Dr. Kimarie Bugg is President and CEO of Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE), a national nonprofit created in 2011 to address breastfeeding inequities in the African American community. She is also a career perinatal and neonatal nurse professional.

Dr. Bugg has spent nearly four decades working in the Atlanta Metropolitan area and nationally in mostly African American communities promoting perinatal health, breastfeeding, and community-based impact solutions. She previously worked in private pediatric practice and for Emory University, School of Medicine, as a nurse practitioner, at the state level, as a perinatal nurse consultant and in the hospital on inpatient pediatric floor, in the pediatric emergency center, special care nursery, and as a bedside breastfeeding consultant from 1986-1994.  She was the first African American IBCLC in the state of Georgia (1987).  She is a member of the faculty for CHAMPs, a Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, and a past board of directors and chair of the ethics committee of the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC).

Dr. Bugg is known internationally for her work in lactation, anti-racism and health equity strategies, the nonprofit world, and marginalized community empowerment. She has received innumerable awards and recognition, including multiple lifetime achievement awards. She provides health equity through breastfeeding training, education, and resources for healthcare providers, lactation support providers, and community transformers nationwide.

Dr. Bugg completed a Community Health Leadership Program within the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine that stressed best practices to provide global health equity and eliminate health disparities through action-oriented projects.

Called Mama Bugg by individuals near and far, she is a matriarch of the modern-day black breastfeeding movement.  Kimarie lives in the Atlanta area with her husband, Dr. George W. Bugg Jr., a neonatologist. They are the parents of five adult children.