33 Monica McLemore (she/her)

Monica McLemore is one of the leading scholars in the field of anti-racist birth equity research, as well as in community-informed methods and policy translation. At the tender age of eight, she declared to those around her how she would become a nurse, and she did just that and more. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Nursing, she earned her Master’s in Public Health and finally, her PhD in Oncology. Forever pushing herself to continue in her fight for others, McLemore has devoted her entire education and career to reproductive health, reproductive justice, and reproductive rights. After an almost 30 year long career in clinical practice, McLemore retired and began teaching in Seattle, Washington.

McLemore is currently tenured at the University of Washington, Seattle, as the shaper of young minds, instilling in them the importance of essential care for marginalized female bodies. McLemore is a professor in the Department of Child, Family, and Population, Health Nursing and an Adjunct Professor in Health Sciences and Population Health in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington Seattle.

Professor McLemores’ research program concentrates on the insight of reproductive health and justice. McLemore has authored over one hundred articles and opinion pieces for the Supreme Court of the United States. In 2019, she wrote “How to Fix Maternal Mortality: The First Step Is To Stop Blaming Women,” published in the Medicine edition of the Scientific American magazine. She co-created a program at the University of Washington which addressed the racism faced by nurses serving underneath her leadership. Lastly, Monica McLemore co-directs the original ACTIONS site in San Francisco, California, and the new expansion to the University of Washington, which will be for clinical learners in partnership with the National Birth Equity Collaborative and midwifery faculty colleagues.

McLemore has become incredibly accomplished in her 53 years. From 1988 to 1993, she attended the College of New Jersey and earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. From 1998 to 2002, she received her Master’s degree from San Francisco State University and then received her PhD from 2002 to 2010. McLemore has been elevated to positions in which her passion to help others can still be utilized. She is Interim Director of the Center for Anti-Racism. She is also the Immediate Past Chair for the Sexual and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association for 2020-2026, a Board member of the Black Mama Matters Alliance, and the Editor in Chief of the Health Equity Journal.

I look at all that Professor McLemore has accomplished and I see the trailblazer that she is. She stands in the gap for minoritized young girls and women, whose voices might otherwise be silenced. She is an amazing woman who came from a similar background as I do, around the same time. She is just as an inspiration as those nurses who cared for her.