“I expected that I’d choose a practical major that would lead to a practical career,” Kauffman says. “But I couldn’t ignore the feeling that I wasn’t meant to be part of a corporate structure but out in the world making some sort of social impact instead.”
The powerful influence community midwives have on the quality of natural birth and maternal care impressed Kauffman during her two-year Peace Corps stint in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
“I saw how a successful out-of-hospital birth can transform a person’s relationship with their baby and the future of their family,” says Kauffman, who earned a diploma in midwifery in 1998.
Her work in reproductive health since then has spanned continents and cultures, from counseling teen mothers in Lancaster, Pa., to serving as a nurse and midwife in eight countries through Doctors Without Borders. In 2016, Kauffman partnered with colleagues to open a cross-border birth center that provides services to women in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
“Ensuring that women in diverse communities have equitable access to safe, natural birth is essential to improving reproductive health worldwide, which is what the Luna Tierra Casa de Partos center is all about,” she says.
Reflecting on her time at Bucknell, Kauffman not only credits those years with helping her realize what she wanted to do with her life but also with “giving me the confidence to do something bigger than I ever imagined.”