Melissa Cheyney

Melissa Cheyney PhD, LDM is Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Anthropology at Oregon State University (OSU) with additional appointments in Global Health and Women Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is also a Licensed Midwife in active home birth practice. Dr. Cheyney directs the International Reproductive Health Laboratory at OSU, where she serves as the Primary Investigator on more than twenty maternal and infant health-related research projects, including the Community Doula Project. She is the author of an ethnography entitled Born at Home (2010, Wadsworth Press), co-editor with Robbie Davis-Floyd of Birth in Eight Cultures (2019, Waveland Press), and author or co-author of dozens of peer-reviewed articles that examine the cultural beliefs and clinical outcomes associated with midwife-led birth at home and in birth centers in the United States. Dr. Cheyney served on the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s US Birth Setting Study and is an award-winning professor. In 2014, she was given Oregon State University’s prestigious Scholarship Impact Award for her work in the International Reproductive Health Laboratory and with the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) Statistics Project. She is the mother of a daughter born at home.