Dr. Rachel R. Hardeman is a tenured Professor in the Division of Health Policy & Management at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, the Blue Cross Endowed Professor in Health and Racial Equity, and the Founding Director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity (CARHE, pronounced “care”). She serves as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the CDC, and she was named one of TIME’s 2024 TIME100 most influential people in the world. A racial health equity researcher, she studies a critical and complex determinant of health inequity—racism. Her work contributes to a body of knowledge that links structural racism to health in tangible ways, identifies opportunities for intervention, and dismantles the systems, structures, and institutions that allow inequities to persist.

Dr. Hardeman leverages the frameworks of critical race theory and Reproductive Justice to inform her equity-centered work, which aims to build the empirical evidence of racism’s impact on health. Her published work has elicited important conversations on the topics of culturally-centered care, police brutality and structural racism as a fundamental cause of health inequities.

Since founding CARHE in 2021, Dr. Hardeman has built upon a foundation of authentic community and academic partnerships, deepening her work with Reproductive Justice and expanding into new areas. CARHE’s research projects encompass maternal and infant health, adolescent and child health, older adult health, innovative measurements of structural racism, economy and labor, and criminal justice. Narrative change is also a core mission at CARHE, and the team actively engages in serving as trusted resources for journalists, policy makers, and community members in Minnesota and across the U.S.