I have over 30 years experience as a psychotherapist, program consultant and supervisor of graduate-level clinical interns. My expertise focuses on adoption and third-party reproduction. In addition to practicing, I am a founding board member of PACT: An Adoption Alliance (1993), served as an Executive Committee Member and Chair for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s (ASRM) Mental Health Professional Group (1999-2006) and as a member and later Co-President of The Sperm Bank of California’s Board of Directors (2004-2012). I am currently an outside consultant to fertility patients and gamete donors in third party reproduction programs in Northern California. I served on ethics committees for two gamete donation programs and served on ASRM’s Ethics Committee (2011-2017). I am currently involved in research on understanding the experiences of donor conceived adults after they obtain their donor's identity.

SUSAN CROCKIN, JD, has been practicing assisted reproductive technology (ART) law since 1988, after started one of the 1st US legal practices devoted exclusively to ART and adoption law. She now teaches “ART Law” at Georgetown Law Center, writes extensively on the legal, ethical and policy aspects of the ARTS and has expanded her private practice to include medical and 3^rd party ART programs, sperm and egg banks. Susan is an adjunct professor and scholar at Georgetown Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law and an affiliate faculty at Georgetown’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics, where she is working on multi-disciplinary ARTs endeavors.  

Susan created ASRM’s “Legally Speaking” column in 1990, and has authored numerous journal articles, chapters, and books; she co-authored her most recent book, “Legal Conceptions: Evolving Law and Policy of the ARTs,” w/the late Dr. Howard Jones in 2010.

Susan was a founding member of both ASRM’s Legal Professional Group and the American Academy of Reproductive Technology Attorneys; she is a former board member of national and Massachusetts RESOLVE; and a current member of SART’s Model Consent Committee. .

Nidhi currently serves as the Deputy Director of the American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Law Attorneys and has served as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Kevin J. Lederer Life Foundation, a foundation that helps individuals and couples struggling with infertility through education and financial assistance. She has been instrumental in drafting and passing legislation to protect the rights of families born of assisted reproductive technology in Illinois, first in 2005 with the passage of the Illinois Gestational Surrogacy Act and most recently in 2015 with updates to the Illinois Parentage Act to protect children and families born of gamete donation. She works with individuals and couples from all around the globe to help them realize their dreams of creating a legally secure family.

Alice “Ali” Domar, Ph.D, is a health psychologist who focuses on the application of mind/body medicine to women's health issues. Her research focuses on the relationship between stress and infertility, with a focus on the impact of cognitive behavioral interventions as well as access to care. She is also a practicing psychologist and does individual, couples, and group therapy.

She is the executive director of the Domar Centers for Mind/Body Health, the director of integrative care at Boston IVF, and an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology, part-time, at Harvard Medical School. She is a senior staff psychologist in the dept of ob/gyn at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She is a past-chair of the mental health professional group of ASRM.

Dr. Domar is on the board for Parents Magazine and served ten years on the board of Resolve, the National Infertility Association. She is the narrator of the DVD’s “Stress and Relaxation Explained” and “Infertility Explained”. She is the author of seven books, including “Conquering Infertility” and the co-creator of the apps FertiCalm and FertiStrong.

Margaret Swain is an attorney in private practice in Baltimore, Maryland. A former surgical, delivery room and IVF clinical nurse, she focuses her legal practice on Assisted Reproductive Technology Law, Adoption and Guardianship. Ms. Swain is a fellow of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, where she chaired the ARTs Committee, and served four years on the Academy’s Board of Trustees, and is currently the Director of ART and again a Trustee. She is a long-standing member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, co-chaired the formation of its Legal Professional Group, of which she is a Past-Chair, and has served as faculty on several Post-Graduate/Pre-Conference courses taught at the annual conferences. Ms. Swain served for three years on the Executive Council of ASRM’s affiliate, The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. She is a member of the ABA and its Family Law Section on ART. Ms. Swain is also a charter fellow of the former American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys and served for three years as its Deputy Director and as Chair of its CLE and Legislative committees. Ms. Swain has authored a number of textbook chapters, is a frequent lecturer, and has taught as adjunct faculty at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She is a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers, and a board member of the Family Formation Charitable Trust. In 2008, she was recognized for her advocacy on behalf of adoptive families, birth parents and children by the national Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, and honored as an “Angel in Adoption”.

Dr. Elizabeth Grill is Director of Psychological Services at the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine and is Associate Professor of Psychology in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Reproductive Medicine, and Psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. She is also an Assistant Attending Psychologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Grill is experienced as a counseling psychologist and medical researcher with a special focus on the emotional aspects of infertility, IVF treatment, third party reproduction, oncofertility, fertility preservation, sexual dysfunction, and stress and infertility. She served as Chair of the Mental Health Professional Group and served two terms on the Content Review Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. She is the Continuing Education Officer for the Society for Sex Therapy and Research and Secretary for RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association. Dr. Grill is an editorial reviewer for peer reviewed journals, the author of numerous articles and book chapters, has lectured worldwide to patient and medical audiences and has participated in media interviews related to the emotional aspects of reproductive medicine.

Marcia C. Inhorn, PhD, MPH, is the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs in the Department of Anthropology and The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. A specialist on Middle Eastern gender, religion, and health issues, Inhorn has conducted research on the social impact of infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Arab America over the past 30 years. She is the author of six books on the subject, including her latest, America’s Arab Refugees: Vulnerability and Health on the Margins (Stanford University Press, 2018). She is also the (co)editor of ten books, the founding editor of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (JMEWS), and co-editor of the Berghahn Book series on “Fertility, Reproduction, and Sexuality.” She has received numerous awards for her books and scholarship, including the American Anthropological Association’s Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for excellence in anticipatory anthropology, the AAA’s Eileen Basker and Diana Forsythe Prizes for outstanding anthropological research in gender, health, and biomedical technology, the JMEWS Book Award in Middle East gender studies, and the Middle East Distinguished Scholar award from the AAA’s Middle East Section. Most recently, Inhorn has completed a two-year National Science Foundation-funded study of oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing) for both medical and elective fertility preservation.

John E. Kurtz, Ph.D. is professor of psychology at Villanova University and a licensed clinical psychologist in Pennsylvania. He completed undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, doctoral studies in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt University, a clinical internship at the Veterans Affairs and University of Michigan hospitals in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and an NIH post-doctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology and rehabilitation research at Wayne State University Medical School. Dr. Kurtz is former Associate Editor of the Journal of Personality Assessment, and he currently serves on the editorial boards of that journal and Assessment. He conducts research on the Personality Assessment Inventory, adult personality development, and the use of knowledgeable informants in personality assessment. Dr. Kurtz specializes in psychological evaluation for the selection context. He has received clinical training in adult psychology and gerontology, including assessment and psychotherapy with dementia, head injury, and learning disorders.

Lisa Schuman, LCSW is founding Director of The Center for Family Building and Director of Mental Health Services at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut

Ms. Schuman is the former Chair of the Egg Freezing Task Force for the Mental Health Professional Group of the ASRM from its inception in 2008 until 2016. She sat on the board of the American Fertility Association and was a group leader for RESOLVE. She is also founding director of Adoption Cooperative Consultants and is a supervisor and on faculty at the Object Relations Institute.

Ms. Schuman is the principal investigator for many studies in egg freezing and was honored with three awards for her research. These awards were given by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society.

She has lectured extensively and has written numerous articles on a variety of family building subjects including LBGTQ and single parent family building and runs workshops for children who joined their families through gamete donation or adoption.

Janet Takefman, PhD is an Assistant Professor in both the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychology at McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and is Director of Psychological Research and Services at the MUHC Reproductive Centre. She has co-authored more than 75 chapters and research articles on infertility, and has recently co-authored the content for ‘FertiStrong’, an app specifically designed to provide coping strategies for men involved in the infertility experience. She has been an invited speaker at conferences, workshops and universities around the world. She is the co-author of FertiQoL, the gold standard instrument measuring quality of life during fertility treatment. She is a co-investigator of several, ongoing Canadian funded research grants investigating the psychosocial/ethical aspects of fertility on couples, men and children born from ART. She is a member of the Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Fellowship Committee at the MUHC Reproductive Centre where she focuses on teaching OBGYN residents to be empathetic, compassionate communicators. She is past Chair of the Mental Health Professional Group of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), past Chair of the Counselling Group of Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS), past vice-president of Fertility Matters Canada (FMC); a national patient advocacy organization, and is an executive board member of Cancer Knowledge Network and Rhea of Hope, both organizations that provide support for fertility preservation and oncofertility. She has worked with both the federal and provincial governing bodies of Canada and Quebec to help form Assisted Human Reproductive legislation. She is the 2016 recipient of the Care and Life award granted by CFAS to recognize outstanding accomplishments in ART work in Canada.