Leah Lomotey-Nakon, Ph.D.

Education

• Vanderbilt University, PhD
• Vanderbilt Peabody School of Education, MEd
• Vanderbilt Divinity School, MTS
• Emory University, BA

Biography 

Léah Lomotey-Nakon, PhD, MEd, MTS, is a bioethicist who leverages her experience across academic, philanthropic, and corporate healthcare settings to research and advance health care and health philanthropy strategies. She received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Ethics and Society, M.Ed. in Community Development and Action, and M.T.S. in Social Ethics from Vanderbilt University. Her current work focuses on the connections between organizational and public health ethics in the health care industry including complex health systems, health technology, and health philanthropy.

Dr. Lomotey-Nakon specializes in mixed-method approaches that connects humanistic inquiry such as policy hermeneutics to socio-ecological empirical research such as participatory, community-engaged, and arts-based inquiry.  In addition to research and teaching, Dr. Lomotey-Nakon leads projects to help health care organizations and health funders develop equitable and ethical strategies that improve the care experience for those administering, providing, and receiving health care. 

Academic Interests and Research

Organizational bioethics, empirical bioethics, public health, reproductive health, health philanthropy, history of medicine, science and technology, faith and healing (integrative, complementary, traditional, and alternative medicines)

Professional Awards/Activities/Grants and Fellowships

• Scholars Strategy Network, Health Equity Scholar, 2024-2025
• Ignite the Spark Scholars Program - Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, “Laboring in Vein: Religion and Multi-Generational Reproductive Health in the Southern US”, PI, 2024-2026
• Curb Center for Arts & Public Policy Creative Arts Inquiry Grant, PI, 2024, “Duel-as, Birth Workers and Reproductive Flourishing” (Art Exhibit)
• Social Science Research Council, Religion and the Public Sphere Research Grant, PI, 2022-2023 “Dueling with Death” 
• RWJF/Johns Hopkins University – Health Policy Research Scholar, 2017-2021

SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS 

• Lomotey-Nakon, L. (forthcoming). Visionary Bioethics: A Socioecologically Valid Approach to Bioethical Inquiry. (book chapter) 
• Lanphier, E., & Lomotey-Nakon, L. (2023). Birth, trust and consent: reasonable mistrust and trauma-informed remedies. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49(9), 624–625. 
• Lomotey-Nakon, L., & Lanphier, E. (2023). Expanding the Frame: An Afrofuturist Response to Artificial Womb Technology. American Journal of Bioethics, 23(5), 99–101. 
• Lomotey‐Nakon, L. L. (2018). Du Bois’s Decolonial Pragmatism: Teaching Community Psychology Toward Epistemological Liberation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 62(3–4), 364–373. 

POLICY PUBLICATIONS 

• Lomotey-Nakon, L. (forthcoming). A History of Medicaid Maternal and Infant Health Policy: Implications for Present-Day State Policy Development. Prenatal to Three Policy Impact Center 
• Lomotey-Nakon, L. (2024). Postpartum Medicaid Implementation Issue Brief. Afton Bloom. 
• Lomotey-Nakon, L. (2023). Opportunities to Advance Medicaid Coverage for Doula Support. Afton Bloom

Courses Taught at Baylor

REL 4395 Bioethics