Rate My Professor Antwi Akom

Antwi Akom, Ph.D., is a professor in Africana Studies at San Francisco State University, contributing to the Social Science field since joining the faculty in 2004. He earned a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.A. in Urban Education from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. Akom serves as Founding Director of the joint UCSF/SFSU Social Innovation and Urban Opportunity Lab (SOUL Lab) and as a faculty affiliate with UCSF’s Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. He is also a senior nonresident fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Center for Community Uplift, founder and CEO of DOPE Labs, and co-founder of Streetwyze, a mobile mapping and SMS platform for real-time community-generated data integrated with predictive analytics. His extensive career includes developing technology projects that empower health care providers, hospitals, community-based organizations, and cities to track health equity, improve service delivery, and address vulnerable populations' needs.

Akom’s research focuses on the intersection of science, technology, spatial epidemiology, community development, health communications, medical sociology, ethnic studies, and African American studies, specializing in health, medicine, nutrition, social and spatial epidemiology, urban planning, and climate justice. He advances health information technologies, GIS, people sensing, mobile platforms, data democratization, and community-engaged design to promote health literacy, equitable economic development, and digital resiliency. Key publications include 'YPAR 2.0: How Technological Innovation and Digital Organizing Sparked a Food Revolution in East Oakland' (Qualitative Studies in Education, 2016); 'Turning Adversity into Opportunity: Ghettos and Slums as Hotbeds of Green Innovation' (United States Green Building Council Journal, 2015); 'Eco-Apartheid: Linking Environmental Health to Educational Outcomes' (Teachers College Record, 2011); 'Black Emancipatory Action Research: Integrating a Theory of Structural Racialization into Participatory Action Research Methods' (Ethnography and Education, 2011); and 'Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy as Liberatory Praxis' (Equity and Excellence in Education, 2009). Akom has garnered major awards, including White House Frontiers Conference recognition (2016), Knight News Challenge Finalist (2015), Echoing Green Finalist (2013), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections Award (2011-2013), and Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions Award (2010-2011). His work, supported by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, has been featured in CityLab, TechCrunch, The Root, and his TEDx talk 'Innovation Out of Poverty,' fostering collaborations with the Obama Administration, Google, PolicyLink, and Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities.