Author: Maya Kornberg

Maya L. Kornberg, Ph.D is a senior research fellow and manager at NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. She is the author of Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in Lawmaking, and her work has been featured in The Washington Post, NPR, BBC, The New York Times, Newsweek, The Hill, Slate, and other outlets. She has taught political science at NYU, Georgetown, and Oxford and worked at the UN and Inter-Parliamentary Union and at several democracy focused nonprofits. Kornberg holds a BA from Stanford University, an MPA from Columbia University, and a PhD in politics from Oxford University.

How Personal Loss Drove Rep. Lauren Underwood to Take On the Black Maternal Health Crisis

Excerpted from Stuck: How Money, Media and Violence Prevent Change in Congress by Maya L. Kornberg (published March 10):

Black women are about three times as likely as white women to die of pregnancy-related health conditions.

One of the Black mothers to die tragically was Shalon Irving, Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.)’s friend. Irving was a successful scientist, who had befriended Underwood when they were both students at Johns Hopkins University.

Underwood remembered going to the funeral: “It was … unimaginable. Her baby was there, her mom was there, the director of the CDC was there. All of these other uniformed public health officials were there, and everybody was stunned. How could this happen?”

Underwood sponsored the 2021 Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, which addresses inequities in housing, nutrition and transportation that shape maternal health outcomes, and which contains plans to improve maternal mental health resources and data collection and to combat racial bias in prenatal care.

Underwood’s advocacy is a direct result of her personal experience.