Dr. Rachel R Hardeman
Dr. Rachel R Hardeman
ABOUT
WHO I AM Becoming
I am a public health scholar who refused to separate data from devotion.
For nearly two decades, I studied how racism shapes health — tracing patterns in numbers, publishing in journals, building empirical evidence that anti-Black racism is structural, measurable, and deadly.
And then I asked a different question:
What would it look like to build systems rooted not only in critique — but in love?
Now, I am building a creative ecosystem for liberation that translates radical imagination into systems that heal. My work blends data justice, maternal wisdom, and design thinking to ask not only What’s wrong? but What’s possible?
I am not only studying what harms us.
I am building what heals us.
WHAT I Build
Neural Liberation Architecture™
​A healing and systems framework grounded in neuroscience, narrative sovereignty, and ancestral wisdom. It helps individuals and institutions move from survival toward nervous-system safety and collective transformation.
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Radical Imagination as Methodology
A disciplined practice of dreaming beyond harm. Not imagination as fantasy — but imagination as infrastructure.
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Health & Liberation Work
Consulting, curriculum, and intellectual leadership that help organizations confront structural racism while designing toward wholeness.
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Writing & Public Scholarship
Books, essays, and storytelling that braid science with lived experience — because truth is not only statistical; it is embodied.
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At my core, I was born a dreamer — I build worlds. Whether through research, writing, or movement, I return to this belief:
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Every story is a study.
Every dream a data point.
Every act of imagination a method of survival.
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WHERE I COME FROM
The foundation of my work was built in reproductive health equity and population health science. My research helped establish anti-Black racism as a measurable and consequential driver of health inequity, particularly for Black birthing people and their babies.
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In partnership with Roots Community Birth Center in North Minneapolis — one of only five Black-owned freestanding birth centers in the United States — I learned that data without community is incomplete.
That commitment led to the co-development of the MeasuringRacism Data Portal, a tool designed to operationalize structural racism within public health data systems.
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My scholarship has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, PNAS, and Health Affairs, and has informed policy conversations nationally and globally. My public thought leadership has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, CBS News, and STAT News.
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Among my honors:
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TIME 100: Most Influential People 2024
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IRTH Crown Award for Excellence in Reproductive Health Research
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STAT News STATUS List 2023
The work began in academia.
It did not end there.
WHAT GROUNDS ME
Black people are loved. We were made out of love.
Love is not sentiment — it is structure. It is inheritance.
It is survival strategy and future-building force.
It is the love of our ancestors that carried us.
It is the love of ourselves and our communities that will carry us still.
My work is rooted in that truth
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RACHEL HARDEMAN, PHD, MPH | Public Intellectual | Writer & Architect of Liberated Futures | Speaker on Love, Healing & Systems Transformation
Beyond the Work
Outside of my public work, I am an unapologetically proud dance mom — though not that kind of dance mom — the kind who finds joy in nurturing her daughter’s artistry.
I lift weights. Olympic-style. Because lifting a barbell reminds me I can carry what’s heavy — in body and in life.
I am fueled by deep conversation. Energized by my favorite artists, Prince and Lizzo. I believe joy itself is a form of resistance training.
The systems I design are inseparable from the life I live.
I believe imagination is a responsibility.
And I am building spaces where we can practice it together.