Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha

Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha is the Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is also the founder and Director of the Center of Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice (CBMHRJ), and of the Maternal Outcomes of Translational Health Equity Research (MOTHER) Lab. In addition, she founded the largest conference on Black maternal health in the United States held annually in April during Black maternal health week. In its seventh year, the conference attracts participants from over 46 states and 10 countries.

Dr. Amutah-Onukagha focuses on maternal health disparities, infant mortality, reproductive health, social justice, and the impact of HIV/AIDS on Black women. A prolific author, her work has been published in over 80 manuscripts, six book chapters, a best-selling book on Amazon, and a textbook on culturally responsive evaluation. Her contributions have also been featured on prominent platforms such as The Lancet, TEDx, USA Today, MSNBC, and The New York Times.

Dr. Amutah-Onukagha holds the position of inaugural Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Tufts’ Public Health and Professional Degree Programs and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Women’s Health Issues. She is the Principal Investigator of two major multi-year studies on maternal mortality and morbidity: an NIH-funded R01 study and an interdisciplinary maternal health equity project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Additionally, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha is the DEI training director for the KL2 and BIRCWH fellowship programs at the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). She actively collaborates as a co-investigator on several research projects alongside teams at Tufts Medical Center, Brandeis University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Harvard Medical School.

In 2022, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha was honored with the John MacQueen Lecture Award from the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs. She was also recognized as one of the Top 40 Under 40 Minority Leaders in Healthcare by the National Minority Quality Forum in 2020. A founding member of Birth Equity Justice MA, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha actively contributes as a board member for both the Neighborhood Birth Center in Boston and Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project (DSMAP). In 2019, she received the American Public Health Association’s Maternal and Child Health Section Young Professional of the Year Award, and she co-chairs the section’s Perinatal and Women's Health Committee.

Dr. Amutah-Onukagha received her Master of Public Health from The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services before completing her PhD in Public Health from the University of Maryland. She also completed the Kellogg Health Scholars postdoctoral fellowship with an emphasis on community-based participatory research and health disparities.