Ijeoma Opara, PhD, LMSW, MPH

Dr. Ijeoma Opara is an Associate Professor of Public Health in the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the School of Public Health. She is also the founder and director of the Substances & Sexual Health Lab (www.oparalab.org). Her research interests focus on HIV/AIDS, STI, and substance use prevention for urban youth, racial and gender specific prevention interventions for Black girls, and community-based participatory research with urban youth. Dr. Opara has received many awards for her work in prevention research from the American Public Health Association, National Council on Family Relations, and AcademyHealth. Most recently, Dr. Opara received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor given to early career scholars. She also received the 2023 NIDA Director's Pioneer Award to conduct community-based participatory work using machine learning/artificial intelligence to predict substance use disorders in Paterson and East Orange, New Jersey. This work supported the development of The SASH Lab at Yale Summer Youth Research Program which trains youth in New Jersey to be citizen scientists and learn about using public health and data science in substance use prevention. In 2020, Dr. Opara was named the NIH Director's Early Independence Award, which funds her 5-year community-based study on youth substance use, mental health outcomes, and neighborhoods in Paterson, New Jersey. The Early Independence Award is given to junior scientists through the High Risk-High Reward program, whom who have demonstrated exceptional ability to engage in independent research and Dr. Opara was the first social worker to ever receive this award.

Dr. Opara's teaching experiences includes her former appointment as an Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare from 2019-2021, where she taught graduate-level child and family social work practice courses. She also worked as an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of Social Work teaching a graduate level adolescent development course and at Rutgers University Bloustein School of Planning & Social Policy where she taught an undergraduate social justice in public health course.

Dr. Opara received her PhD in Family Science & Human Development at Montclair State University, a Master of Social Work from New York University (with a specialization in Primary & Behavioral Health Integrated Care), a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from New York Medical College, and a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology from New Jersey City University. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Opara received an external pre-doctoral fellowship from the Behavioral Sciences Training on Drug Abuse Research housed at New York University funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse which funded her dissertation research and doctoral training.