Leseliey Welch is a public health leader with a business mind and a visionary heart, holding love as a guiding value, a way of being, an action, and a politic. She is a Co-founder of Birth Detroit and Birth Center Equity, a mom, and a tireless advocate for work that makes communities stronger, healthier, and freer. Leseliey leads a team of birth workers, birth advocates, and community leaders planning Detroit’s first freestanding community birth center Birth Detroit, and is proud of the launch of Birth Center Equity to grow and sustain birth centers led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color across the country. She has nearly two decades of leadership experience in city, state, and national health organizations. She served as interim executive director of Birthing Project USA, Deputy Director of Public Health for the City of Detroit, and consulted in the development of Michigan’s first comprehensive LGBTQ health center. Leseliey has taught at the university level for over fifteen years, contributing to the development of Wayne State University’s Bachelor’s in Public Health Program and creating courses on numerous health equity topics for undergraduate and master’s level public health students, medical students, and medical residents. Leseliey currently lectures in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of Michigan. She earned her undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies, Master's in Public Health with a certificate in Women’s and Reproductive Health, and her Master's in Business Administration from the University of Michigan.