Policy Center Team Members

Joy Burkhard, MBA – Executive Director
Joy is the founder and executive director of the Policy Center. She founded the organization in 2011 after leading policy work in California to address maternal mental health and experiencing the loss of her brother to suicide. Joy spent nearly 25 years working for Cigna as a state policy and quality improvement leader. She is a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist's expert workgroup on Maternal Mental Health, the Federal Maternal Mental Health Task Force, and is a board member of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (the nation’s first agency working to solve the U.S.’s maternal mortality crisis), and The Health Care Transformation Task Force. She is the Board Chair of Mom Congress, an organization she founded and the Policy Center incubated.

Joy has received numerous awards, including The American Public Health Association’s Maternal Child Health Leadership and Advocacy Award and The Emerging Leader Award in Women's Health from the federal Health and Human Services Agency, Office of Women's Health. Joy holds an MBA from Regis University and lives with her husband and two high-schoolers in Los Angeles, California.

Rebecca Britt, MA – Director of Communications and Impact
Rebecca joined the Policy Center in 2022 with a passion for aligning strategic direction with streamlined processes that integrate evaluative measures to ensure program optimization, impact and sustainability. Rebecca has led innovative evaluation efforts to assess patient perspective and improve quality in prenatal and postpartum care. Rebecca is a visionary and global thinker. She holds a Master's degree in Program Evaluation and a professional certification in Results Based Accountability. As the Director of Communications and Impact, Rebecca provides the evaluative framework necessary to ensure the Policy Center’s strategic focus prioritizes key activities that most effectively close gaps in maternal mental health. To ensure maximum utilization of our reports and recommendations, Rebecca leads the communications strategy and implementation for the Policy Center.

Cindy Herrick, MA, PMH-C, CPSS, MHFA – Senior Editorial and Research Manager
Cindy serves as the Senior Editorial and Research Manager at the Policy Center, where she spearheads the development of publications and briefs that highlight gaps, evidence-based recommendations, and emerging considerations in MMH. She has led the Maternal Suicide program at the Policy Center since 2018 and is an expert in maternal suicide, MMH screening, and peer support policy. She is recognized for her ability to research and document MMH disorders from a holistic perspective. Cindy is currently pursuing her PhD in Nursing Science and Healthcare Innovation at Arizona State University and is the recipient of the 2023 Hartford Sun Health Predoctoral Scholarship and the ASU Graduate Fellowship Award.

Contract Team Members

Caitlin Murphy, MPA-PNP, DrPH(c) – Epidemiologist Consultant
Caitlin is a Research Scientist within the Health Policy and Management Department at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. She brings over a decade of mixed-method public health research, health policy research, and health systems research in the fields of maternal and child health, women's health, reproductive health, and health among low-income communities. She brings content expertise regarding mental health, trauma, and social determinants of health, as well as pathways for addressing SDH in healthcare settings. Previously, she supported women’s and children’s health research initiatives at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Population Services International’s Women’s Health Project, the Research Center for Leadership in Action at NYU, the World Bank Group, Population Action International, and the Ms. Foundation for Women. Ms. Murphy has a Masters’ in Public Policy Analysis from NYU Wagner with a concentration in health and gender, and is a current doctoral student in the Health Policy and Management Department at GWU.

Intern Team Members

Marina Mendoza – Intern: Policy Team
Marina Mendoza graduated from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a Bachelor's Degree in Entertainment Psychology and Social Remedy. In college, she studied the effects of media and entertainment on viewers' mental health. Marina focuses on the act of translation from creator to viewer - specifically, on the conditions that influence all parties' reception of the work. She is passionate about bridging the gap between social policy, media portrayal, and mental health. As such, Marina is excited to work with the Policy Center to track and analyze legislation concerning maternal mental well-being.

Regan Moss – Intern: Research and Impact Team
Regan Moss graduated from Auburn University as a University Honors Research Scholar with a BS in Neuroscience. While at Auburn, Regan began the Student Caregivers Initiative. She is presently a Population and Family Health MPH student at Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Her interests in perinatal health and maternal (mental) health extend into her roles as a graduate research assistant in the Perinatal Pathways Lab at Columbia, studying adolescent fertility within the Population and Family Health Department, and as a research consultant for the HOPE Lab at Yale's Child Study Center. She continues to work with Alabama communities through her roles with March of Dimes' Alabama Doula Advisory Board, Birthwell Partners, and the Governor's opioid council. 

Mom Congress Team Members

Ebony Wrenn, M.Ed. – Mom Congress Program Director
Ebony serves as the Program Director for Mom Congress. Ebony joined the Mom Congress team after serving for over ten years in the field of urban education, most recently as an Early Childhood Principal. She is a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership at National Louis University and will graduate in 2022. Ebony is passionate about ending generational poverty through empowering, encouraging, and elevating mothers. While reflecting on her personal and professional experiences, Ebony believes in an intergenerational approach to advocating for mothers; if we support mothers, their children will be supported as well. In her free time, Ebony enjoys reading a good book, traveling with her children, exploring pescatarian cuisine, and creating memories with family and friends.