Fall 2025 public health graduate Ifasekemi Hammonds started her college journey right after her high school graduation in 2014, but it didn’t proceed in a straight line. She initially enrolled at Oakland University, with the hopes of training to become a radiation oncologist. But the curriculum didn’t really click. After leaving OU, she worked odd jobs for a while, before deciding to begin training as a doula — a specialist who provides emotional and educational support during and after pregnancy and birth. At that time, she thought a business program would be a nice complement, as doulas are typically self-employed and run their own businesses, so she enrolled in a program at the Florida Institute of Technology. But she found her business classes to be even less of a fit.
After these false starts, Hammonds decided to focus on the work she was doing in the birthing field, which she found really satisfying, and completed some additional in-depth training as a doula. She also finished a certified nursing assistant program in 2019. But her larger college ambitions never really left the picture. She did decide, however, to shift her perspective. Rather than rush into chasing yet another career-focused degree, which she might or might not end up liking, she opted for a general education associate degree at Schoolcraft College, “just to have something to fall back on.” Taking the pressure off herself proved to be just what she needed: At Schoolcraft, she earned excellent grades and sailed through her program — all while working as a doula, caring for her first son and carrying her second.
It did a lot to rebuild her confidence, but Hammonds says she was still a little nervous as she started to think seriously about continuing on for her bachelor’s. She eventually narrowed her search down to Madonna University, which has an American Sign Language program, and UM-Dearborn, which has a strong public health program. “But then I met with Becky [Richardson] from the SOAR office at Dearborn, and I was telling her all about what I’d been doing and everything I’d like to do,” Hammonds remembers. “When I graduated, I had this dream of becoming a consultant for healthcare systems, to help them add a community aspect to their maternal health programs. And Becky was, like, ‘Wow, that’s a lot. But you can do it.’ I was a person who was so used to people saying, ‘That’s a lot. You need to bring that down a notch.’ So having someone who truly supported the vision that I had, I was, like, ‘OK, I’m sold on Dearborn.’”
At UM-Dearborn, Hammonds found much of what eluded her in her initial attempts at college. In public health, she found a care-related, difference-making field that was also built around a brand of systems-level thinking that jibed with the way she thought about the challenges facing mothers. She also found people she connected deeply with — and who genuinely cared about her and her ambitions. She remembers when she first met Public Health Professor Natalie Sampson, they ended up talking for hours during Sampson’s office hours. “Throughout my journey, she’s always been there for me, giving me advice, congratulating me on career accomplishments or helping me excel academically — she looked over my personal statement for graduate school,” Hammonds says. “You hear stories of students who meet that professor who they get really close with, and I guess I always hoped that would happen for me, but I didn’t assume it would.” And this summer, just as Hammonds was preparing for her final push to graduation, her newborn daughter had to undergo heart surgery. “So I told my professors, and I found out later that a few of them had a group meeting — like they met during the summer on their own time — to figure out how to help me,” she says. “I don’t think you’re going to get that just anywhere. If I had gone to college somewhere else, I think it would have been, like, ‘I’m sorry that happened, but it’s on you to figure it out.’”
While carrying a full course load and raising a family with her husband, Hammonds has also somehow found the energy to work full time. For the past couple of years, she’s been working in Corewell Health’s maternal and infant health program, using artificial intelligence-based tools to improve care for expecting mothers. And through her entire educational journey, she’s also kept up her work as a doula for at least a few mothers at a time, which, in many ways, has been just as educationally rich as her formal studies. “I see a doula as the emotional and spiritual support for a mother during one of the most vulnerable times of her life — someone who should be able to offer unbiased support and education and be a guide from pregnancy into motherhood,” Hammonds says. At times, that means talking through detailed contingency plans for a birth, so a mother has a chance to think through ahead of time what she might do if faced with a certain challenging situation. Other times, it’s discussing medications that commonly accompany a pregnancy or birth. Often, it’s helping people get past all the pressures that are placed on women about the “right way” to have a baby, and feel at ease with what feels best for them.
All those years of working with women and all those intimate conversations have left Hammonds with one big takeaway: We could be doing a lot more to help moms. “My main concern has just been we don’t really have a society that supports mom,” Hammonds says. “That’s starting to change. Like, a program like Rx Kids just came to Dearborn. So they give moms $1,500 for their pregnancy and $500 per month for the six months after birth. That helps a lot. A lot of people don’t think about the fact that moms can go through morning sickness from conception to well past three months. And just because it’s called morning sickness doesn’t mean it’s just in the morning. So, in my experience, what we see is a lot of moms lose work or cut down to part time, because they’re physically unable to work.” Hammonds particularly likes policies like this because they proactively support people during pregnancy — not just once the baby is here — and she’d like to see a lot more of them. Hospital systems and even doctor’s offices could bring doulas on staff — particularly since many states, including Michigan, now cover doula services through Medicaid. Birthing classes, which are typically offered in-person, could be offered online and during evening hours — which would enable more working people to participate. And wellness visits could be far more comprehensive and holistic, even focusing on things like financial stress or unmet transportation needs, features of everyday life that are known to impact the health of mothers and babies.
Hammonds hopes that her UM-Dearborn degree will help her advance policies like this. To a certain extent, she’s already doing it. In her position at Corewell Health, she’s currently supporting the expansion of their maternal-infant health program, which will soon include home visits. And with a bachelor’s in public health on her resume, she says she’ll now be eyeing leadership opportunities within her department. Longer term, she’d like to be a program director for a maternal-infant health program — until she’s ready to “retire” and pursue her dream of starting a midwifery clinic. She’s also currently applying to graduate schools, with plans to start in Fall ’26, and preparing for a study abroad trip to Cameroon and Nigeria to study birthing practices and maternal health care. That will give her at least a little break from a rhythm of life that’s included full-time school, a full-time job, a part-time job, plus family responsibilities for years now. Immediately after graduation, she’s planning to take a week or two off work to “fully decompress and get as much sleep as my kids will allow.” Then, she’s looking forward to getting some of that precious unstructured time back in her life. “It’s Friday movie night. It’s family dinner. Those are the things I miss,” Hammonds says. “I mean, we still have family dinner, but it feels rushed, because mom always had to go study for the exam she had coming up. Now, we get that free time back. I’m looking forward to getting back to the flow of things.”
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Hammonds was selected as the Fall 2025 Commencement student speaker. She will be addressing her fellow graduates at both ceremonies. Story by Lou Blouin
