the THET funded Lugina Africa Midwives Research Network (LAMRN) project and the DFID Governance, Social Development, Conflict & Humanitarian (GSDCH) Professional Evidence & Applied Knowledge Service (PEAKS) contract. Located within the Humanitarian & Conflict Response Institute (HCRI) at the university, Roy is the Programme Lead for the UK-Med Ebola Response Programme funded by DFID as part of the UK government response to the epidemic in West Africa.