Eniola Okon
Eniola Okon is a junior at Brown University pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health. She is passionate about reproductive justice, with a particular interest in maternal and infant health. She plans to pursue a career in medicine and research and hopes to improve maternal health outcomes for marginalized women.
As a member of the 2026 SUMR cohort, Okon works on two research projects focused on maternal and child health and increasing oncologist engagement in discussions about breast cancer clinical trials. Under the mentorship of Dr. Sagori Mukhopadhyay, she analyzes variations in care delivery related to mother-infant separation during maternal viral illness within the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia newborn care network.
For her second project, under the mentorship of Dr. Carmen Guerra, she helps develop a framework for understanding how discussions about breast cancer clinical trials occur during clinical encounters. Her work centers patient experiences and involves qualitative data collection, coding, and statistical analysis.
Okon is also a research assistant at the Brown University School of Public Health under Dr. Lauren Micalizzi, where she studies the impacts of cannabis use on postpartum mental health outcomes and mother-infant bonding. Additionally, she serves as a site leader for Brown’s Sexual Health Advocacy through Peer Education (SHAPE) organization, through which she works as a sex educator for high school students in Providence.
In her free time, she enjoys dancing with her modern African dance group, lobbying for Planned Parenthood at the Rhode Island State House, editing for the Black Star Journal, café hopping with friends, and going on culinary crawls.