Office of Trinity College Academic Deans, 011 Allen Building, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90050, Durham, NC 27708
Phone: (919) 684-2130
Email: joi@duke.edu
Academic Dean, Director, The Cardea Fellows Program
Joint Ph.D., Medical Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley/San Francisco
A London native, I grew up in Nigeria, England, and Los Angeles, CA. My childhood dream of becoming a pediatrician led me to the Program in Liberal Medical Education at Brown University, where the engaging liberal arts curriculum opened my eyes and changed my academic course. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology and a BA in Biomedical Ethics and then pursued a new fascination with how social, cultural, biological, and historical factors influence health and illness as well as people’s interpretations and lived experiences of them. I completed a joint Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley/San Francisco.
I have worked with diverse undergraduate and graduate students in the U.K (the University of East London) and the U.S. (Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill). My research and teaching interests include global mixed race studies; the Global African Diaspora; and the medical anthropology of race and mixed race. At Duke, I have taught interdisciplinary undergraduate courses, including as part of the Focus Program, and co-taught a graduate course on “Health in the African Diaspora”. Prior to joining the team, I led the Duke Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation’s racial healing and relationship building work and was a senior research scholar at the Duke Center on Genomics, Race, Identity, Difference.
It is my honor and privilege to provide compassionate and holistic support, advice, and guidance to Duke students along their academic and personal journeys.