Ana Maria Linares is an Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing.

Dr. Linares is a national and international expert in human lactation and has worked in maternal-child and women's health for 40 years in Chile and the U.S. She has a program of research to improve health and achieve health equity through the development of a culturally appropriate exclusive breastfeeding intervention among Hispanic women.

Dr. Linares coordinates three international studies sponsored by the International Child Health Nursing Network to determine cultural factors influencing breastfeeding. Additionally, Dr. Linares’s contributions to lactation research are vast and include: 1) advancing the science of cytokine measurement in breastmilk and levels of heavy metal in breastmilk; 2) identification of predictors of EBF adoption in Hispanic women during hospitalization, and 3) identification of predictors of EBF using a mother/infant dyad approach. Dr. Linares serves on the Research Committee of the International Lactation Consultant Association and is an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Human Lactation. As a bilingual/bicultural immigrant doctoral-prepared nurse-midwife, Dr. Linares has a global perspective on the discipline of nursing and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar award, where she trained and mentored more than 350 faculty members, health professionals, and students in countries like Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador.