Infant Massage USA Annual Conference Speakers
Dr. Kevin Nugent
Dr. J. Kevin Nugent is the Founder and Director of the Brazelton Institute in the Division of Developmental Medicine at the Children’s Hospital, Boston. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Lecturer in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Nugent has authored or co-authored 10 books (20 including translations) and has written 22 book chapters and almost 100 scientific papers. Dr. Nugent and his colleagues, Drs. Keefer, O’Brien, Johnson, and Blanchard developed the Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) system. Professor Nugent’s areas of research include the effects of a range of prenatal teratogens on neonatal and developmental outcome, the transition to parenthood, the role of fathers, temperament and the use of the NBO in early intervention. Dr. Nugent continues to conduct research in a variety of cultural settings.
Tiffany Akai
With a bachelor's degree in child development and early childhood leadership, a master's degree in early childhood special education, and as a doctoral candidate for transformational leadership in education, Tiffany Akai has spent her career learning about and advocating for the health, well-being, and success of early childhood students, families, and staff. Tiffany Akai, M.Ed., has experience with providing key aspects of professional development, including but not limited to: supporting clients through cohort-based and individual coaching and mentoring. Tiffany coaches and mentors in areas such as developmentally appropriate practices, instructional support, curriculum support, evaluation, diversity, equity, and inclusionary practices, as well as business development.
Dr. Mary Kay Keller
Dr. Mary Kay Keller, an Infant Massage USA Board member, is a Family Scientist, Certified Educator of Infant Massage, and a Certified Family Life Educator and Coach. Mary Kay holds a Ph.D. in Family and Consumer Sciences her preliminary critical review topic was on the Science-based benefits of Infant Massage and her dissertation research was teaching Fathers to Massage their Infants (CEIM since 1998). This research was highlighted in a TEDxTallahassee presentation. Mary Kay holds a Masters of Public Administration with concentrations in Administrative Law and Human Resources Management (Developed a Classification and Compensation Plan for a local city government) and a Bachelors of Science with honors in Psychology, a minor in Sociology (Research: The responses of Nursing Professionals to the death of infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units).
Crystal Miles
Crystal Miles is an IAIM International Trainer based in the United Kingdom. Crystal joined the IAIM mission in 2011, mentored by Sylvie Hetu, and began her trainer process in 2017.
She has previously supported the UK Board as CIMI Support Coordinator and Regional Representative for London and now heads the Social Media Committee to share the IAIM philosophy worldwide. As well as instructor training, Crystal continues to run regular infant massage parent courses, loving nothing more than witnessing the intimate bond that forms between parent and baby through nurturing touch and staying connected to the roots of the movement.
EveLyn Wedge
The founder and owner of The Early Years Matter, LLC, EveLyn Wedge is an LPC in private practice in Georgia. Having served on the exploratory founding board of the Georgia Association for Infant Mental Health, Birth to Five (GA-AIMH), she currently serves on the GA-AIMH Community Advisory Council. She holds an M.S. degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and a Ph.D. in Infant and Early Childhood Development, with a concentration on Reflective Practice and Supervision and an emphasis on Mental Health and Developmental Disorders. EveLyn is an endorsed Infant Family Reflective Supervisor, a facilitator for the Circle of Security Parenting program, as well as a Certified Infant Massage Parent Educator. Working with children, adults, and families, EveLyn enjoys supporting parents and caregivers and facilitating healthy relationships in families with infants and young children.
Linda Storm
Linda is a Senior Trainer and Trainer Consultant for IAIM and is an adjunct professor at Cabarrus College for Health Sciences. She was the Founding Executive Director of Infant Massage USA. She is co-author of the Sensational Baby Program and is still active with the Board Directors. Linda has been published in national publications and presented at many state and national conferences. She has worked with parents and babies for over 30 years and trained thousands of parent educators across the United States. Linda is passionate in promoting nurturing communication for the health and well-being for parents and infants.
Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum
Greer Kirshenbaum PhD is an Author, Neuroscientist, Doula, Infant and Family Sleep Specialist and Mother. She trained at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, New York University and Yale University. Greer has combined her academic training with her experience as a doula and mother to lead The Nurture Revolution. A movement to nurture our babies’ brains to revolutionize mental health and impact larger systems in our world. Greer wants families, professionals, and workplaces to understand how early caregiving experience can boost mental wellness and diminish depression, anxiety, and addiction in adulthood by shaping babies’ brains through simple, intuitive, enriching experiences in pregnancy, birth, and infancy. Her book is “The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting.”
Dr. Christine perez
Dr. Christine Perez holds Ph.D. in Public Health specializing in Community Health and Education and is a Registered Nurse with over 25 years of experience working with neonatal and pediatric populations. During her NICU career, she had the opportunity to work as a travel nurse for 8yrs in 18 different NICUs across the country, primarily level III/ IV, leading to extensive knowledge of best practices. She was a NICU Nurse Educator for a 36-bed level IV NICU in charge of staff education, new hire orientation, research, and implementation of Evidence-Based Practice, as well as policy and procedure updates. Her current position is the National Clinical Improvement Thought Leader NICU for Philips Healthcare. She is responsible for identifying gaps in the NICU space and developing clinical services to improve the overall quality of care through education and change management, including family-centered developmental care.
Nikki LEe
Nikki has been working in the field of breastfeeding and human lactation since 1975. She is an author, a nurse, a teacher, a holistic lactation consultant, a craniosacral therapy practitioner, a yoga instructor, and a baby body worker (teaching Infant Massage and TummyTime!) She worked as the lactation program manager for the division of Maternal, Child, and Family Health at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health for 16 years, and has had a private practice since 1989. Her publications include the books Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Breastfeeding Therapy and A Breastfeeding Owner’s Manual 2nd Edition; the monographs “Benefits of Breastfeeding and Their Economic Impact” and “Sexuality and Breastfeeding” and the educational pamphlet “How to Help Yourself through Labor".
Melissa Miller
Melissa Miller is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and received her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, CA. Throughout her career, Melissa has been working with children and families in various settings that have experienced trauma, abuse, and neglect in various settings and in various capacities. Melissa’s areas of expertise include early childhood and infant mental health, trauma, attachment, and reflective clinical practice, and she is passionate about empowering families and building strong parent-child relationships. For nearly a decade, Melissa has been overseeing child abuse prevention programs in Los Angeles County that focus on increasing protective factors and fostering healthy and safe parenting.
Jody Wright
Jody Wright is the parent of five grown children who were adopted. She massaged them as babies and found infant massage, adoptive breastfeeding, sharing nighttime space, using a carrier, and more, contributing to life-long closeness. She has been an infant massage educator and trainer since 1984 and was one of the founders of the International Association of Infant Massage. Jody is trained as a lactation counselor and childbirth educator and served as a La Leche League leader for 20 years. Currently, she teaches Infant Massage Educators for Infant Massage USA and gives IAIM instructor trainings around the world, most recently in Brazil, Haiti, and China.
Prof. Francis McGlone
Francis McGlone is a Visiting Professor in Neuroscience at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) & Aalto University (Finland). He is also the Director of the Neuro-consulting company NeuroSci. He has a long-term interest in the function of the different classes of sensory nerves innervating human skin, particularly those that code for pain itch, and the more recently discovered class of c-fiber that code for the ‘pleasure’ of touch – C-LTMRs. Techniques used in his research span single-unit recordings with microneurography, psychophysical measurements, functional neuroimaging, behavioral measures, and psychopharmacological approaches. His research focuses on the neurodevelopmental consequences of C-LTMR stimulation in the very early stages of life, and here he is exploring their role in preterm infants. He is also co-director of the International Association for the Study of Affective Touch (IASAT).
Ashley Randolph
Ashley Randolph saw a strong need to change the conversation when it comes to how Black NICU Families are treated in the NICU, at home, and in school. Systemic racism is prevalent in every setting for these families. It sets the stage for a vulnerable infant to grow into a child witnessing healthcare, therapeutic and educational environments that are inadequate in terms of racial and healthy equity. Ashley is the African American mother of 3 preemies, founder of GLO Preemies (www.GloPreemies.org), co-Founder of the Alliance for Black NICU Families and Chair to California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative. She is also on the Community Engagement Board at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). She is the author of her autobiography Black, Pregnant, and Shamed. It is her mission to provide continuous and complete family-centered care to African American families in low-income communities nationwide.
DeAnna Elliott
DeAnna has worked in the field of Infant Massage with parents and babies since 1981. She was trained by Vimala Schneider McClure in 1982 as a trainer. She has been on the board of the US Chapter and worked on the Committee for Trainer Candidates. DeAnna has produced films and documentaries on infant massage and the neuroscience of fetal development. Since 1980 she has been involved with personal and professional healing and have dedicated her life to assisting others in their healing. We now live in a very demanding time that for many of us demands the release of the false self or our deep conditioning so we can step into our higher nature without that influence. Her commitment is to assist both humans and animals in their healing to release unresolved traumas that interfere with the expression of our higher nature. The work she is presently doing to accomplish this is called Resonance Alchemy.
Denise McDrummond
Denise McDrummond is the Endorsement Coordinator for the Association of Infant Mental Health in Tennessee. She holds both a Bachelor and Master of Education and is Endorsed in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health as well as a Certified Educator of Infant Massage. Denise provides Reflective Supervision and training opportunities through the Tennessee Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants Collective. For her part, Denise also spends time with parents locally in Tennessee helping to build nurturing communities through Infant Massage. With 20+ years in the field, her passion remains ensuring that all children and families have the support and resources they need to reach their full potential.
Suzanne Reese
Suzanne Reese is an IAIM/IMUSA Educator & Senior Trainer. Suzanne holds a B.A. in Child Development and worked in family and child service agencies for ten years before becoming a trainer. Suzanne retired as a holistic health practitioner and yoga teacher to focus on infant massage. Suzanne has taught infant massage for 20+ years. Her acclaimed work has been featured worldwide at conferences, universities, in print (People magazine), online, and in radio and local news stations. She is an author, a singer/songwriter, and a humanitarian - all things infant massage. Suzanne's comprehensive knowledge base, her passion for this work, her integrative approach, the integrity of her commitment to her students, and her energetic presentation is what make her courses educational, inspiring, and fun.
Dr. Rocío Zunini
Rocio is a neuroscientist with a Phd from the University of Ottawa and mother of two. She is the founder of Newborn Parents, which was born out of the fusion of her two passions: the brain and the relationship between parents and their infants. She educates parents and professionals about parental brain science so that they can take advantage of the profound brain changes that accompany mastrescence and patrescence. She firmly believes that when parents and professionals learn about the power of the parental brain, they can create a path for a lifelong nurturing relationship within families and their babies.
dr. Sue Carter
Dr. Sue Carter is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and also a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the former Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute and a Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology. She has held professorships at the University of Maryland (Distinguished University Professor) as well as at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois, College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. She has authored more than 400 publications and edited 5 books including “Attachment and Bonding: A New Synthesis,.” MIT Press. Dr. Carter is the scientist, who first discovered the relationship between oxytocin and social monogamy and the formation of adult social bonds. She has a longstanding interest in birth and lactation and the evolution of human sociality and love.
Michele Holland
Michele Holland, BCTMB, LMT, CD&CPD(DONA), CLC, CIMI is the co-author of Pre- and Perinatal Massage Therapy – A comprehensive guide to prenatal, labor and postpartum practice 3rd edition (2021). Michele is the founder of Sanctuary Healing Arts LLC and teaches online and in-person while enjoying a home studio practice in Colorado. Michele’s passion is improving maternity and newborn care - one pregnancy, one birth and one new family at a time. She believes we can improve health care through listening deeply, trusting in collaboration and interdisciplinary teamwork with massage therapists, doulas, health care leaders, physicians, midwives, nurses, and other skilled professionals for the best outcomes for mothers, babies and families.
Aneta Michalczuk
Aneta has been a licensed and nationally board-certified massage therapist for over 20 years, an EFT practitioner, and an Infant Massage Educator who studied under Jody
Wright, for over 15 years. She is also a Certified Fearless Living Life Coach and received her training at the Fearless Living Institute with founder, Emmy-award winner, repeat Oprah
guest, and Master Life Coach, Rhonda Britten as her personal 1-on-1 mentor. Most recently, she studied Positive Intelligence with Shirzad Chamine and beganspecializing in mental fitness, including its applications in the world of parenting. She and her husband have a brain fitness/education company and live in gorgeous Northern Michigan with their two young children.
Stephanie Ward
Stephanie Ward is a BASW, CEIM, Certified Parent Educator, and CEO and founder of Stand Tall Parenting. Stephanie has provided child development, parent education, and infant massage to families and has extensive experience working with under-served and diverse populations. Her roles have included Parent Educator, Cal-Learn Eligibility Worker, Certified Infant Massage Instructor, and Home Visitor. Stephanie offers professional development training to share her expertise to support direct social service professionals working alongside families. Through Stand Tall Parenting she offers educational classes and resources for families. Stephanie has partnered with various non-profit organizations and governmental agencies. Stephanie is passionate about teaching, working with families and shifting the lens to provide compassion to our communities, individuals, and families.
Victoria Leblanc
Victoria LeBlanc, MS, LCPC, CAHPE has been working with children and families for over a decade. She is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor specializing in attachment, trauma, at-risk youth, and family therapy. Through her business, Attached Parenting LLC, she offers parenting classes, parent coaching, webinars, and babywearing consultations. She is a Certified Attached at the Heart Parenting Educator and is the Parenting Educator Support Coordinator for Attachment Parenting International. Victoria speaks at conferences and other events on a variety of topics related to trauma, adversity, resilience, child development, and parenting. As a wife and mother, Victoria is not only an advocate for attachment parenting practices, which focus on empathetic, nurturing, and responsive care, she practices it within her own family as well.