Enobong (Anna) Branch

Anna (Enobong) Branch, PhD, is a scholar and strategist who helps move organizations and leaders from well-meaning to well-doing. She previously served as the senior vice president for equity at Rutgers University, providing strategic leadership to foster an inclusive organizational climate. 

A professor of sociology, Dr. Branch's commitment to advancing equity extends to academic research on labor and work that explores the historical roots and contemporary underpinnings of racial and gender inequality. She is the coauthor of Black in America: The Paradox of the Color Line (2020), the editor of Pathways, Potholes, and the Persistence of Women in Science: Reconsidering the Pipeline (2016), and the author of Opportunity Denied: Limiting Black Women to Devalued Work (2011). Most recently, she authored Work in Black and White: Striving for the American Dream. 

Prior to joining Rutgers University, Dr. Branch served as associate chancellor for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Her significant accomplishments in that role included leading the integration of diversity throughout the campus strategic plan, executing the university’s campus climate survey, creating diversity infrastructure through climate advisors in executive areas and diversity officers in schools and colleges, and leading the National Science Foundation-funded ADVANCE program pursuing innovative organizational change strategies to spur institutional transformation and support racial and gender equity in the faculty ranks. 

A sought-after national expert, her public opinion pieces have appeared in the New Jersey Star-Ledger (nj.com) and national outlets, such as Bloomberg and The Washington Post. Dr. Branch received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University at Albany, SUNY, and her B.S. in biology from Howard University.

Black Bodies, Black Health is a research project, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Through seed grants, workshops, conferences and both scholarly and public writing, Black Bodies, Black Health incentivizes humanists, social scientists, and biomedical researchers to engage in interdisciplinary work to explore and unpack structural racism in service of creating equitable health outcomes.

https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/black-bodies-black-health