On a quiet Wednesday morning, this past July, I welcomed my son and 4th child, to the world. Two days later, on a Friday morning, my 10-year-old nephew, transitioned from this life to the next. The ring of fire with the birth of my baby was severe and unlike any other pain I experienced with my other three labor experiences. But the pain I experienced was much less compared to the tears, and screaming I heard over the phone as the cops worked to tear my sister apart from her deceased son. If becoming a mother and surviving the journey…

When future historians look back at the moment we are currently living through, special emphasis will be given to what black women in academia did or did not do to address the weight of racial traumas that choke us on a daily basis. Audre Lorde, in her essay On the Transformation of Silence…, noted that “what is most important, must be spoken, made verbal and shared at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” …

By Angele Kingue

Growth, they say, lies in the careful balance between reality and possibility, an ever-delicate balance between what is and what is possible. As a mother, you want to teach your child about reality, about the ways of the world — all the while making sure that you nurture the dreams you see in his eyes, the sense of possibility you see in the careful way he leans on his guitar, the focus he brings to his artwork, to that poem he just wrote, to the thousandth repetition of his hook jump. …

In 2018, I co-published a book entitled Public Health, Disease and Development in Africa with Dr. Ezekiel Kalipeni (and Drs. Diana Grigsby-Touissant and Imelda Moise). Dr. Kalipeni was one of the few African health geographers in the US, well-loved and respected by many. He passed away in Malawi on April 11th, 2020. He was 66.

Dr. Kalipeni was the first professor I met when I arrived at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) campus in August 2013 to start a new job as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. Prior to my arrival (in February 2013), and upon advice from…

For the past four years, Ucheoma Nwaozuru was my doctoral student. Toni Morrison once told her students, “if you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” It has been an honor and a privilege to have had the chance to empower Ucheoma as her PhD advisor. On May 14th, 2020, she became Dr. Ucheoma Nwaozuru. …

Nine years ago, on May 15th, 2011, I graduated from Penn State University with a doctoral degree from the department of Biobehavioral Health with a minor in Demography. Ted Koppell, the famous anchor for ABC’s Nightline show, once told 5000 graduates at the University of Pennsylvania, that “the purpose of a university is not to transform society but to enable individuals to transform themselves.” My doctoral degree, under the guidance of my PhD mentor, Dr. Airhihenbuwa, transformed my life.

When I started the program, Dr. Airhihenbuwa introduced me to Dr. Rhonda Belue, an Assistant Professor in Health Policy and Administration…

At some point in 2005, I began to feel an uneasiness about my future. I was on the verge of graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Development and Family Studies, with a minor in Sociology from Penn State University, with no clue as to what job or career I would end up in. This is a story of how I ended up in global health or what Robert Beaglehole and Ruth Bonita, define as a “collaborative trans-national research and action for promoting health for all.”

Global health at that time, seemed to be the most important, rewarding, inspiring work…