ABA 2016 Seminar Series Breastfeeding: Making Connections

Dr Susan Tawia holds a PhD in Reproductive Physiology, a Diploma in Breastfeeding Management and a Diploma in Education and, before joining the Australian Breastfeeding Association, worked as a research scientist and science teacher. In 2008, Susan was appointed a Scientific Information Officer with ABA, and in that role she provided up-to-date scientific information to breastfeeding mothers, ABA counsellors and community educators, health professionals and other stakeholders. Susan also writes review articles for ABA’s peer-reviewed journal, Breastfeeding Review. In 2013, Susan was appointed the ABA Manager of Breastfeeding Information and Research and while continuing to write articles and ensuring that ABA provides evidence-based information, she has also been identifying research opportunities within ABA and promoting research collaborations between ABA and university-based researchers.

Professor Paula Meier, is Director for Clinical Research and Lactation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a Professor of Women, Children and Family Nursing and a Professor of Pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center. Dr. Meier has spent her professional career in the specialty of human milk feeding, breastfeeding, and lactation for the NICU infant and mother. Dr. Meier has conducted numerous externally funded research grants and demonstration projects, and has published widely in peer-reviewed and consumer-focused journals. In 1996, she founded the Rush Mothers’ Milk Club, a program of evidence-based practice, education and research for NICU infants and their families. She serves on the Health Advisory Board for La Leche League International, and serves as the President of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation.

Nancy Williams has been providing help for breastfeeding families for almost 40 years. She served as a La Leche League Leader for over 35 years and has been IBCLC since 1986. She is a certified childbirth educator and has taught privately, for hospitals and for a physician. Nancy has also been a Marriage and Family Therapist for 20 years with a private practice and teaches in the Psychology Department of Brandman University, specializing in Human Development. Her professional passion has been to promote the blending of perinatal knowledge with psychology towards healthy beginnings not only in the life of a baby, but also in creating an optimal foundation for new families. She is the lead author of "The Stone Age Baby in a Techno Society" and was recently featured in the documentary film, "The Milky Way".

Renée Flacking is the director for the research centre Reproductive, Infant and Child Health (RICH) at the School of Health and Welfare, Dalarna University, Sweden. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Maternal and Infant Nutrition and Nurture Unit (MAINN), University of Central Lancashire, UK. Renée has a background as a Paediatric Nurse, having worked in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for more than 10 years. Renée’s main research interest is in the area of parenting and feeding in families with preterm infants focusing on emotional, relational and socio-cultural influences.

Kelly Dombroski is a human geographer specialising in economic, development and feminist geographies. Her fieldwork is primarily ethnographic, and takes place in Australia, New Zealand, and the western parts of China. Her research gathers around the themes of everyday life and social change. She is passionate about rethinking the ways that we live with the earth, in light of resource depletion, climate change and unequal (for humans and non-humans) access to the necessities and pleasures of life on earth. Kelly believes human geographers are ideally situated, at the nexus of 'nature' and 'society', to theorise and enact the social change required to turn around the environmental degradation our scientist colleagues have documented. Kelly is a member of the Community Economies Collective, a group of scholars drawing on the work of J.K. Gibson-Graham to rethink the economy alongside all the everyday work we do to support life.

Dr Shoo Lee is a neonatologist and health economist. He is the Scientific Director of the Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Professor of Paediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, and Public Health at the University of Toronto; and Paediatrician-in-Chief and Director of the Maternal-Infant Care (MICare) Research Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital. He founded the Canadian Neonatal NetworkTM, and is the Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Team in Maternal-Infant Care. His research focuses on improving quality of care, patient outcomes and health care services delivery. He has received many awards for his work, including the Knowledge Translation Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Aventis Pasteur Research Award and the Distinguished Neonatologist Award from the Canadian Paediatric Society, the Premier Member of Honour Award from the Sociedad Iberoamericana de Neonatologia, and the Magnolia Award from the Shanghai government.