Valda Boyd Ford, Master of Public Health (MPH), MS, Registered Nurse (RN), grew up in the segregated South. She ignored the advice of guidance counselors who told her to forget about college and went on to obtain masters degrees in nursing and public health.

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Over the past thirty years she has worked in more than two dozen countries with refugees of war and natural disaster, helped develop long-term programs to improve health, and has been a successful entrepreneur in the United States and the Caribbean. She has one son, Alphonso, and is “Auntie” to many actual and adopted family members around the world. She is the author of Don’t Touch the Monk and has contributed to The Speaker Anthology, a collection of motivational and inspirational true stories.