Dr. Adaobi Anakwe (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Health Management and Policy at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. Her research examines the effects of intersecting roles/identities, social, structural, and political determinants on Black men’s transition to fatherhood and health outcomes using culturally grounded quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches. She is motivated by her lived experience as a Nigerian-born female working among Black populations locally and internationally, and her academic training in Epidemiology and Health Promotion and Policy. Dr. Anakwe uses a strengths-based approach that leverages community resources and spaces in which Black men are already engaged, with the overarching objective to empower them to own their reproductive choices and decisions. The goal of her work is improving health outcomes for men themselves and as a result improving lifetime health of mothers, children and their communities at large. The Changemakers in Family Planning grant will accelerate her career by supporting the development of a body of research that illuminates contraceptive decision-making processes among Black young adult men (and fathers) and enhances community-led strategies that increase their uptake of family planning interventions with attention to the systemic/structural facilitators and barriers to uptake. She plans to engage in targeted training on male contraception science, contraception use decision-making, and implementation science methods to facilitate contraception uptake among men. Dr. Anakwe seeks to develop a thriving male-centered program of family planning research, that empowers men to make intentional reproductive decisions thus improving long-term health and reducing inequity.