Aug 14
About
Board
Alex Baptiste (she/her)
President
Alex is a lawyer who has worked for over ten years in public policy. Professionally, Alex has worked in the public sector with non-profit organizations like the National Partnership for Women & Families and the Hub Project. In Alex’s current capacity as the Director for Policy & Research of their abortion storyteller campaign, Alex works closely with abortion providers and those with their own stories to provide a platform for sharing experiences and meaningfully educating their audience on why access to comprehensive reproductive health care is so critical to achieving an equitable society.
Payton Jai (they/them)
Payton Jai is a producer, intimacy coordinator, and advocate with over a decade of experience blending reproductive justice, mental health advocacy, and storytelling to create accessible healthcare education. They have directed, produced, and consulted on media that center conversations about abortion, sexual health, and consent with organizations such as Plan C, CINTIMA, Spinning Babies® Babies, Wisp, and SEICUS. Payton also volunteers as an emergency room advocate for survivors of sexual and domestic violence. As a new member of RHAP’s board, they are passionate about bridging their experiences in advocacy, creative production, and trauma-informed care to further RHAP’s mission of ensuring everyone has access to essential reproductive healthcare. Payton believes deeply in the power of compassionate, community-driven approaches to dismantling barriers to care.
Adina Koch (she/her)
Vice President
Adina is an experienced project director, coalition builder, and trained facilitator, working for reproductive justice and healthcare access. Based in Boston, MA, she works as a non-profit management consultant, specializing in supporting organizations working in abortion and reproductive healthcare access. She started her career at an abortion fund nearly 20 years ago, and has worked in several community health centers managing sexual and reproductive health care programs. More recently, she has worked in the non-profit sector working with healthcare providers on implementing engagement strategies for abortion referrals, and with community health centers in Massachusetts on improving their comprehensive family planning services. Adina is passionate about cultivating community by building and supporting local efforts for mutual aid as access to care.
Molly Mallon (she/her)
Laura Miller (she/her)
Secretary
Laura began working in community healthcare justice in 2015 with community commons research and harm reduction work surrounding the AIDS/HIV outbreak in Southern Indiana, followed by several years working in health center management with Planned Parenthood in Indiana and Kentucky. She holds a Master of Public Health from Indiana University and a Graduate Certificate in Public and Non-Profit Leadership from the Ohio State University, and is passionate about supporting and advancing equity and justice in communities impacted by repressive systems. Laura is currently the Director of Operations for First Peoples Worldwide, an organization that works to increase corporate accountability to Indigenous Peoples at the intersection or business, law, and finance.
Hannah Noblewolf (she/her)
billy parker (they/them)
billy is a licensed clinical social worker serving clients in PA and NY. In their private practice, billy provides individual psychotherapy and clinical supervision to fellow queer and trans social workers. Prior to their transition into full-time private practice, billy worked in a diversity of healthcare settings, from community health practices to large hospital systems. Billy entered the healthcare field as a full-spectrum volunteer doula for the Doula Project. In their role as a doula and former abortion counselor, billy has supported hundreds of people seeking abortion services and reproductive healthcare in Philadelphia and throughout New York City. Billy is the former Coordinator for all Gender Affirming Care services at Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA. Prior to joining the team at Planned Parenthood, billy helped launch and manage Einstein Healthcare Network’s first LGBTQ+ health initiative, the PRIDE Program, which continues to serve LGBTQ+ patients across three hospital campuses and two counties. Billy also provides consultation services and training for care providers looking to better serve their LGBTQ+ patients.
Moira Rashid (she/her)
Treasurer
Katie Thiede (she/her)
Katie brings two decades of experience at the helm of influential social change organizations to her role as Cofounder & Executive Director of ICAN! where she oversees strategy development, fundraising, policy advocacy, and partnership development. Prior to ICAN!, Katie served as the CEO of Bright Pink—a national breast and ovarian cancer prevention organization—where she led the organization’s strategic growth and programmatic initiatives. In her capacity as VP of Development & External affairs at Planned Parenthood of Illinois, Katie tripled annual philanthropic revenue and supported some of the organization’s most significant policy efforts: removing Medicaid abortion coverage restrictions, increasing Medicaid coverage for LARCs, protecting patients’ right to reproductive health information under the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, and requiring insurance coverage of up to 12 months of birth control without cost-sharing. As the Executive Director of the Chinook Fund, she worked to support grassroots social and economic justice organizations. Katie was an inaugural New Profit Health Equity Fellow in 2022 and was the Health & Medicine Policy Research Group’s 2023 Policy Award winner. She was selected to participate in the 2024 cohort of the Civic Leadership Academy and in the 2025-2026 Leadership Greater Chicago Signature Fellows Program. Katie earned her BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Thiede lives on the south side of Chicago with her husband and 15-year-old son. She is an avid long-distance runner, always pushing herself to go farther, faster—an approach she applies to her career as a social entrepreneur. Her life’s mission is to ensure that everyone has the ability to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to be pregnant or parent.
Ariel L Watriss (any pronouns)
Ariel is a nurse practitioner, educator, TEDx speaker, mentor and health advocate. Most recently working in college health at Tufts University, she began there in 2013 and in June 2018 was promoted to be the Sexual health specialist. While at Tufts, Ariel helped implement peer sexual health programs, HIV PrEP care, gender affirming services and medical abortion care.
Prior to Tufts, Ariel worked at the Fenway Community Health Center in their research department, the Fenway Institute. As the primary clinician providing care to study participants, Ariel performed medical procedures in multiple HIV prevention biomedical studies, including HIV PrEP studies.
Before attending nursing school, she ran the HIV counseling, testing and family planning programs at the Sidney Borum Jr Health Center, a health center for disenfranchised and LGBTQ youth.
Ariel’s professional passions include trauma informed care, sexual and gender health equity, dismantling medical fatphobia, and helping emerging adults navigate health empowerment and advocacy.
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