Scholarship
Research & Scholarship
Investigating the effects of structural violence on health and using genomics to understand resilience in African American women and families.
“The body remembers what the mind tries to forget. Our DNA carries the weight of generations.”
— Dr. Ruby Mendenhall
South Chicago Black Mothers' Resiliency Project
This groundbreaking study interviewed approximately 100 single mothers living in high-violence neighborhoods. Using genomic tools, the project examined how stress "gets under the skin" to affect the immune system and how resilience can mitigate these effects.
Key Finding: Mothers who perceived their neighborhoods as unsafe showed greater expression of genes regulated by the glucocorticoid receptor, negatively impacting immune system and metabolism.
Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program
Research on one of the nation's largest desegregation programs, examining the long-term effects of residential mobility on economic independence and social networks for Black women.
Recovering Black Women's History
Utilizing advanced supercomputing at NCSA to recover and amplify the voices of Black women silenced by history, analyzing millions of documents to reconstruct historical narratives.