Christy Turlington Burns is the founder of Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization to increase education and support for maternal mortality reduction globally. In 2010, Christy directed and produced No Woman, No Cry, a documentary film about the global state of maternal health. Prior to her work as a global maternal health advocate, Christy focused her activism on smoking prevention and cessation after losing her father to lung cancer in 1997. She collaborated on several public health service campaigns and launched an award-winning website, SmokingIsUgly.com in 2002. Christy is also an avid yogi and merged her love of the practice and writing to author her first book, Living Yoga: Creating A Life Practice (Hyperion 2002). She also founded two successful lifestyle brands; Sundri, an Ayurvedic skincare line and nuala, a yoga inspired apparel and accessories line.

Christy is an advisor to the Harvard Medical School Global Health Council and the Harvard School of Public Health Board of Deans Advisors, Mothers Day Every Day and the White Ribbon Alliance. She has contributed writings to Marie Claire Magazine, Yoga Journal and Teen Vogue along with contributions to the Huffington Post, BlogHer, MomsRising, Canadas Globe and Mail and the UKs Evening Standard. She has guest corresponded on NBC's Today Show, which included reporting on the status of girls' education in Afghanistan and an interview with H.H. the Dalai Lama. Christy has a BA from NYUs Gallatin School of Individualized Studies and is currently pursuing a MPH at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, where she lives with her husband - filmmaker Edward Burns - and their two children.