A research home for racism-focused science.
I AM Research Group was created by Dr. Kevin Ahmaad Jenkins as a research home for the work academic institutions often praise in public but fail to protect, fund, reward, or sustain: rigorous scholarship on racism, Black health, institutional harm, mental health, chronic disease, data justice, and systems of care.
The group exists to conduct studies, build funded research infrastructure, train the next generation of racism-focused scholars, and translate evidence into public knowledge, institutional accountability, and community-facing tools.
Dr. Kevin Ahmaad Jenkins built I AM because the work needed a house.
The institute begins with a clear recognition: racism-focused research requires more than permission. It requires protection, infrastructure, funding strategy, methodological seriousness, and a place where scholars can build without being disciplined for naming the structure.
Academic institutions were not ready to reward the work on racism at the level the work demanded.
Dr. Kevin Ahmaad Jenkins created I AM Research Group after recognizing a persistent contradiction inside academic life: institutions could celebrate the language of equity while still failing to fully fund, protect, and reward rigorous scholarship that directly studies racism as a driver of health, institutional harm, and social conditions.
I AM became the answer to that contradiction. It was designed as a place where racism-focused research could live with dignity, attract funding, train scholars, conduct studies, build data infrastructure, and move into public life without being softened into institutional comfort.
This is a research group for the questions that do not disappear simply because institutions are not ready to ask them well. It is built for Black health, public evidence, community knowledge, scholar formation, and the long work of making racism legible in data, policy, medicine, and systems.
To fund the work institutions hesitate to reward.
I AM Research Group exists because racism-focused research needs a durable infrastructure: a place to develop studies, pursue grants, train scholars, support community participation, collect data, publish findings, and translate evidence into institutional consequence.
The goal is not to wait for academic permission. The goal is to build a research engine with its own standards, partnerships, studies, public data products, scholar pipeline, and funding strategy.
I AM was built to move beyond statements and create a research home where racism-focused work can be protected, funded, and sustained.
We do not wait for institutions to be ready. We build the place where the work can live.
I AM Research Group conducts studies, develops fundable research questions, translates evidence, builds Black health data infrastructure, and creates pathways for scholars who want to study racism directly, rigorously, and publicly.
Built from real research, national review, and public translation.
I AM Research Group grows from Dr. Jenkins’s record of conducting studies, reviewing national scientific work, translating health equity research for public audiences, and building research pathways that connect institutions, communities, and scholars.
CHOP Study Work
Research experience connected to CHOP study activity, including applied, health-facing scholarship that informs the group’s study design and community-engaged approach.
National Academies Review
Reviewed work for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, bringing racism-focused expertise into national scientific review and public health knowledge spaces.
Health Equity Roundtable
Supported social media and public translation work connected to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Health Equity Roundtable.
Next Generation Pipeline
Built to train emerging scholars in racism-focused research, public scholarship, data interpretation, grant thinking, and community-facing evidence.
Studies. Data. Grants. Scholars. Public evidence.
I AM Research Group is built as a full research ecosystem, not a single project or a loose academic interest.
Conduct Racism-Focused Studies
We design and conduct studies on racism, Black health, mental health, chronic disease, caregiving, institutional trust, medical listening, and systems of care.
Build Black Health Data Infrastructure
Through Black Health Co-OP and the Annual State of Black Data Survey, we create public-facing mechanisms for documenting community experience and institutional realities.
Create Fundable Research Pathways
We develop grant-ready research questions, engagement strategies, study designs, dissemination plans, and partnership models for institutions and funders.
Train Racism-Focused Scholars
We train emerging researchers to ask sharper questions, build stronger methods, protect community knowledge, write with force, and translate evidence for public impact.
Move Evidence Into Public Life
We turn research into briefs, reports, social media translation, public scholarship, policy tools, talks, data products, and institutional learning materials.
Study What Institutions Avoid
We examine the systems, decisions, silences, and institutional patterns that shape health and life chances across Black communities.
Training the next generation of racism-focused scholars.
I AM Research Group exists to create a training environment for scholars who want to study racism directly and rigorously. The group teaches emerging researchers how to move from lived questions to research design, from data to public argument, and from scholarship to funded impact.
I AM trains scholars to build questions, methods, writing, grants, and public evidence with rigor and consequence.
Black Health Co-OP
Black Health Co-OP is the group’s central public research and data initiative. It gives I AM a place to organize study recruitment, community participation, Black health data collection, annual survey development, public reporting, and fundable research priorities.
It exists because Black communities deserve more than being extracted from by research systems. They deserve infrastructure that documents experience, protects dignity, returns findings, and builds evidence powerful enough to move institutions.
Fund the work. Study the structure. Train the scholars.
Connect with I AM Research Group about studies, grant partnerships, Black Health Co-OP, the Annual State of Black Data Survey, scholar training, community research, or public evidence products.
