The Black Women's Health Imperative is proudly led by an amazing group of Black women from a variety of professional, educational and cultural backgrounds. Our board of directors is as follows:

Byllye Y. Avery is the founder of the Black Women’s Health Imperative. To say that she is a genius is not just simple boasting. Indeed, she is a recipient of the “genius grant,” formally known as the MacArthur Fellowship, in recognition of her decades of extraordinary health care activism, focusing on the health status of one the most maligned groups in the world – Black women. Among her other awards and honors are: the Academy of Science Institute of Medicine’s Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the Advancement of Health Care, the Grassroots Realist Award by the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, the Dorothy I. Height Lifetime Achievement  Award and the President Citation of the American Public Health Association. Avery was also a member of the Charter Advisory Committee for the Office of Research on Women’s Health of the National Institutes of Health. In addition, she served two years as a visiting fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. Avery is also the founder/president of the Avery Institute for Social Change. Prior to her entry into the health care arena, Avery was a special education teacher and a learning disabilities consultant.


Janet Taylor, M.D., a clinical instructor at Harlem Hospital-Columbia University in outpatient psychiatry, is also a facilitator with the Bereavement Center of Westchester and volunteers as a Red Cross disaster mental health worker. She is a graduate of the University of Louisville's School of Medicine and completed an internship in internal medicine at Miriam Hospital at Brown University. Following that., she pursued a residency in psychiatry at Westchester County Medical Center and New York Medical College. She currently resides in Chappaqua, New York.

Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, president and CEO of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, brings more than a quarter century of experience of managing programs and advocating for policies resulting in the elimination   of health and educational disparities among women, girls and communities of color to her post. The former university professor recently headed up her own management consultant firm, Hinton Hoytt & Associates.  Hinton Hoytt specialized in creating innovative strategies empowering people with the skills and tools to plan and implement effective organizations, programs and services in communities of color. Numerous non-profit organizations benefited from Hinton Hoytt’s capacity building  and sustaining expertise. In addition, her firm produced a groundbreaking book on the well being of African American Women in midlife: "Tomorrow Begins Today: African American Women as We Age" by the National Council of Negro Women. The book, in conjunction with a national public education campaign is aimed at reaching over 6 million Black women, ages 35 to 59, with practical steps, inspiring experiences and extensive data. Hinton Hoytt is the chairperson of the board of the Avery Institute for Social Change and the past board chair of the National Black Women’s Health Imperative. 


Linda Gill is a publishing executive with more than 20 years of experience, including everything from the launch of award-winning magazines to building a profitable book publishing company. Gill currently maintains offices in New York and Washington, DC, as the general manager of Kimani Press, a subsidiary of Harlequin Enterprises. Kimani was formed when Harlequin purchased Arabesque, Sepia and New Spirit imprints from BET Books. Her most recently launched imprint is Kimani Tru, a line of fiction books for African American teens. She began her career at Conde Nast where she worked at Mademoiselle and Vanity Fair. Gill was named  one of the “Top 50 African Americans” in book publishing in 2001. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College.


Lula Christopher is the founder of the Boston Black Women’s Health Initiative (BBWHI), an affiliate of the Black Women’s Health Imperative. BBWHI is a grassroots, self-help and health advocacy organization committed to defining, promoting and maintaining the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being of women of African descent. The organization provides the structure and support for members to take care of themselves and address personal health issues while working for systemic change in their communities.  BBWHI’s primary mission is to connect personal empowerment with community empowerment. BBWHI organizes community members to analyze the policies of local health care systems and legislation, especially regarding health benefits, access, reproductive rights and other important issues. In addition to her duties as president of BBWHI, Christopher is the director of the YWCA Boston Encore Plus program, a breast and cervical cancer screening and recovery program designed to serve women of color and women without health insurance. Christopher lends her talent to a number of community and professional boards and associations. She serves on the board of directors of the Boston Chapter of the National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer and on the advisory board of A.B.C.D. Breast and Cervical Cancer Initiative.


Nancy Hall White is vice president and managing director of The Hollins Group Inc., an executive search firm with offices in Atlanta, Chicago and New York. The firm is also the United States partner in a consortium of European and Asian executive search firms. Prior to joining The Hollins Group Inc., Hall was the human resources executive for IBM Corporation’s Midwest marketing and services area.  In this capacity, her staff provided human resources and medical services for the 10,000 IBM employees in the nine-state region. She is a life member of the national Black MBA Association. Her current volunteer leadership roles include president of the Historic Inquirers Literary Club and president of the Buckhead-Cascade Chapter of Links, Inc. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta and the Atlanta Fisk University Alumni Association. She is a third-generation “Fiskite,” where she was an honor student. She spent her sophomore year at the University of Muhammad V in Rabat, Morocco, taking all instruction in French and Arabic. As a second-generation Howard University attendee, she was a graduate assistant at the school’s Minority Business Development Center.

Marilyn Hughes Gaston, M.D., is the former director of the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) within the Health Resources and Services Administration. She was the first African American woman to direct a public health service bureau. She was responsible for a $5 billion budget to increase access to quality, preventive and primary health care for millions of underserved, minority, poor and disadvantaged populations in the United States and its territories. Early in her career, Gaston helped to establish a community health center serving a large African American, low-income population and served as its medical director. Gaston is internationally recognized for her leadership in sickle cell disease. Through her work at the National Institutes of Health, changes in the management of children with this illness resulted in significant decreases in their morbidity and mortality rates. Gaston is a much sought after speaker on topics close to her heart – improving access to quality care, elimination of health disparities for vulnerable people, African American women’s health, sickle cell disease and the health needs of youth.  She is the co-author of the book "Prime Time," which empowers African American women to address health and other disparities.


Dorothy E. Roberts, J.D. is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Northwestern University School of Law, with joint appointments in the Departments of African American Studies and Sociology, and as a faculty fellow of the Institute for Policy Research. She has written and lectured extensively on the interplay of gender, race and class in legal issues concerning reproduction, bioethics and child welfare. She is the author of the award-winning "Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty" (1997) and "Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare" (2002), and is also a frequent speaker at university campuses, social justice organizations and other public forums.  Roberts has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford, a fellow at Harvard University's Program in Ethics and the Professions, and a Fulbright scholar at the Centre for Gender and Development Studies in Trinidad & Tobago, where she conducted research on gender, sexuality and HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. She also serves as a member of the board of directors of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, the advisory board of Generations Ahead and the executive committee of Cells to Society: The Center on Social Disparities and Health. She recently received grants from the National Science Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study race consciousness in biotechnology, law and social policy.

Deborah Williams-Muhammad is one of the co-founders of Gelede Center Inc., an economic and organizational development organization based in Albany, N.Y. She is on the board of directors of Family Planning Advocates of New York State and the Albany Public Library. Williams-Muhammad is a past board member of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She chaired a statewide Women of Color Task Force on Domestic Violence and co-chaired a National Black Women's Caucus on Domestic Violence. She has served on the boards of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Women's Building, the Capital Region Domestic Violence Task Force and the Emergency Committee to End U.S. Intervention in the Middle East, and the Urban League of Northeastern New York. She was a founding member of the Minority AIDS Task Force, Feminist Action Network, Institute of Empowerment and the Interstate Council on Racism. Williams-Muhammad became ill some years ago, and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and sarcoidosis. After a period of hospitalization and convalescence, she continued her work with renewed commitment. Williams-Muhammad now works with organizations and individuals to ensure the full participation of disabled individuals.