Najjuwah Walden, MSW is a doctoral student at Washington University in St. Louis Ph.D. in the public health sciences program, where she studies the nutritional epidemiology of postpartum depression. Influenced by the connection between diet and psychoneuroimmunology, her global research explores how popular diets, including traditional confinement and Western diets, impact people’s ability to maintain psychological resilience and prevent biological mechanisms of mood shifts. Najjuwah joined the National Birth Equity Collaborative in 2021 as a research scholar to deepen her exposure to traditional postpartum practices across the African diaspora and develop dissemination methods to implement in home-based settings. As a DONA-affiliated doula and social worker, Najjuwah has spent the last decade developing and facilitating community-based participatory research and health education on sexual and reproductive decision-making in partnership with youth centers, health clinics, and departments of public health in the U.S. and Belize. In 2022, she developed Balancetopia, a medically tailored meal program for maternal and infant health currently in partnership with Operation Food Search in St. Louis to evaluate the impact of postpartum nutrient repletion on maternal mental health and breastfeeding outcomes.