About Us

entourage (noun, French): the people who surround

Maternal support reduces the risk of maternal stress, injury, and death. Support is more effective when shared across a group of people rather than expected from one person. Our goal is to identify and promote the most effective ways to support pregnant people and new moms because we believe that everyone can and should contribute to maternal care. All pregnant people and new moms deserve robust support from their family, friends, birthing support teams and community.

A group of women and children sitting outdoors, listening to a woman standing and speaking, with a banner on the wall behind them that reads 'Young Volunteers for Sexual and Reproductive Health of Adolescents - June-July 2025 in Yoff.' The scene is set in a courtyard with trees, surrounded by buildings.

Research

A group of women are sitting on a patterned red and yellow mat outdoors, some on chairs, engaged in discussion. Many are dressed in colorful traditional and casual clothing, with a brick and building wall behind them.

The Entourage Lab is a multidisciplinary, transnational collective of scholars focused on networks of support around pregnant people and new moms. We are medical anthropologists, epidemiologists, and public health practitioners with interests in family health, midwifery care, doula services, and fatherhood involvement. We draw from cross-cultural, political economic, and scientific perspectives of kinship, gender, social support and pregnancy to illuminate and enrich our conclusions.

"I think of the lab as a place as where were not just doing research but where we come together to learn different ways of thinking. Being in the lab isn't just about doing lab work." - Dick Powis

Our Research Interests

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Maternal Care & Support

We investigate how the support systems of pregnant people and new mothers’ function, and how receiving care and support impacts maternal health and well-being.

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Interactive Education

We are currently developing a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) about Global Maternal & Child Health scenarios for use in the classroom.

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Research Methods

We use and teach a variety of research methods, including cultural domain analysis (CDA), participatory visual methods, and ethnography.

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Emerging Technology

We are currently exploring methods for AI-assisted data analysis with the goal of making research more accessible to students and community members.

What do we do?

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People sitting in a row at a seminar or lecture, holding notebooks and pens, listening to a speaker.
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Research maternal support systems: In our lab we study how support networks for pregnant people, and new parents function, focusing on who provides support, what forms it takes, and how those contributions can be meaningfully measured.

Provide hands on interdisciplinary training: Our lab provides student-driven training in qualitative and mixed research methods, professional development, and public health scholarship, with opportunities for authorship, conferences, and skill-building.

Collaborate and create impact: Our work bridges disciplines to generate practical insights into maternal support that are both methodologically rigorous and grounded in real-world contexts.