Board of Directors
Julia Seng
President and CEO
Julia is the co-creator of the Survivor Moms’ Companion® and one of Growing Forward Together’s founders. Julia is also a nurse-midwife and professor at the University of Michigan. She was a high school French teacher in her first career, which is where she got her love of helping people learn. Her expertise as a researcher is on how posttraumatic stress affects childbearing. Her activism is working with others to find ways to improve the well-being of moms with PTSD when they are pregnant, during birth, and in the early years of parenting. When she’s not working, she enjoys cooking with friends and family, knitting, and planning her next long-distance walking trip. You can reach her at julia.seng@survivormoms.org or jseng@umich.edu. You can find her faculty page here.
Mickey Sperlich
GFT Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer
Mickey is the co-creator of the Survivor Moms’ Companion® and one of Growing Forward Together’s founders. Mickey is on faculty at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work (State University of New York). She studies the effects of trauma and mental health challenges on women’s childbearing, postpartum experiences and early parenting outcomes, and has been a part of several trauma-focused perinatal studies, and other studies looking at trauma more broadly. Mickey also was a teacher in her first career, in special education. When Mickey is not working on academic pursuits you will find her either with one of her beloved grandchildren or out kayaking in her happy place: the Huron river! To reach her, please email mickey.sperlich@survivormoms.org or msperlic@buffalo.edu. You can find her faculty page here.
Dawn Bounds
Board Member
Dawn is an associate professor in the Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing and director of the Centering Youth & Families for Empowerment and Resilience (CYFER) Lab at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on mental health promotion and preventing risk behaviors in adversity-impacted youth. Dr. Bounds has worked as a Psychiatric-Mental-Health Nurse Practitioner in the community for nearly 25 years. Dawn enjoys spending quality time with family and friends, appreciating nature during walks, and watching psychological thrillers. You can find her faculty page here.
Elizabeth Mosley
Board Member
Elizabeth Mosley is an Assistant Professor with the Center for Innovative Research on Gender Health Equity (CONVERGE) at the University of Pittsburgh and a Co-Investigator with Emory University’s Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast (RISE). She is also a full spectrum doula. Dr. Mosley’s research investigates how racism, sexism, poverty, and stigma affect sexual and reproductive health equity in the US and globally. She enjoys gardening, cooking, and exploring new places with her partner, Joanna. You can find her faculty page here.
Melisa Scott
Board Member
Melisa is a Nurse Midwife, lactation consultant, mother and grandmother. She believes in the healing and transformative nature of relationships and connection and hopes to bring that to the families that she serves. She is a group prenatal care facilitator and the co-founder of "Our Village; a support group for black mothers." Over her nearly 30 year career in health care, she has heard countless stories of how trauma impacts the women and families that she has served. She is aware of how hard it is to make systemic change that "moves the needle" on these issues and hopes that GFT can grow and SMC can become a mainstay in large health systems.
Noelle M. St. Vil
Board Member
Noelle M. St. Vil is an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. Noelle’s scholarship concentrates on two dimensions of Black intimate relationships: 1) Violence Against Women; and 2) sexual behavior, health, and well-being. Dr. St Vil's long-term goal is to create prevention interventions that strengthen Black male-female relationships. When she is not working, she enjoys weight lifting, walking, bowling with her husband and kiddo, and just hanging with her family/friends. You can find her faculty page here.
Staff & Contractors
Grace Nadler
Administrative Director
Grace received her Bachelors in Social Work from the University of Kentucky in 2017, and her MSW from the University of Michigan in 2022. She has operated in various social work roles whether as a children & families service provider, an after-school program coordinator, or hospital social worker. Grace provides administrative support and management within GFT and the SMC program, as well as to the Board of Directors. Time not spent working is spent at pub trivia, playing rec soccer, or taking her dog Koda on long walks. To reach her, please email grace.nadler@growingforwardtogether.org.
Ashley Gadway
Training Coordinator
Ashley holds a Bachelor's of Science in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. Ashley is a trained birth doula, former infant safety educator, and mother of a one year old! Ashley's role as Training Coordinator at GFT involves scheduling and doing outreach for SMC trainings, processing Continuing Education Credits and Training Certificates, and project managing. In her free time, Ashley loves to spend time with her one year old (Danny), husband (Andrew), family, and friends. She also enjoys being outside and gardening. She can be reached at: ashley@growingforwardtogether.org.
Angelene Love
Communites of Practice Directory and Survivor Moms' Companion® Trainer
Angelene Love is a wife and mother of two energetic boys. She is also a lactation supporter, equity advocate, and full-spectrum doula. Angelene earned her BS in Health Education from EMU and is currently pursuing a MPHE. Angelene has been able to combine her passion of bringing equitable care to all birthing people and her professional experience in her role as Program Director for SMC. She works diligently to share the initiative with folks who can utilize it and put it into practice. Outside of SMC, Angelene is the Human Milk Transport Coordinator for Mama’s Mobile Milk, additionally she is the co-owner of Wrapped in Love Doula & Lactation Services. She can be reached at angelene@survivormoms.org.
Kristen Schell
Communications & Systems Manager
Kristen received her B.S. in Interactive Design (Web & Graphic Design) from Waynesburg University in 2012. She has worked in multiple fields from advertising agency, a store chain, government agency and nonprofit work as a web designer, graphic designer and tech manager. Kristen is also a birth and postpartum doula as well as a childbirth educator. Kristen provides communications, web, and data support for GFT. In her free time, she can be found reading, playing with clay, or going for a walk with her two kiddos and spouse, David. She can be reached at kristen@growingforwardtogether.org.
Marin Seng
Trauma & Society Co-Developer
Marin is a white trans woman, child of a trauma researcher, and former public school social studies teacher, living in Philadelphia. She decided to teach when her own teacher helped her to connect the dots between the persistence of racism in our culture/world and imperialist colonialism. As she grew to understand her mother's work, Marin embraced the concept of historical trauma, and the healing of humanity. Marin also loves gardening, antiques, and finding beautiful scenery for life to unfold in.
SMC Trainers
Josie Granner
Josie Granner, PhD, BSN, RN is a researcher with a focus on perinatal initiatives. She has long-standing interest in the transition to fatherhood for men who experienced child maltreatment trauma--survivor dads! Her work points the way toward interventions to support new fathers’ mental health and parenting as an approach to interrupt intergenerational transmission of trauma. Josie lives on the east coast and usually leads virtual trainings.
Catharine McDonald
Catharine is a National Certified Counselor, Connecticut Licensed Professional Counselor, and trained as a Family Life Educator and Baby-Led Sleep Educator. She owns Growing Well Counseling in Tolland, CT where she specializes in integrative perinatal wellness, fertility and loss, birth trauma, and maternal work-life balance. Catharine enjoys training others in perinatal mental health and is excited to be joining GFT as a trainer. On a personal note she’s a wife and mom of four kids, three dogs and 13 chickens.
Najma Treadwell
Najma is a dedicated wife and mother of six, balancing multiple roles in her personal and community life. When she's not homeschooling her children, she and her family are actively engaged in community service. Najma enjoys spending quality time with her family, often taking scenic drives and exploring the medicinal properties of local plants. She is thrilled to join GFT as an SMC Trainer, where she aims to enhance the well-being of families affected by trauma.
Students & Interns
GFT appreciates the work that students and interns contribute every year. If you are interested in a student placement or internship with GFT, please email julia.seng@survivormoms.org.
Samantha Kozuchowski
Samantha is a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. She is thrilled to be doing her field placement at Growing Forward Together and Survivor Moms Companion. Samantha was a high school English, creative writing, and theater teacher in the public school system for seven years before taking a leave from teaching when her children were born. She has a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. After experiencing the difficulties of postpartum and watching so many other families struggle, she decided to go back to school to learn how she could support mothers and families. She loves spending time with her husband and kids, doing yoga, hiking, and she love anything musical theater, especially Wicked and Rent. Her favorite podcasts are Armchair Expert and The Daily. Her primary role will be to provide project management and to be a collaborator on producing the Second Edition of the SMC, the video series, and to coordinate the Spanish, Arabic, and German translations of SMC.
Alumni
2024 alumni of GFT internships and student placements
Sharon Quinn Sharon is a certified doula, birth instructor, and business owner as well as a graduate student in the Johns Hopkins University public health master’s program in women’s and reproductive health. Sharon is also an SMC tutor and will be doing a practicum doing groundwork with community members who have used SMC to make it a better fit for Black parents.
Juna Hume Clark has spent 3 summers with GFT as an illustrator, copyeditor, and instructional video director. She is a student at Pomona College in California.
Joshua Crook developed policy briefs for the Survivor Moms’ Companion and Trauma & Society programs. He also supported data collection and did analysis and interpretation of a survey of all SMC tutors trained as of 2024. Josh is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan School of Public Policy.
Megan Major lead our efforts to transform Survivor Moms’ Companion into a gender-inclusive program, conducting research on best practices, collecting input from stakeholders, sentence-editing the entire pair of books, providing supplemental material about trauma intersecting with marginalized identities, and laying groundwork for larger transformation as we produce the Second Edition of SMC. Megan is a student in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Day Rhizal joined GFT this summer as executive producer of a series of lesson videos for the Trauma & Society program. She is a student at Occidental College in California.
Previous alumni
Lauren Brower, a UM nursing student in her Leadership clinical researched best practices for producing annual reports for nonprofits to inform external audiences of their impact. Lauren led a consulting relationship with a communications specialist and produced a prototype we will implement in 2024.
Amiah Brown, a UM nursing student in her Leadership clinical jumped in to help the SMC team conduct the first post-pandemic in-person training weekend and explored a new tech tool to help us capture stories of tutors to better explain our training experience.
Elise Girardot, an undergraduate nursing student in her Leadership clinical, worked on a pilot of the Trauma & Society program where she monitored student well-being during sessions and conducted evaluation.
Alissa Kersey, a student at Washtenaw International High School, worked as an illustrator for the Trauma & Society program.
Kayla LeMarbe, a midwife and doctor of nursing practice student at the UM School of Nursing created, piloted, and reported on a professional development module for labor and delivery nurses about providing care and pain management to survivor moms.
Lulu Maturo started with us by providing tech support during trainings and grew into the illustrator role. Lulu still contributes to GFT as an artist and illustrator.
Haley Paskvan, a UM student in Biology and Gender and Health on a pre-nursing path, designed professional development materials.
Nicole Santoro, a UM nursing student in her Leadership clinical conducted evaluations using survey methods and numerical and thematic analysis to aid us in quality improvement efforts.
Hannah Schneider, a student in Health Behavior and Health Education in the UM School of Public Health contributed to the development of the Trauma & Society program be conducting interviews with stakeholders about the design idea and then launching a prototype evaluation project.
Adrienne Solis-Sherman, a hospital administrator and doctor of nursing practice student at the UM School of Nursing created with Mickey Sperlich a Trauma-informed Self-Care training program for perinatal professional team focusing on staff wellness and went on to pilot and report on this program.
Jillian Solomon, a Gender and Health major at UM, led a project to produce a style guide for GFT’s programs so they would have consistent appearance in visual form.
Samantha Torres, a pediatric nurse practitioner and doctor of nursing practice student at the UM School of Nursing produced and piloted a series of Journal Club reading and discussion guides for interprofessional teams wanting to learn more about trauma, PTSD, and perinatal care.