Iheoma U. Iruka, Ph.D., is a tenured Professor in the Department of Maternal Child Health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Public Policy, and the Founding Director of the Equity Research Action Coalition at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) at UNC. Dr. Iruka is an applied developmental psychologist who is focused on ensuring that racially minoritized children and children from low-income households thrive through anti-bias, anti-racist, and culturally grounded mixed-methods approaches.
Through her center, the Equity Research Action Coalition at FPG, Dr. Iruka’s action-oriented research-to-policy and practice focuses on (1) early childhood research and evaluation attending to the healthy, academic, and socio-emotional development of racially minoritized children and children from low-income communities, (2) equitable policies that advance health, wealth, and early educational equity, (3) mentoring and training of emerging scholars from minoritized communities, and (4) translation of science to counter deficit-oriented research, practice, and policy regarding minoritized communities.