Autobiography
Undergrad to Graduate School
Born in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, and raised in Abuja, Dr. Chuka Emezue completed a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at Niger Delta University in 2010. Between 2011 and 2012, he served in the Nigerian Youth Service Corps (NYSC), working under the former United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In 2014, Dr. Emezue relocated to the United States and began a Master of Public Health (MPH) program in Health Promotion and Policy at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His MPH thesis explored the health service utilization behaviors of Black men with past experiences of police violence. He later pursued a Master of Public Affairs (MPA), specializing in Non-Profit Management, at the university’s Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs.
Doctoral Training and Research Foundations
In 2016, Dr. Emezue joined the University of Missouri's School of Nursing doctoral program to get a Ph.D. in Nursing and Healthcare Innovations. His doctoral study was chaperoned by two invaluable mentors (Dr. Linda Bullock and Dr. Tina Bloom); Dr. Emezue's dissertation tackled two specific aims leveraging two distinct qualitative methods (Aim 1) Identifying rural young males' perceptions of rural risk and protective factors of dating violence (using Qualitative Interpretive analysis); (Aim 2) Explored rural young males' acceptability and preferences for content, features, and functions expected in a TDV prevention digital intervention (using a Qualitative Description analysis).
Between 2019 and 2021, Dr. Emezue worked on externally funded research with teenagers and young adults aged 15-17 to co-develop digital interventions that reduce dating violence. As a lead site RA, Dr. Emezue was responsible for user adaptations and field testing of a novel CDC-funded dating abuse app (called the MyPlan app) led by Dr. Nancy Glass, with mentorship from Dr. Tina Bloom. He conducted focus groups and individual interviews with teen survivors of dating violence and beta-tested multiple app prototypes with this group. In another role as an RA with Dr. Blaine Reeder (Precision START Lab), he implemented stepwise evaluations of consumer-and industry-grade wearable devices (FitBit, Oura rings, Amazfit, ACTi Graphs) and a new mobile clinical decision app (MAISIE app).
Early Professional Roles
From 2015 to 2017, Dr. Emezue was the founding Director and Head of Research and Communications at The Brady and Anne Deaton Institute.
He was a graphic designer and health communication specialist in his pre-academic life, and he founded WhiteCarrot Media (now defunct). You can still find a collection of his graphic designs online.
His global and community health experience (working on several SDG projects) took him to underserved communities in Nigeria. Some of the projects Dr. Emezue led include the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets, erosion mitigation, and tree planting projects in primary schools that needed shaded playgrounds, as well as public health campaigns in rural communities advising mothers on breast cancer care and self-examination. Dr. Emezue has worked in the private sector and recently served as an external consultant for the UNICEF-Innocenti Office of Research, where he led a team that mapped the evidence of child labor in low- and middle-income countries and identified educational programs that addressed this issue globally.
Creative Interests and Personal Life
Dr. Emezue now enjoys various passions, including gardening, photography (some of his photo collections are here), and cooking. He also enjoys traveling, writing genre-transgressive prose and non-fiction, and is an avid Kansas City Chiefs fan (Go Chiefs!). He ran a now private blog called Plain Black Tees, publishing a counterculture and interpretivist collection of short prose, creative nonfiction pieces, and poems on masculinities, stigma, sexual assault, and counterculture.
Current Role
Dr. Emezue has been an Assistant Professor at Rush University since 2021, where he founded the EMERGE Innovations Lab, and remains a Research Affiliate with the University of Missouri’s Precision START Lab.
See his CV for other affiliations and fellowships.