Leseliey Welch, MPH, MBA

Leseliey Welch is a public health strategist, social entrepreneur, and professional dreamer who  holds love as a guiding value, a way of being, an action and a politic. As the co-founder of Birth Detroit and Birth Center Equity, her work is grounded in making communities stronger, healthier and more free. Leseliey leads a talented team of birth workers, birth advocates and community leaders who focus on providing more birth care choices to Black people in Detroit. Birth Detroit is planning its first freestanding community birth center, which is slated to open in 2024. She 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. Birth Center Equity invests in Black, Indigenous, people of color-led birth centers to make birth center birth a real option in all communities. 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. 

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Leseliey taught at the university level for over fifteen years, and contributed to the development of Wayne State University’s Bachelor’s in Public Health Program where she created undergraduate and master’s level public health courses on numerous health equity topics. She also lectured in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of Michigan, where she developed practicum courses on women's leadership, nonprofit, management, community engagement and feminist practice. 

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She 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. Leseliey is also an Aspen Institute Ascend Fellow. She resides in Ypsilanti, Michigan with her wife and two children.