Tracy Baird, MPH
President
Ms. Baird has worked for Ipas since 1995 on programs ranging from training midwives in postabortion care in Ghana to introducing new abortion technologies in Vietnam to expanding use of manual vacuum aspiration in Eastern and Central Europe. As Senior Program Advisor, she currently leads Ipas’s global initiative on medication abortion, managing a global grant designed to increase access to medication abortion and leading a team of staff to coordinate and maximize Ipas’s work in this field. Previously, as Ipas’s US/Europe and Asia Regional Director, she was responsible for developing and guiding strategies for Ipas’s efforts and for achieving sustainable results in those regions. Since joining Ipas she has authored numerous articles, monographs, and technical guides on various aspects of abortion care. Prior to joining Ipas, Ms. Baird worked as a manager of an abortion/family planning clinic in North Carolina and on programs to prevent sexual assault in California and North Carolina. She earned a Master of Public Health degree in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 1995, where her Master's Thesis was on abortion providers' perceptions of quality of abortion care.

To learn more about Ipas, visit www.ipas.org

Stanley K. Henshaw
Treasurer
Dr. Henshaw is a Senior Fellow at the Guttmacher Institute. He has authored or co-authored over 60 articles and publications on abortion utilization in the U.S. and internationally, abortion policies and services, teenage pregnancy, unintended pregnancy, and family planning. With colleagues at the Guttmacher Institute, he conducted two cross-national studies of family planning services and teenage reproductive behavior. Dr. Henshaw has served as expert witness in numerous legal proceedings involving abortion restrictions. For six years he served as member of the board of directors of the National Abortion Federation and received the Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award from that organization. Dr. Henshaw holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University.

To learn more about the Guttmacher Institute, visit www.guttmacher.org

Sacheen Carr-Ellis, MD
Clerk
Dr. Carr-Ellis received her medical degree from Albany Medical College in New York State. She completed residency training at New York Medical College at Metropolitan Hospital in New York City during which she received the Humanism Award. She has completed a Family Planning Fellowship in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine and is now the medical director in the Division of Family Planning. In addition to research and clinical work in contraception and abortion technologies, Dr. Carr-Ellis has pursued her MPH at Boston University School of Public Health and training in clinical investigations through the Boston University CREST Program, a fellowship funded by the National Institute of Health K-30 educational grant. Her areas of interest are family planning, health care policy, medical education and women with disabilities.

Karen Edlund, RN
Director

Ms. Edlund has been Director of the Family Planning Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Since 1992, where she developed and manages the state’s family planning program, which provides comprehensive family planning services in over 80 sites statewide. She has been responsible for developing and shaping the program standards, as well as developing other systems such as billing, reporting, monitoring and evaluation. She has also developed significant program initiatives in the areas of emergency contraception, abortion access and social marketing. She has served as chair of the State Family Planning Administrators, a national family planning organization, and has been a member of its Steering Committee since 1996.

Robert Kushen, Esq. 
Director
Robert Kushen is the Executive Director of the Harvard Pepfar Program, an HIV treatment program operating in three countries in Africa and serving 75,000 patients.  Formerly, Rob was the Director of International Operations at the Open Society Institute, where he was responsible for supervising program and grant making operations for philanthropic network in over fifty countries.  From 1999-2002, Rob served as Executive Director of Doctors of the World, a non-governmental organization committed to addressing health care problems caused by human rights abuses. He has also served as an Attorney-Adviser to the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State. Rob is a member of the New York Bar Association and the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Boards of several non-governmental organizations, including the Mental Disability Advocacy Center and EmPower Foundation. He is the author of a number of publications in the area of human rights and non-profit law.

Lisa Levine, MPH
Director
Ms. Levine is the Chief Operating Officer of Dorchester House, a multi-service health center located in one of Boston’s largest and most diverse neighborhoods. Lisa also serves as COO of Health Services Partnership of Dorchester, Inc., a formal partnership of Codman Square Health Center and Dorchester House Multi-Service Center that provides joint care coordination, joint management of behavioral health, combined quality improvement and compliance functions, improved managed care and member services for a combined patient population of over 41,000. Prior to her present positions, Lisa directed the Division of Primary Care and Health Access at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and for six years served as Associate Director of the Generalist Physician Initiative at Boston University School of Medicine.

To learn more about Dorchester House, visit www.dorchesterhouse.org

Janet Singer, CNM
Director
Ms. Singer has been a Certified Nurse Midwife since 1991 and a Clinical Teaching Associate at Brown Medical School since 1998 where she regularly lectures on abortion to medical students, ob residents, and midwifery students. Trained in surgical abortion in 1998, she has presented on abortion at the American College of Nurse Midwives and helped change Rhode Island health department regulations to expand role of midlevel providers in abortion provision.

Melanie Zurek, EdM
Director
Ms. Zurek has been the Executive Director of the Abortion Access Project since August 2004. Prior to joining AAP, Ms. Zurek managed education and training programs for the Family Planning Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and was the Coordinator of Professional Education at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. She has also served on the Board of Directors of the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund.