Dr. Ijeoma Kola is a visionary leader, scholar, and social entrepreneur. She is the founder and executive director of Cohort Sistas, an innovative nonprofit that advances diversity, equity, and inclusion in doctoral education by providing mentorship, professional development, and socioemotional wellbeing at scale. As a former blogger and content creator, she boasts over a decade of expertise in digital marketing using authentic storytelling to craft captivating campaigns for major brands such as Uber, Best Buy, and Adobe. Additionally, Dr. Kola is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on the history of race and medicine in the twentieth century, and specifically, cultural understandings of health and disease within and for the Black diaspora. Her upcoming book, titled I Can’t Breathe: Racism and the History of Asthma in Black America, examines the evolution of the medical, institutional, and cultural understanding of asthma in Black America throughout the twentieth century, with a particular focus on how Black doctors and asthma sufferers themselves made sense of the disease. Ijeoma Kola earned her bachelor's degree in History and Science from Harvard University and completed her doctorate in Sociomedical Sciences, specializing in the History and Ethics of Public Health, at Columbia University. Born in Nigeria and raised in New Jersey in an immigrant household, Dr. Kola's upbringing instilled in her a profound belief in the transformative power of education. She dedicates herself to advancing educational equity for women of color, working towards a future where higher education truly becomes an equal opportunity for all.