Rachel Hardeman

Black people in the U.S. are three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white people. Hardeman studies how racism contributes to this disparity and works to narrow the gap — for example, by developing birthing centers that put patients’ culture at the center of care. Last year, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Hardeman argued that restricting abortion access would further widen birth inequities by forcing more Black people to carry pregnancies to term, a riskier path for them than for white people. “When we eliminate choice from the lives of people who have not had much choice to begin with,” she said, “we are going to exacerbate inequities across the board.”