Dr. Akani earned her medical degree at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and her MPH at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She completed her residency in 2020 at George Washington University/Children's National Medical Center and then stayed on as a hospitalist and served as Co-Director of the Global Child Health Course. Recognizing the importance of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in medicine, Dr. Akani mentored pediatric medical students from underserved communities through the Advancing Diversity in Academic Pediatrics Program. She has continued her work with underserved groups by developing protocols, providing patient care and developing case studies in Lagos, Nigeria.

Dr. Akani shared: “Growing up in Nigeria, I witnessed friends and family struggle with the sequelae of sickle cell disease, not fully appreciating the breadth of its morbidity. I also had a close family friend pass away from cancer, leaving his family behind, devastated. These exposures early in life solidified my interest in hematology and oncology, while my medical training and subsequent clinical experience has prepared me to make impactful change in the field.”

Witnessing stark disparities in healthcare outcomes of marginalized populations in Nigeria, Kenya and the UK sparked Dr. Akani’s interest in global health. While at Children’s National, she was part of a team that developed an equity impact assessment tool for the Building Equity in Graduate Medical Education Initiative. In addition, she honed her research skills through the Health Services Research Training Program at Children’s National, studying the association between social needs, healthcare utilization and asthma. Dr. Akani recently had an abstract accepted for presentation at both the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in Colorado and the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Conference in California. Looking ahead, Dr. Akani hopes to one day develop pediatric hematology and oncology training programs for health providers in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the eventual goal of building a comprehensive training center.