Dara Mendez, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. She has over 12 years of research experience in the areas of health disparities, epidemiology, maternal and child health, and social determinants of health. She earned her M.P.H. and Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in maternal and child health epidemiology and her B.A. in sociology and anthropology at Spelman College. Her research focuses on the intersection between stress, neighborhood contexts and institutional racism as key in un