Mary Manning was appointed assistant commissioner for the Health Improvement Bureau in 2020 by Commissioner Jan Malcolm. As assistant commissioner, Manning is responsible for overseeing the Child and Family Health Division, the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Division, and the Community Health Division.

Manning has worked for the Minnesota Department of Health since 1997. Prior to joining MDH, she worked in several leadership and operational positions at the City of Minneapolis Health Department. She has served on the executive board of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors. She is currently on the Governor’s Council for an Age-Friendly Minnesota; an appointee to Minnesota’s Palliative Care Council; a member of the Inaugural Minnesota State Planning Group on Alzheimer’s; a current advisory council member of the NYU BOLD Public Health Center of Excellence (PHCOE) on Early Detection of Dementia; and treasurer and board member of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors.

Representative Kelly Morrison, MD is a practicing OB-GYN and is serving her second term in the Minnesota House of Representatives. She represents District 33B, which includes ten communities in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. She serves on the Health, Preventive Health, Environment, and Natural Resources and Early Childhood Education Committees and is an Assistant Majority Leader in the House.

Kari Rabie, MD, has been the Chief Medical Officer at NACC since 2011. Prior to working at NACC, she was Medical Director at Southside Community Health Services. She is a Board Certified Family Practice Physician, graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1998, and completed her residency training at the Hennepin County Family Practice Residency Program in 2001. In addition to seeing
patients, she supervises the provider nursing and medical staff, always focusing on continuous quality improvement, the functionality of the electronic health record, and systems of care. In the latter part of 2016, she became certified as a buprenorphine provider and started up a multidisciplinary Medication Assisted Recovery Services team at the Native American Community Clinic. Dr. Rabie is an adjunct instructor at the University of Minnesota Medical School since 2008.

Melissa has been working in obstetrical nursing for the past 22 years at a variety of facilities, from the small community hospital to a large urban obstetrical care unit, in the OR, and as a charge nurse. Her current work as a Nurse Clinician began in August of 2013 at CentraCare, St. Cloud Hospital. Melissa was a finalist in 2016 for the March of Dimes “Nurse of the Year” and was awarded the “Nurse of the Year in Women’s Health” in October of 2020. Melissa is a part of the Molnlycke Speaker’s Bureau. She is a former Perinatal Expert Consultant with the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA), and serves on the MHA Perinatal Safety Committee. Melissa serves on the Minnesota Perinatal Quality Collaborative, Maternal Hypertension Subcommittee member and faculty, and the Maternal Mortality Review Committee through the Minnesota Department of Health. Melissa is a 2012 Graduate of Western Governors University with a Master’s in Nursing Education. She is a present member of ANA, AWHONN, MOLN, AORN, ASPAN and Sigma Theta Tau professional nursing organizations, and served as the AWHONN MN
state chair in 2019-2020.

Sarah is the OB Supervisor of a critical access hospital in Midwestern Minnesota. She has
been married to her husband Nathan for 26 years. They live on a farm with beef cattle and pigs, and have 3 children- Daniel is 22, Megan is 17, and Abby is 15. Sarah has worked at TCHC for 26 years, first as a CNA, then LPN, then RN, BSN, IBCLC, and finally OB Supervisor.

Becky Gams obtained her BSN at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and her Masters of Science from the University of Minnesota. She has over 30 years of obstetrical nursing experience as a bedside nurse, education specialist and is currently an
Advanced Practice Nurse Leader for the Women’s and Children’s Service Line at MHealth Fairview. She is a member of the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) Perinatal Advisory Team and the MHA Hypertension Perinatal Quality Committee. She received the Visionary Nurse Leader Award at the University of MN Medical Center in May 2016. She is a long-time member of the leadership and education committee for the Minnesota Section of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nursing.

Dr. Corinne Brown-Robinson is an OB-GYN at the HealthPartners Woodbury Clinic and Regions Hospital and serves as the vice-chair for the HealthPartners Medical Group OB/Gyn department. She is also the Medical Director for the Ob/Gyn Ultrasound department and is the medical co-chair of the Children’s Health Initiative. Her passion is equitable and complete patient care for all patients.

Dr. Helen Kim is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist, co-founder, and director of the
Hennepin Healthcare Mother-Baby Program and Redleaf Center for Family Healing and
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota. Following psychiatry training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Kim co-founded the Hennepin Women’s Mental Health Program, Minnesota’s first reproductive psychiatry program. She then completed a Bush Fellowship and created the Mother-Baby Program
which opened in 2013 including the Mother-Baby Day Hospital, an intensive mental
health program for perinatal women that was the 4th of its kind in the U.S. and the first
in Minnesota. To improve access to mental health care, her team launched the HopeLine, a phone line that offers support and connection to resources for distressed pregnant and
postpartum mothers, their family members and providers. In its first 6 years, the MB Program served more than 3000 families, and secured seed funding to expand into the Redleaf Center for Family Healing. Through the Mother-Baby Program and the new Redleaf Center, Dr. Kim hopes to help children thrive by supporting the emotional wellbeing and caregiving capacity of parents.

Dr. Sarah Cross is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology &
Women’s Health – Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the University of Minnesota. She is the medical director for the Birthplace, the Pregnancy Special Care Unit, and the Newborn Family Care Center at Masonic. She has given over 30 talks and interviews on COVID-19 in pregnancy, including being cited in the Osterholm Update, National
Geographic, Forbes Magazine, Newsweek, and authored an opinion piece in the Washington Post. In her free time, she writes poetry and enjoys outdoor activities with her husband and her three kids, the youngest of whom was born during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Nathan T. Chomilo is Medical Director for the State of Minnesota’s Medicaid & MinnesotaCare programs and practices as a General Pediatrician and an Internal Medicine Hospitalist with Park Nicollet Health Services/HealthPartners. He also served as the State of Minnesota’s COVID-19 vaccine equity director and is currently a Senior Advisor on Equity to the Commissioner of Health. He serves on the board of directors of Reach Out
and Read and Minnesota Doctors for Health Equity as well as the steering committee of the Minnesota Perinatal Quality Collaborative. His work has been recognized by Reach Out and Read National which awarded him the 2018 Medical Champion Achievement Award, the City of Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights which recognized him as a 2019 History Maker at Home recipient, Minnesota Physician which named him one of the
100 most influential health care leaders in 2020 and the Minnesota Medical Association which awarded him the President’s Award in 2021.

Dr. Haggerty is board certified in family medicine, integrative medicine, and lactation. She is the founder and owner of Fourth Trimester Doc, a private practice that provides in-home care for mothers/birthing people and their newborns during the first 3 months postpartum/4th trimester. She is a mother to two angel babies, two young boys earthside, and is currently gestating for another baby. She has a Masters in Public Health, advanced training in perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, advanced training in mind-body medicine, and is a Hatha and prenatal yoga teacher. She recently launched a national nonprofit, Center for 4th Trimester Care, with a mission to change the narrative around matrescence and ensure that all women/birthing people receive individualized quality care during their 4th trimester.

Ciana Cullens has an M.A., Strategic Leadership with a background in nonprofit program management and development. She has several years of working with families and has demonstrated excellence in helping them navigate systems and barriers to experience personal growth and transformation. Currently, Ciana leads
the work of Nubian Moms, a social support program for expectant mothers at a community clinic.

Cinthia Fondrk earned her undergraduate degree from Macalester College, a Masters in Nursing from the University of Minnesota, and is currently pursuing her Doctorate degree in Transcultural Nursing Leadership at Augsburg University. Her work in the Nursing profession includes experience in maternal child nursing as a Labor and Delivery, RN, working with high acuity patients and diverse populations; experience in Nursing education as nursing faculty at a local community college, and currently she is working as a public health nurse for Ramsey County. In her current role as a PHN, she dedicates and splits her time between departmental racial equity work, home visiting with families, and co-leading the Birth Equity Community Council (BECC). BECC is a community
collaborative with the goal of closing the gap in maternal and infant birth outcomes, through power-sharing, and implementation of both upstream and downstream initiatives.

Lindsey Wimmer is the Founder and Executive Director of Star Legacy Foundation. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from St. Catherine University, and a Master of Science degree in Pediatric Nursing from the University of Colorado. Ms. Wimmer is certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner and perinatal loss care provider. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from St. Catherine University in
St. Paul, MN.

Marcia has been an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) since 2000. She was coordinator of the Hennepin County WIC Peer Breastfeeding Support Program from 2005 to 2015. Marcia obtained an MPH in Maternal/Child Health in 2015 and now works as an epidemiologist with the state WIC office. She is also a founder and active member of the Minnesota Breastfeeding Coalition.

Ruth Richardson is the CEO of Wayside Recovery Center, a gender specific family treatment program for women with histories of substance use disorders and mental illness. She also serves in the Minnesota State House of Representatives. She has a long history of working in the community to advance health equity and human rights and earned undergraduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and her JD from
William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul, MN.

Roberta Fernandez is a Board Certified Hypnotist and Certified Instructor, who has specialized in pain management and other physical and emotional issues for the past nine years. She works within the medical community, providing
education, training and hypnosis services to providers and patients through FARE Hypnosis and Conscious Napping®’s Recover Well and Wellbeing Programs.