Autobiography
Undergrad to Graduate School
Having completed his bachelor's in Biochemistry in 2010 at the Niger Delta University, Between 2011 and 2012, Dr. Emezue served for a year in the Nigerian Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program under the aegis of the then United Nations Millenium Development Goals (MDG), now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) program. Born in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, Dr. Emezue lived in Abuja, Nigeria's Capital territory, before relocating to the US in 2014. He joined the University of Missouri-Columbia's Master in Public Health program (Health Promotion and Policy) in 2014 at the College of Health Sciences. His master's thesis involved understanding Black men's health utilization behaviors with past adverse encounters with police violence and brutality. In 2015, Dr. Emezue commenced a joint master's degree in Public Affairs specializing in Non-Profit Management at the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs (now the Truman School of Government) at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Doctorate
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).
Publications from his dissertation are published here and here.
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 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 in need of shaded playgrounds, and public health campaigns to 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.
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 Chief!). 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 is currently 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.