Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor

Dr. Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor is an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies with courtesy appointments in Early Childhood Education and Psychology. She also serves as a Faculty Scholar at the Institute for Research and Policy and the Population Research Center. Her interdisciplinary research examines how ecological systems, including family resources, early learning environments, and community conditions, shape the developmental experiences of Black children from birth through early elementary school. She focuses on how contextual factors support or constrain children’s academic, social, and emotional wellbeing, and how promotive processes within families, classrooms, and communities foster optimal development.

Her scholarship bridges developmental science, quantitative methods, and early childhood policy, with the aim of generating evidence that strengthens early learning systems and enhances children's everyday environments. Through multi-year grant-funded projects, Dr. Ibekwe-Okafor collaborates with state agencies and national organizations to improve early care and education quality, assess sociocultural interactions in classrooms, and develop innovative tools such as AI-driven and virtual reality-based assessments of young children's social and emotional skills. Her work has been published in leading journals such as Child Development, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Journal of Social Issues, and Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Quantitative Methods from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ed.M. in Prevention Science from Harvard University, and an M.S.W. from Columbia University. In her undergraduate studies, she majored in African American Studies and Sociology and was a NCAA Division I volleyball player at the University of California, Davis.