Dr. Shimpuku is a nurse midwife who received the BSN degree in St. Luke’s International University, Japan, and the PhD degree in University of Illinois at Chicago. She is currently an assistant professor in her alma mater, St. Luke’s. She is also a visiting professor in Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania. Her research topics include midwifery education and maternal child health improvement both in Tanzania and Japan. Her work in Tanzania involves midwifery education, antenatal education, and reproductive health education for adolescents in rural areas. She developed the JICA collaborative program for

her university to send their graduate students to Tanzania as JICA volunteers. In Japan, she translated the HUG Your Baby, a parenting program developed in the U.S., from English into Japanese and provides bi-monthly pre-parent class for new parents. Her involvement in WHO started when she was an intern at WHO SEARO. She continues to work as a representative of WHO Collaborating Centre in St. Luke’s. She translated the WHO statement of “Prevention and elimination of disrespect and abuse during childbirth” into Japanese, which is available at WHO Website. She is also working for promotion of the Early Essential Newborn Care program collaboratively with WHO WPRO. The joint movie with WHO is now available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8T2ePCty4E.