Leseliey Welch, MPH, MBA

Leseliey Rose Welch, MPH, MBA, Co-Founder, Birth Detroit, has over a decade of progressive public health leadership experience in city, state and national nonprofit health organizations. She served as interim executive director of Birthing Project USA, a grassroots maternal-child health movement, and Deputy Director of Public Health for the City of Detroit, where she started SisterFriends Detroit. She also provided concept development and community engagement consulting in the start-up of Corktown Health Center, Michigan’s first comprehensive LGBT health center. Leseliey currently leads the development team for Birth Detroit, working to open Detroit’s first freestanding community birth center. Locally adapting Jennie Joseph’s JJWay®, Birth Detroit aims to midwife safe, quality, loving care through pregnancy, birth, and beyond for all birthing people – regardless of ability to pay. Leseliey is on faculty in Public Health at Wayne State University and lectures in Women’s Studies at University of Michigan. Leseliey earned her undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies, Masters in Public Health with a certificate in Women’s and Reproductive Health, and Masters in Business Administration from the University of Michigan.