Okezi Otovo

Bio

Dr. Otovo is Associate Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies and Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. A historian who embraces interdisciplinarity, community engagement, and the connections of past with present, she is author of Progressive Mothers, Better Babies: Race, Public Health, and the State in Brazil, 1850-1945 (University of Texas Press, 2016), a study that connects the history of cultural and medical ideas to the experiences of poor Black families in institutions devoted to public health and social welfare within the context of abolition and state-building. Dr. Otovo is a 2023 Ford Foundation Senior Fellow investigating Black maternity, racial disparities in health, and women’s life experiences in 20th-century Miami for her second book project, “Boldly Embodied: Black Women in 20th Century Miami. Boldly Embodied,” which analyzes Black women’s bodily epistemologies in relation to their life histories. “Boldly Embodied” crafts a complex tapestry of historical analyses and lived experiences to uncover individual and shared knowledge and reflect the ways Black women defined and defended health in a dynamic and, at times, hostile urban environment. At FIU, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Latin America, modern Brazil, Africana Studies, Black Miami, and thematic topics such as gender, race, public health, and the social history of medicine.

A researcher and Black maternal health advocate, Dr. Otovo leads “The Black Mothers Care Plan of South Florida” (BMCP) a major research and community engagement project housed in the FIU Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. The mission of the BMCP is to collaborate with community organizations, doulas and midwives, and clinical providers to improve the quality of maternal care in South Florida. Sponsored by multiple research grants and private foundations, the BMCP is also a Research Center on Maternal Health and member of HRSA’s Maternal Health Research Collaborative. Beyond the university, Dr. Otovo is a member of the Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade’s Healthy Baby Taskforce, the March of Dimes Miami-Dade Collaborative, and the Birth Justice Coalition.