Walker Karraa, PhD

Walker Karraa, Ph.D. provocative thought leader in the field of maternal mental health and leadership. Her first book, Transformed by Postpartum Depression: Women's Stories of Trauma and Growth, presents her research revealing the traumatic and transformative nature of postpartum depression. After a traumatic childbirth and severe postpartum depression in 2000, she dedicated her career to advancing knowledge regarding maternal mental health. She was a certified birth doula CD(DONA) for nearly a decade before returning to school to complete her doctorate in psychology.

Currently, Dr. Karraa is a Research Fellow at The Center for Leadership Studies and Educational Research-- School of Advanced Studies, at the University of Phoenix, where she is on faculty as a Dissertation Research Chair and teaches qualitative research methods in the doctoral program.

She is the Media Review Editor for The Journal of Leadership Studies, and serves as the Media Director for The International Marcé Society.

Walker is the Founder of STIGMAMA™ a site dedicated to supporting women writing about the stigma of mental illness in motherhood, and runs a successful perinatal research consulting practice, Postpartum Associates, Inc. She is a 12 year breast cancer survivor, and lives in Sherman Oaks, California with her husband Tony, and her son Ziggy and daughter Miles.