Byllye Y. Avery, founder of the Black Women's Health Imperative, has been a health care activist for 45 years. She is a co-founder of Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need and featured in the PBS’s Makers: Women Who Make America. In the 70’s Avery co-founded two centers in Florida, Gainesville Women's Health Center and Birthplace.

Avery has been the recipient of many awards including: The MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant”, Essence Award, Academy of Science Institute of Medicine's Gustav O. Lienhard Award,  Dorothy I. Height Lifetime Achievement Award, President's Citation  American Public Health Association and UF’s School of Medicine Leadership Award. The Chicago Foundation for Women Ruth Bader Ginsberg Impact Award, MA NARAL Champion for Choice, University of Iowa’s School of Public Health Hansen Award.

Avery served on the Charter Advisory Committee for the Office of Research on Women's Health of the National Institutes of Health, and a visiting fellow at Harvard School of Public Health.

She has received honorary degrees from Thomas Jefferson University, State University of New York at Binghamton, Gettysburg College, Bowdoin College, Bates College, Russell Sage College and UCSF Medal Award.

She and her wife Ngina Lythcott live in Provincetown, MA