Kanika Harris

Dr. Harris currently serves as the Senior Director of Maternal and Child Health for the Black Women’s Health Imperative. She is a behavioral health scientist by training and sought after expert in health equity, maternal and reproductive health, and evaluation.  She also serves as the maternal health equity advisor for the State of Maryland and the public health expert for the lactation commission in Washington DC.  

Dr. Harris joined the Black Women’s Health Imperative in 2020 as the Director of Maternal and Child Health. At BWHI Dr. Harris leads research, policy, and programming to address health inequities in reproductive and maternal health. Dr. Harris develop NOURISH (New Opportunity to Uncover our Resources Spirit Intuition and Healing) an innovative and comprehensive initiative to increase the birth worker pipeline and provide proximal and structural solutions to maternal health inequities.

Dr. Harris has been featured on CNN, the OWN channel, ProPublica, NPR, and the Washington Post. 

Dr. Harris is also a proud mother of 3 children the world can see, a doula, and a filmmaker.

Dr. Harris received her master’s degree in public health and international development from Morehouse School of Medicine and her PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan.