Midwives in Focus

Lisa has worked in healthcare in both the private and public spheres and in higher education for over 20 years. She has been a national director at Health Education England since 2012, leading a transformation in nurse education across the country and introducing the first new nurse role for a generation.

Lisa is currently an Advisor at a WHO Collaborating Centre. Her international experience includes work in West Bengal developing a global learner programme and a strategic leadership programme at Yale.

Professor Grace Edwards is a Professor of Midwifery Education and Practice.

In 1974 I commenced my nurse training and quickly realised that my heart lay in midwifery. I qualified as a midwife in 1978 working as a hospital midwife and a community midwife for 12 years during which time I completed the Advanced Diploma of Midwifery and the Certificate in Education. I took up post as a midwife teacher in 1988 and completed a Masters in Education. In 1993 I was appointed Regional Co-ordinator for CESDI (the Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirths and Deaths in Infancy), a post I held until 2002. During this time, I completed a PhD on Peoples Perceptions of Healthy Pregnancy. In 2002 I was employed as one of the first Consultant Midwives in the UK, specialising in Public Health in Liverpool UK working around all aspects of deprivation and inequalities that affect pregnant women and their families and accepted a joint appointment as Principal Lecturer in midwifery research at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) UK. In 2005 I was appointed as national midwifery assessor for the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health for maternal mortality. I was recruited to work in the UAE in 2008, firstly as the Midwifery Research and Development Specialist at Al Wasl Hospital (now Latifa Hospital) in Dubai and in January 2011 as Assistant Director of Nursing and Midwifery with responsibility for leading the first 18-month midwifery education programme and coordinating research trials at the Corniche hospital in Abu Dhabi. In 2016 I was appointed to my present post as the Aga Khan University Foundation Professor of Midwifery to lead on midwifery education and practice for AKU in East Africa and in 2017, I was awarded an Honorary post as Professor of Midwifery at Salford University UK. I was also inducted as a fellow of the Royal College of Midwives and a senior fellow of Advance HE, the Higher Education Academy in the UK.

Pandora serves as Chief Nursing & Midwifery Officer of JhPiego. She has gained 20 plus years of nurse-midwifery experience working in the USA, Caribbean, South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa in varying capacities assisting women and families on four continents. She has worked closely with Ministries of Health and midwifery organisations to provide strategic direction, clinical and programmatic assistance for the design and implementation of global, regional and country-level MN and SRH programmes. When in the US, she also serves as supplemental midwifery staff, bringing a 'glocal' perspective to her clinical care of ethnically and socially diverse clients in the Atlanta Metro areas.
As an elected member of the International Confederation of Midwives Board Representing North America’s/ Caribbean, she continues to mix -global health administrative, advocacy and clinical duties, and is known for encouraging nurse-midwives to “push for change past the perineum”.

I am a PhD student and Project Midwife in Facemums, an innovative and unique social media service funded by Health Education England and delivered via the University of Salford. My expertise is centred in collaboration and communication in social media, and the benefits of utilising digital platforms to communicate and inform service users and professionals. I drive the operation of the Facemums service which is currently provided within 13 NHS Trusts in England. I train and support the NHS Midwives who provide care via small groups throughout the pregnancy continuum and in addition to their routine care. Furthermore, I am undertaking PhD research to explore the experience of the Midwives who are providing care within Facemums.

Within my Midwifery care I have worked within Birth Centre and Community settings, most recently as a Community Midwife in Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Trust. I am a Midwifery Adviser to the charity Mummy's Star for women and their families who experience cancer in pregnancy and up to 12 months later.

Previously I founded and Chaired the University of Salford Midwifery Society. I remain a passionate promoter of Midwifery Societies and the benefit of student-led events in empowering future Midwives and colloborations between future Midwifery Leaders.

Dr Sally Pezaro is a Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives (FRCM), a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and an editorial board member of the British Journal of Midwifery, Evidence Based Midwifery, MIDIRS and the International Journal of Childbirth. She is also a mentor of Mary Seacole Leadership Awardees and the Council of Deans of Health 150 Leaders, and a panellist on the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s fitness to practise Investigating Committee. Furthermore, Dr Pezaro is the lead midwife for www.hEDSTogether.com and an invited member of the Ehlers-Danlos Society's International Consortium.

Dr Pezaro has experience working as a midwife clinically in the United Kingdom, the Gambia and Ethiopia. Reflecting on her own experiences, Dr Pezaro ensures that her work now in research and academia remains challenge led. Dr Pezaro won a 'Midwives Award' from the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust in 2021. In 2019, Dr Pezaro was honoured with a first prize award from the Royal Society of Medicine in 'Leading and inspiring excellence in maternity care' and was also first runner-up for the British Journal of Midwifery's 'Midwife of the Year' 2019. The overriding vision for Dr Pezaro’s ongoing work is to secure psychologically safe professional journeys and excellence in health care.

Gila Zarbiv CNM, MSN is a senior certified nurse-midwife from Israel with a master's degree in women's health on the doctorate track. She is also the head midwife for infectious disease prevention for the labor and delivery ward.
Gila delivered the first COVID-19 positive birth in the country and since then has been the head midwife responsible for leading COVID-19 management, protocol, and implementation. She is published and active in critical research in the field of COVID-19, vaccines, pregnancy, the human microbiome, and birth. Gila has served as an invited lecturer on multiple occasions regarding pregnancy, childbirth, infectious disease, and COVID-19 around the world and is a teacher in nursing and midwifery schools around the country. She is the midwife representative for her hospital as well as the Leading Midwife for Media Affairs, and Midwifery Promotion in the Israeli Midwives Association. Gila is also the Association's International Liaison and represents the Israeli Midwife Association around the world as well as in the ICM. She is passionate about fighting for and promoting midwifery, women's health, and increasing midwives' scope of practice on a national and international level.