Autobiography
Undergrad to Grad School
Born in Nigeria, I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Niger Delta University in 2010. I then completed national service with the Nigerian Youth Service Corps from 2011 to 2012, working with the former United Nations Millennium Development Goals program, now the Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2014, I packed a bag and relocated to the United States to begin graduate training in public health at the University of Missouri. I then completed a Master of Public Health in Health Promotion and Policy, where my capstone examined health service use among Black men with lived experiences of police violence. I went on to pursue a Master of Public Affairs in Nonprofit Management at the university’s Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs.
Doctoral Work + Research Foundations
I entered the Ph.D. program in Nursing and Healthcare Innovations at the University of Missouri School of Nursing in 2016. Guided by two incredibly brilliant and supportive co-advisors: Dr. Linda Bullock and Dr. Tina Bloom. My dissertation used two qualitative approaches to explore rural young males’ perceptions of dating violence risk and their preferences for digital prevention tools.
Between 2019 and 2021, I contributed to externally funded projects focused on co-developing digital interventions with adolescents and emerging adults. As a lead research assistant with a fantastic and pioneering team at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, he supported the adaptation and field testing of the CDC-funded myPlan app, conducting interviews and focus groups with teen survivors of dating violence and testing multiple app prototypes, leading to a national RCT. I also worked with the Precision START Lab with Dr. Blaine Reeder and his ground-breaking team to evaluate wearable devices and a mobile clinical decision-making platform.
Early Professional Roles
From 2015 to 2017, I served as the founding Director and Head of Research and Communications at the Brady and Anne Deaton Institute. Before entering academia, I worked as a phlebotomist trainee, a graphic designer, and a health communication specialist, and founded WhiteCarrot Media (which then published my first chapbook!).
My early work in community and global health included leading SDG-aligned projects in underserved regions of Nigeria, such as distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, mitigating erosion, planting shade trees in public schools, and organizing breast cancer awareness programs for women in rural communities. More recently, I served as an external consultant for the UNICEF Innocenti Office of Research, leading to a rapid evidence gap mapping on global child labor and interventions that support affected children.
Creative Interests and Personal Life
Outside the lab and lecture halls, I like to think I have decent taste in photography, reading, and indoor plants (though the graveyard of plants it took to figure it out might disagree). My bookshelf leans toward magical realism, historical fiction, and creative non‑fiction. My own creative writing wanders into satire and explores gender, identity, and resilience. And yes, I dabble in photography too, trying to capture urban, product, and realist images.
You’ll find select samples of my writing and photography scattered across this site—proof that I have a life!
See my CV for other affiliations and fellowships.