About the founder
Dr. Stacy D. Scott
Ph.D., MPA
Author · Scholar-Practitioner · Public Health Visionary · Maternal & Infant Health Strategist
Reimagining infant safety. Transforming systems. Dreaming safer futures.
For more than 30 years, Dr. Scott has worked to improve maternal and infant health, strengthen community organizations, and change the systems that shape families' lives. As founder of the Global Infant Safe Sleep (GISS) Center, she connects research, lived experience, community wisdom, and bold thinking to help make safer futures possible.
A career devoted to families and systems change
Dr. Stacy D. Scott is a nationally recognized maternal and infant health leader, author, scholar-practitioner, and public health strategist. Her career has centered on addressing persistent disparities, strengthening community-based organizations, and ensuring that families are heard and supported by the institutions intended to serve them.
She founded the Global Infant Safe Sleep Center in 2016 to advance evidence-informed, culturally responsive, community-centered responses to Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID). Her approach recognizes that education matters, but that families also need safe spaces, material resources, trusting relationships, and practical support.
“Every family deserves more than information. Families deserve to be heard, respected, supported, and connected to the resources and systems that make safer futures possible.”
Published author
Dreaming Safe Sleep Futures
Dr. Scott is the author of Dreaming Safe Sleep Futures, which draws on evidence, community wisdom, structural analysis, and Afrofuturist thinking to reimagine infant safe sleep prevention. The book invites health professionals, public health leaders, policymakers, and communities to look beyond education-only approaches.
Her distinction between risk behaviors and risk conditions asks whether families have not only received safe sleep guidance but also have the support needed to put it into practice.
A practice-based framework
Afrofuturist SUID Equity Cycle
Her framework links six dimensions of change, from understanding evidence to evaluating whether institutions have improved the conditions in which families care for their infants.
Dr. Scott also developed the Equity Systems Continuum through the GISS Center, a framework informing her approach to institutional transformation and accountability.
National leadership and partnerships
Dr. Scott serves as Vice President of Community Health Innovation at the National Institute for Children's Health Quality (NICHQ), where she has provided executive leadership for the Community-Centered Hospital Initiative (CCHI). The initiative brings community-based organizations and healthcare partners together to advance community-driven maternal and infant care.
Previously, she served as Executive Director of Baby 1st Network and Executive Project Director for the National Action Partnership to Promote Safe Sleep Improvement and Innovation Network (NAPPSS-IIN), supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau. She has also served for more than two decades as a national consultant to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Safe to Sleep® campaign.
Through the Ohio Collaborative to Prevent Infant Mortality and partners including Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital, Dr. Scott has advanced Dreaming Safe Sleep Futures™ training that supports respectful, compassionate and feasibility-based safe sleep conversations while reinforcing established evidence-based recommendations. The five guiding values are Truth, Compassion, Support, Fairness, and Future.
Education and recognition
Dr. Scott earned a Ph.D. in Urban Higher Education from Jackson State University, a Master of Public Administration from Bowling Green State University, and a bachelor’s degree from Spelman College. She also earned a certificate in Social Justice through Harvard University.
She was selected to receive the 2025 Marc & Sarah Parrish Birth Equity Award by the Kansas Birth Equity Network, recognizing her commitment to birth equity and co-founding contributions to Kansas Sisters and Brothers for Healthy Infants, the Kansas Birth Equity Network, and the Birth Equity Summit.
Speaker, educator and thought leader
Across national conferences, public health convenings, and professional training, Dr. Scott connects research with the everyday realities of families. She challenges institutions to reconsider established assumptions, recognize community expertise, and identify actionable changes in care, policy, and partnerships.
Her ongoing vision for GISS Center includes professional education, community-driven research, organizational capacity building, and partnerships that translate knowledge into sustainable systems change.
Looking toward safer futures
Through her writing, teaching, public speaking, and advocacy, Dr. Scott continues to advance a shared responsibility for infant well-being. She invites families, health professionals, researchers, public health agencies, and community organizations to imagine what is possible—and to build the systems of trust and support required to achieve it.
At GISS Center, safer futures are not simply imagined. They are built through evidence, partnership, compassion, and action.