Antwi Akom, Ph.D., is a star professor at San Francisco State University for his ability to bring
together health, science, technology and innovation in the first College of Ethnic Studies in the
United States. For example, recently Dr. Akom was a part of a $17 million National Science
Foundation SF Build grant, led by Dr. Leticia Marquez-Magana of San Francisco State and Kirsten
Bibbins-Domingo of University of California, San Francisco, that aimed to create the next generation
of biomedical researchers from low-income communities and communities of color. Currently he is
the recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Pioneer Award (2019) and the PI for a National Science
Foundation Big Data 2 Knowledge award. In addition to these accolades, Dr. Akom said that one
of his greatest honors was being invited by then-President Obama to the White House Frontiers
Conference and being named by his administration as one of the world’s top innovators for his
work in social innovation, health tech, real-time data and community-driven big data. As a formerly
incarcerated person who grew up in a single-parent household, Akom said he never expected to
achieve these forms of success and wants to be an inspiration and hope for others that they too can
do this!
Akom’s 2015 TEDx talk “Innovation Out of Poverty” further solidified his “star” status as a public
intellectual in health, equity and technological innovation. In his talk, he lifts up the power of
innovation and climate justice with women and poor people––people who have innovated their way
out of poverty through hard work, grit and determination.
Fast-forward three years and with the help of Dr. Marquez-Magana, Dr. Bibbins-Domingo and
the SF BUILD project, Akom became the founding director of the Social Innovation and Urban
Opportunity Lab, the first transinstitutional, translational, transdisciplinary research lab between
UC San Francisco and San Francisco State.
At the lab, Akom is finding new ways to inspire hope with our nation’s most vulnerable populations
by leveraging the power of community-driven technology, big data and innovation. In its third year,
the SOUL Lab has grown to engage more than 30 researchers across institutions and affect the lives
of hundreds of students and countless community members across cities, rural spaces and places,
nationally and internationally.
For these reasons and more, we are proud to lift up Akom’s research and scholarship for being a
health tech and eco-visionary—especially with underserved youth, Indigenous communities and
with our nation’s most vulnerable populations. Thank you, Akom, the College of Ethnic Studies, and
the Department of Africana Studies for the inspiring research that you do. And thanks to everyone at
CSU, UC and those working in low-income neighborhoods and communities who continue to believe
in themselves and one another to create agents of change. Keep moving forward. You are inspiring
more people than you know!