Afshan Ali is an accomplished Midwife, Lecturer, and Advocate for Equity and Inclusion in Maternity Care, with over a decade of multidisciplinary experience across healthcare, education, and public service. Currently a Lecturer in Midwifery at Teesside University and practicing Midwife at South Tees NHS Trust. Her professional journey reflects a unique blend of clinical expertise, legal acumen, and educational leadership. Afshan has been recognised nationally for her contributions – notably winning the Nightingale Award for Midwife of the Year (2023) and the TUC Learning Representative of the Year (2023). She also received the Jean Davies Iolanthe Award (2025) for her pioneering project on decolonizing the midwifery curriculum. Afshan has recently commenced as a cultural curiosity trainer with baby lifeline.

Alejandra is a registered midwife and global health professional specialising in sexual and reproductive health, health inequities, and qualitative research. She holds an MSc in Global Health and Development from University College London. Her academic work focuses on the intersection of gender, race, and health policy, with her research project, a qualitative meta-synthesis on informed choice for women living with HIV in Brazil. Alejandra has four years of clinical experience in the NHS at Lewisham and Greenwich Trust, caring for diverse populations across community and hospital maternity settings. She has taken part in service improvement initiatives, including the Birth After Caesarean Section (BACS) Team, supporting informed decision-making for women whom have had a previous caesarean in the borough of Greenwich. She has worked at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office in Panama, contributing to regional analyses on sexual and reproductive health outcomes among Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and adolescent populations. Her work spans policy-oriented evidence review to address adolescent fertility rates and HIV amongst young people, as well as stakeholder engagement. Alejandra is committed to advancing equitable and culturally responsive health systems through research, policy, and practice.

Alice is currently the Director of Midwifery for NHS Tayside, a post she has held since February 2025. Prior to this, Alice worked as a Consultant Midwife both in Scotland and in London, having spent the majority of her career to date in South East London. Alice is passionate about ensuring high-quality midwifery care is accessible to all women, and believes strongly that we must create a better working environment for midwives to enable high quality care to be delivered. Women’s birthing conditions are midwives working conditions, and you cannot improve one without the other. Alice holds a Masters in Public Health, and it was through this that she began to research the psychological trauma midwives are exposed to through their work, and the long term impact this has on midwives well-being and how it changes the way in which we practice. She is keen now to look forward at how we can bring about real changes to support midwives to flourish and be supported in their careers both in Scotland and across the UK.