Margaret is Koyukon Dene and of the Bedseyh (Caribou) clan from the Yukon River village of Ruby, Alaska, and is also the great-granddaughter of Swiss immigrant settler farmers to Montana. She was raised throughout rural Alaska and is grounded in Alaska Native culture and values. She met her partner, EJ David (Pampangan and Tagalog), in middle school (1994) and got married in 2007 on Dena'ina Ełnena in Anchorage, AK where they have lived since and are raising their 4 children.

Through 15 years of working in tribal and rural community health promotion and program management, birthing her family, volunteering as a doula, and remembering our healing practices through Native ways of knowing, she realized her call to midwifery. The potential to heal ourselves, and our ancestors, during the transformation of childbirth is why she has chosen to dedicate her life’s work to Indigenous birthwork. Through her work as a Certified Nurse Midwife she hopes to expand holistic community health approaches and birthing options for Alaska Native families by remembering traditional practices and supporting more pathways for Indigenous birth workers. She is a founding member of the National Indigenous Midwifery Alliance (in development) and the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community (www.nativebirthworkers.org), and has had the honor of being with Native birthing families as a midwife in the Alaska Tribal Health System since 2017.