Margaret Beal, CNM, PhD
Margaret Beal has practiced midwifery and women's health nursing for over 30 years. Currently, she is a Clinical Professor in Women's Health at the Institute of Health Professions, affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital. Previously she taught nursing and midwifery at Yale University and practiced with Planned Parenthood of Connecticut. She entered nursing with the goal of becoming a professional midwife, and discovered immediately the rewards of providing care in contraception and abortion clinics. As a clinician with Planned Parenthood her practice included provision of medical abortion, and she has experience with various staff roles in surgical abortion clinic. Her clinical experience includes labor nursing, full scope midwifery, and care of HIV positive pregnant women and mothers. At Yale she was the faculty advisor for Nursing Students for Choice at Yale University School of Nursing, and has brought abortion content into the curriculum.
She has served on the Community Advisory Board for the New Haven (CT) Family Planning Clinic and is Chair of the American College of Nurse-Midwives Division of Education. A graduate of Oberlin College (1973), she earned her BSN at Case Western Reserve University, her MSN at Yale, and her PhD at the Union Institute. She is currently on NAF's Board of Directors.
Joyce Cappiello, MS, FNP
Joyce Cappiello has a strong interest and commitment to the field of reproductive health care of women. She is the director of the Reproductive Options Education Consortium for Nursing (The ROE Consortium) at the Abortion Access Project in Cambridge, MA. She is a nurse practitioner at the Feminist Health Center of Portsmouth, NH, providing women and their partners with comprehensive reproductive health care as well. As an Assistant Clinical Professor of Nursing at the University of New Hampshire, she teaches family and adult nurse practitioner students. Combining her academic and clinical interests, she is conducting qualitative research on women's experience of decision making with medical abortion while pursuing her PhD.
Beth Kruse, MS, ARNP, CNM
NAF Clinical Liaison
Beth Kruse is a certified nurse-midwife who joined the National Abortion Federation in 2005 as Associate Director of Clinical Services, after many rewarding years of clinical practice and research experience in abortion care (particularly medical abortion). She has participated as national and international faculty in NAF's Medical Abortion Education Program since 1995, published abortion-related articles in peer-reviewed journals, and been an invited speaker at meetings of numerous professional associations in the U.S. and abroad. Beth has served as the state of Washington's representative to Midwives for Choice from its inception, subsequently accepting a seat on the National Advisory Committee for Clinicians for Choice where she is currently NAF's Clinical Liaison. In addition to her work with NAF and on the Advisory Committee, Beth is a clinician with the Department of Public Health Family Planning Program of Seattle/King County.
Katherine Simmonds, NP, MSN, RNC, MPH
Katherine Simmonds is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, Graduate Program in Nursing. She is also the founder and former Director of the Reproductive Options Educations Consortium for Nursing (2002-2006), a project that brings education, curricula tools and training about reproductive options to nurse educators, students, and practicing clinicians throughout the United States. She earned her Masters degree in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and her MSN from the MGH Institute of Health Professions. Ms. Simmonds currently practices as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner at a community health center in Boston, MA. She is a member of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties and the National Association of Women's Health Nurse Practitioners.
Jini Tanenhaus PA-C, MA
Jini Tanenhaus is a Physician Assistant and has over twenty years of experience as a primary care medical provider specializing in adolescent and reproductive health, and as a Pro-Choice advocate. For the past 13 years she has worked at Planned Parenthood of New York City in several different capacities, most recently as a Clinician Trainer. As a provider, she initiated medical abortion services at PPNYC in 1996 and over the past 10 years has been faculty for numerous training workshops and presentations on medical abortion and other reproductive health issues, representing PPNYC, PPFA and the National Abortion Federation's medical abortion education program. Prior to this position she served as the Director of Quality Assurance at PPNYC and as a quality consultant for NAF. She is the Clinicians for Choice state contact for New York and a member of the Advisory Committee.
Diana L. Taylor, RNP, PhD, FAAN
Diana Taylor is Professor Emerita at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing and formerly the Director of UCSF's Women's Health NP Program, as well as the co-Director of the UCSF Center for Collaborative Primary Care. Dr. Taylor received her BSN from the University of Oregon, MS from UCSF, and PhD from the University of Washington.
Dr. Taylor is the director of research and evaluation for a statewide project to train advanced practice clinicians in first trimester abortion care using a standardized curriculum with the goal to increase the number abortion providers and make professional and practice improvements to normalize abortion into women's primary care.
Dr. Taylor has been a leader in policy-shaping activities for multiple professional groups on regional, national level, and international levels. She has served on national boards and committees of the Health Professions Division of the US Public Health Service, the American Nurses Association, the National Organization of NP Faculties, the Association of Women's Health Nurses, NPs in Women's Health as well as state and local nursing practice and education committees. Currently, Dr. Taylor is also an active board member of the Reproductive Options Education Consortium in Nursing (Abortion Access Project), a board member of Clinicians for Choice, and Board chair (as well as a practicing clinician) of the San Francisco Women's Community Clinic.
Kirsten Thomsen, PA-C
Kirsten Thomsen is an assistant professor in the Physician Assistant Program at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She was recently selected to serve on the National Commission on Vision and Health and the Paul Ambrose Scholars Program selection committee for the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research. She continues to serve on the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) board of directors in a director-at-large position and as vice president of District of Columbia Academy of Physician Assistants. For the past five years, Thomsen has served as university preceptor for GWU ISCOPES Healthcare for the Homeless interdisciplinary group. She also serves on the DC AHEC Medical Homes advisory committee, works with DC Emergency Medical Reserve Corps - for which she was highlighted on the Surgeon General's Medical Reserve Corps website for her activities in the District of Columbia and New Orleans post Katrina - and was the PA representative in a HRSA Health Literacy curriculum pilot project. As past president and senior advisor of the Society of Primary Care Policy Fellows, Thomsen was the primary organizer of a health policy roundtable on Capitol Hill which addressed post-Hurricane Katrina issues. Thomsen co-authored "Global Clinical Experiences for Physician Assistant Students," published in The Journal of Physician Assistant Education (volume 18, number 3). She continues to serve as a GWU National Health Service Corps Ambassador.
