
Our goal is to share the best evidence available with our healthcare colleagues and students so they can:
Our Mission
To educate future healthcare professionals about evidence based fertility awareness methods (FABMs), so they may empower and engage patients to care for their reproductive health.
Our Vision
Our Goals
- Educate students, physicians, and health professionals in the basic principles of fertility awareness based methods (FABMs) and the supporting science behind their medical applications.
- Promote FABMs and their use in effective, relationship-centered care for women and couples.
- Provide a forum for clinicians, educators and researchers to share and expand the evolving body of evidence about FABMs.
- Foster respect and support for clinicians and students as collaborators in patient-centered reproductive health care.
Statement of Principles
- Fertility is a healthy aspect of reproductive physiology.
- Our educational approach to fertility awareness based methods (FABMs) is grounded on solid scientific evidence and ongoing research.
- Fertility awareness based methods can be used effectively to achieve or avoid pregnancy and to monitor and manage reproductive health. They empower women to make more informed decisions about their care.
- Fertility awareness based methods enable women to invite men to share responsibility for family planning, as they each contribute equally to the formation of a unique human being.
- Physicians and healthcare professionals trained in FABMs can work with patients to care for their reproductive health and address gynecologic disorders, including infertility, with the goal of not suppressing or destroying fertility.
- FACTS promotes the proven effectiveness of any fertility awareness based method (FABM) that has quality science to support its use.
Our History
Our Staff
Marguerite Duane, MD, MHA, FAAFP
Dr. Marguerite Duane, a board certified family physician, is co-founder and Executive Director of FACTS – the Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to Teach the Science, an organization dedicated to educating healthcare professionals and students about the scientifically valid natural or fertility awareness based methods of family planning. She also serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University, where she directs an introductory course on natural methods of family planning. Dr. Duane is a physician with Modern Mobile Medicine, a direct primary care house-calls based practice serving patients of all ages in the DC metropolitan area. Dr. Duane has also previously served on the boards of both the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the FMEC.
Dr. Duane is trained as a Creighton Medical consultant and a TeenSTAR educator. She received her M.D. degree with recognition in primary care from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and completed her Family Medicine residency at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, PA. She received a Bachelor of Science with Honors degree and a Master of Health Administration degree from Cornell University in 1992 and 1994, respectively. Dr. Duane has been recognized for her leadership efforts by the American Board of Family Medicine which named her as a 1998 Pisacano Scholar, and by the American Academy of Family Physicians which awarded her the AAFP Bristol Meyers Squibb Graduate Medical Education Award in 2002. Dr. Duane balances her career as a teacher and Family Physician, with her role as a mother and wife. She is proud to be accompanied on this life’s journey by her husband and fellow family physician, Dr. Kenneth Lin, and they are the delighted parents of 4 young children.
Amylynn Smith
Amylynn Smith, a Creighton Model FertilityCare Practitioner, is the Director of Educational Outreach, which includes the FACTS Speaker Program. Additionally, Amylynn has been teaching the Creighton Model for the past 5 years to women of various reproductive ages. Amylynn began volunteering with FACTS in the fall of 2015 and started working part-time for the organization in the spring of 2016. She hopes that through her work with FACTS more patients will have access to information about fertility awareness based methods. Amylynn is currently living in Northwest Arkansas with her husband and young son.
Alison Contreras, PhD, FCP
Alison Contreras, PhD, FCP, serves as the Director of Programs and Apps Project Manager for the collaborative. Alison has taught a sympto-thermal FABM since 2009 and the Creighton Model System, a mucus-only method, since 2014. As a FABM teacher in two systems, Alison understands the importance of clients receiving factual information from their physicians in order to make and support their healthcare decisions. Alison received a BS in Civil Engineering in 2006 and a PhD in Environmental Engineering in 2011, from Rice University. She has authored 9 peer-reviewed and conference papers. Prior to moving to DC in 2013, she worked as an engineer for MWH Global Inc., a global wet-infrastructure engineering firm based in Arcadia, CA. She has taught FABMs in three major metropolitan areas: DC, Houston, and Los Angeles.
VA Martinez
VA (Ginger) Martinez, a Physician Assistant, serves as the Research Coordinator for FACTS. She began her Physician Assistant career in Emergency Medicine in Grosse Pointe, Michigan at Bon Secours and Cottage Hospitals. Since then she has also worked in Pediatric Neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit and in Family Medicine in Kissimmee, Florida. While working at Children’s Hospital of Michigan she found her passion for research which was recently renewed in supporting research activities for FACTS. VA achieved her Masters in Physician Assistant Studies at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan in 2003. In addition to being a medical professional, Ginger is a devoted and successful wife and mother of four.

Robert Motley, MD

Mike Manhart, PhD

Summer Holmes Mason, MD, FACOG
Dr. Holmes Mason is a Board-certified obstetrician gynecologist. She is a 2006 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with degrees in Spanish and General Science. She subsequently attended the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY and obtained her medical degree in 2010. She completed her residency in obstetrics & gynecology at the University of Maryland Medical Systems in Baltimore, MD, where she was appointed residency education chief during her final year of residency. Since 2014, Dr. Holmes Mason has worked in private practice in Wooster, OH. She has served as an associate professor for the Physician Assistant Program at Marietta College in Marietta, OH. She completed FEMM Medical Management as well as the FEMM Teacher Training course. She is a member of the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists and is currently pursuing studies in functional medicine.

Theresa M. Hardy, PhD, RN
Theresa Hardy is Senior Research and Development Scientist at Onegevity Health. Before transitioning to the private sector, Theresa completed a postdoctoral fellowship at New York University. Theresa completed her undergraduate degree in Theology at Ave Maria University and a second bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Marymount University. In 2018, she received her doctoral degree in Nursing from Marquette University. In her free time, Theresa enjoys ballroom dancing and exploring NYC.

Pamela A. Vnenchak, MD

Joseph Stanford, MD, MSPH, CFCMC

Victoria Jennings, PhD

Geraldine Matus, Lay Midwife, HRHP, PhD

Lauren Gordon, MD

Matthew Larkin, LCDR, USN, MBA, MSM

Abby Crowley, EdD

John F. Brehany, Ph.D., S.T.L.