We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Keisha Bentley-Edwards as the new Bass Connections Theme Leader for Race & Society, led by the Social Science Research Institute.

Dr. Bentley-Edwards brings a wealth of experience and insight to this role. She is the Associate Director of Research for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and an Associate Professor at Duke University’s School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine. She also serves as Co-Director of Duke’s CTSI Center for Equity in Research.

Her research explores how racism, gender, and culture influence health and education outcomes across the lifespan, with a particular focus on African American communities. Dr. Bentley-Edwards emphasizes cultural strengths and works to eliminate structural barriers that stand in the way of healthy development in families, schools, and communities. She’s known for fostering thoughtful, sometimes challenging conversations around race and racism, conversations that move beyond identifying disparities to developing real strategies for change in areas such as infant and maternal health, cardiovascular and kidney disease, and education.

The Race & Society theme examines how race shapes nearly every part of our lives, from where we live and learn to how we work and play. While science shows that race has no biological basis, the social realities of race have powerful and lasting consequences. Deep racial inequities are rooted in long histories of racism embedded in our institutions, norms, and everyday practices.

Through Bass Connections in Race & Society, interdisciplinary teams of faculty, students, and community partners tackle these challenges head-on, exploring how race intersects with areas like health, education, policy, the arts, STEM, and beyond. Together, they aim to generate new knowledge and develop actionable solutions that build toward a more racially equitable society.