Christina X. Marea, PhD, MA, FACNM is a certified nurse midwife, educator, and researcher. Professor Marea's research interests are at the intersection of reproductive justice, health disparities, and health system opportunities to transform care and outcomes for structurally marginalized and excluded people. As a clinical educator, Professor Marea seeks to increase the capacity of reproductive health care providers to provide excellent care to meet the specific needs of marginalized and structurally excluded groups through interventions that aim to improve and maintain high quality health care services. Professor Marea's has practiced clinical midwifery practice in a range of settings including included a birth center working with Latina immigrants, a rural Guatemalan hospital serving a disaster-affected indigenous community, a federally-qualified health center (FQHC) serving mainly uninsured/ underinsured immigrants (predominantly Latino), tertiary care hospitals include the care of pregnant and parenting incarcerated teens, and a refugee camp in South Sudan. Dr. Marea currently practices at Community of Hope (COH) here in Washington D.C.; an FQHC serving clients primarily in Wards 5 and 7. While pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of Bradford on the Rotary World Peace fellowship, she studied how post-conflict reconstruction addressed the sexual and reproductive health needs of women in Sierra Leone. While at Yale University, Professor Marea was the director of the Haven Free Clinic – a voluntary clinic run by the Yale health professional schools – serving undocumented immigrants. As the director, she began an initiative to provide social support to undocumented immigrant women experiencing intimate partner violence, including addressing their health and legal needs. As a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University, Professor Marea received NIH-funding through the T32 institutional training fellowship for violence in the family. Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell, an internationally recognized leader in the field of intimate-partner/ gender-based violence, administers this fellowship and provides extensive guidance on the technical and conceptual challenges of conducting research into areas of SGBV/ IPV. Dr. Marea completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the Georgetown-Howard Consortium for Clinical and Translational Sciences, and is a current KL2 junior faculty scholar. Dr. Marea is the Co-PI with Ebony Marcelle, Director of Midwifery at COH, on the Hillman Foundation Innovation in Care Award that is providing $600,000 for the study of the feasibility, acceptability and impact of a 12-month model of postpartum care implemented in a community setting, and with an explicit aim to mitigate the negative health effects of racism on Black birthing people in DC.
