Founder and Head of The Doula Guild

I founded The Doula Guild on the conviction that no doula should do this work alone.

We are building a place where the lift-off for new doulas is eased by the quiet mentoring of seasoned ones, where mutual generosity is the norm and where, as we trailblaze this still-young craft, we elevate and share the standards it deserves.

Together we are drawing a new ancient-way, on which those who come after us will begin further along than we did.

Doulaguild@doulaguild.com

University of Vermont EoL Professional Certificate (May 2022)

la-doula@la-doula.com | La Doula LLC

Doula Guild Communications Lead, Compass Pod co-Leader

I came to this work believing that our steadiness at the bedside is only as strong as the community standing behind us. And what makes a community strong is rarely dramatic: it is attention, repeated over and over.

As Communications Lead, my care is for the connective tissue of the Guild: seeing that word travels and that the right people find one another. Mine is the constant presence: the welcome messages, the newsletters, the steady drumbeat that keeps a community whole.

community@doulaguild.com

University of Vermont End-of-Life Professional Certificate (2023) and Companion Animal Death Doula Certificate (2025)

somervilledeathdoula.com

Doula Guild Steward and Boston Pod co-Leader

My path to this work is both personal and professional. Losing my mother at a young age and accompanying my sister and beloved grandfather through their final days shaped my belief that dying is a deeply relational and human passage. As many of our systems of care falter, I see this work as part of building something new while reclaiming something old: more relational, community-rooted ways of caring for one another through dying and grief.

This  vision shapes my commitment to building community both around and among end-of-life doulas. I co-lead Living While Mortal, creating spaces for open, honest conversations about mortality and what matters most. Within The Doula Guild, I serve as a Steward and Boston Pod Co-Leader, where I see a strong network of doulas as essential to strengthening our collective practice and expanding this kind of care. I also manage our doula profiles and the calendar, helping doulas connect with one another to strengthen our network.

Going with Grace EOL Training (2025)

www.estuarydoula.com | Estuary End-of-Life Care, LLC

Doula Guild Resources Librarian and Book Club Host

I’m a reader and a writer and a book lover in general, so I’m always happy to talk about doula-related resources. I’m fascinated by the way that death doula work is always individual and also always touches on universal themes. I’m the guild’s resource librarian and book club facilitator, and I aim to support everyone’s ongoing process of learning in this field.

INELDA (2025)

Doula Dialogue Host

Becoming and growing as an end-of-life doula can be lonely and isolating. How do I start a business? How do I keep learning? Where do I get solace and support? Who can I turn to with questions, successes,  self-doubts or moral quandaries? For me, the Guild is a place for connection, support and ongoing growth in many areas. As host of the Doula Dialogue, I am helping shape a context where we can bring all our questions, our vulnerabilities (which are usually the impetus for growth), and our need for community to reflect together on the personal, ethical and existential dilemmas of our work.  Given my career as a psychotherapist, I am deeply invested in how we grow as doulas, how we learn to hold space, how we bear what we are witnessing, how we identify our gifts and blindspots, and how we foster a deep acceptance in spite of our strongly held ideas. I am also committed to the idea of apprenticeship:  we learn from each other in many different ways. The Guild uplifts all of these possibilities.  

INELDA (2023); UVM EoL Professional Certificate (2022) with additional specialization in children (2025) and companion animals/pets (2024); EoL doula, elder care and care consultant training with Doulagivers (2023); NEDA badge of proficiency (2024)

www.michelebograd.com

Compass Pod co-Leader

I have a PhD in Biochemistry and served as a biology faculty and university administrator for 31 years before retiring in May 2026. I am a breast cancer survivor (from 2009). I have trained as a life coach with the Co-active training institute.

I have served as a hospice volunteer in the Boston area and now in Brooklyn, NY. I am building my insights as an EOL coach so that I can better serve those in my community. The Death Doula training is the career trajectory for my next professional chapter. I'm looking for a mentor and possibly someone to apprentice with in the Brooklyn area.

I have connected with death doulas in my new location though I was so supported by the Doula Guild group that I want to stay engaged with them. I am excited to co-lead the Compass Pod as it bring together Guild subscribers from around the state, and beyond. I intend to explore topics including comparing different training programs, discussing ways to engage our communities, and sharing resources to build our practices.

INELDA (2026)

As a Spiritual Director, trained across many beliefs, I bring my listening and intuiting skills to those seeking guidance and support on their life journey. I am a Healing Medium. As a Death Doula, I facilitate conversations, workshops, and plenary sessions on end-of-life planning. As a Master Reiki Teacher, I teach Reiki and offer Reiki healing in senior centers and other caregiving facilities. I am an inspirational writer and speaker, and author of the book and accompanying workbook entitled Tools for the Exceptional Parent of a Chronically-Ill Child, which focuses on self-care while caregiving. I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Spiritual Director training through the Hayden Institute

Willow EOL Educator

www.shirleyriga.com

www.livingwhilemortal.com

I especially enjoy working with people with complicated family dynamics or estrangements and plan to write a book on this one day!

UVM (2026)

livewelleldercare.com

I support people in living purposefully and dying consciously. My focus is on working with people in grief from prognosis through bereavement and to make meaning and build resiliency in all life transitions.

UVM EoL Professional Certificate (2022)

www.dharmatransitions.com

I am curious to experience and explore everything that life has to offer. I love being part of the community and also love deep conversations with strangers and friends. Dance is my passion as I mostly enjoy the rhythmic expressions through body (navrasa in Indian classical). I am excited to bring my death doula experience integrated with somatic movement and would love to explore everyone’s experiences, perspectives, and offerings.

Emberlight Community Death Doula Certificate (2025)

https://medrhythm.netlify.app/

Doula Guild North Pod Leader

I am a death doula, grief guide, funeral celebrant, and community death educator. I started Human Condition Death Care to help people through a universal experience that we are all too often unprepared for, death. I work in Northern MA, Southern NH, and virtually. My services include:

Advance Care Planning (Living Will), Funeral Celebrant Services (Unique & Meaningful), Community Death Education, Legacy Projects, Sitting Vigil, Grief Support.

Death Doula & EoL Planner Certificate, Going with Grace (2022)

www.humanconditiondeathcare.com

Doula Guild South Pod co-Leader

Licensed Massage Therapist, EoL Doula (INELDA, 2024), certified Jikiden Reiki and Sound Healing practitioner

I'm the founder of Still Within Collaborative Wellness Center in Norwell, MA, a space for heart-centered, integrative care. After a stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis in 2019, I took time to heal and train in Jikiden Reiki and sound healing, discovering their power in navigating illness and emotional recovery. In 2024, I completed INELDA’s End-of-Life Doula program. Now, I support others through cancer, healing, or end-of-life transitions, offering presence, empathy, and therapeutic care grounded in my own lived experience.

www.still-within.com

Doula Guild Boston Pod co-Leader

I am a grief educator, grief doula, grief coach, and a death doula, with a Masters in Social Work.  I am also an interior redesigner.

Through my various practices I specialize in grief support (anticipatory grief & post-loss); on-call emotional and practical support for people newly grieving an acute loss; designing peaceful, optimal, and functional interior spaces for end of life; end of life companion animal doula; ritual planning; and vigil sitting.

International EoL Doula Association’s Program (INELDA, 2023) , University of Vermont’s Companion Animal Death Doula Program (2024)

lifebeyonglossgriefcoaching.com , cloud9redesign.com

Doula Guild South Pod co-Leader, Visits and Events Leader

As a trained funeral celebrant and end-of-life planner, I help individuals bring clarity and certainty to decisions that matter most, including body disposition choices, funeral music and readings, celebration-of-life options, ash-scattering rituals, and the many ways a life can be remembered. With the aid of structured guides, we explore the practical, emotional, spiritual, and personal questions that shape end-of-life decisions . As a funeral celebrant, I also work with families to create personalized memorial services that honor their loved one.

I seek a deeper understanding of my own spirituality through practice with my Spiritual Director at Anam Cara Ministries, through a close relationship with my Unitarian Minister, and through my lifelong relationship with Catholicism.

Conscious Dying Collective (2025), The Insight Institute (2025), Empowered Endings End of Life Planning Certification (2026)

I am a Doula experienced in preparing and leading ceremonies, alter making, and helping with after-death arrangements and follow-up.

I have lead a number events, including a Date with Death education series, Meet and Grieve events, and Advance Directive workshops.

University of Vermont End-of-Life Professional Certificate (May 2023)