Akua O. Gyamerah

Akua O. Gyamerah is a queer Ghanaian activist and internationalist and an Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo. She completed her Master and Doctor of Public Health degrees in Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. As a sociomedical scientist, her work examines how criminalization, political persecution, stigma, discrimination, and other structural violence impact the mental and physical health of queer and trans people in Africa and in diaspora communities.

Over the past decade, Dr. Gyamerah has conducted research in the areas of sexual and gender rights, sexual health, minority stress, and HIV in Ghana and in the U.S. with funding from the Fulbright Program and the National Institutes of Health. Her current research examines how intersectional social stressors affect the mental health and HIV treatment outcomes of gay and bisexual men living with HIV in Ghana. Dr. Gyamerah has also organized around various social justice issues over the past two decades and spends much of her time dreaming of and fighting for a world without borders.