Kafui Dzirasa is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Duke University School of Medicine, and his research interests focus on understanding how changes in the brain produce neurological and mental illness. Kafui completed a PhD in Neurobiology at Duke University, where his graduate work led to several distinctions including: the Somjen Award for Most Outstanding Dissertation Thesis, the Ruth K. Broad Biomedical Research Fellowship, the UNCF·Merck Graduate Science Research Fellowship, and the Wakeman Fellowship. While subsequently completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the department of Neurobiology, Kafui also obtained an MD from the Duke University School of Medicine.

Kafui is a product of the nationally renowned Meyerhoff Scholarship program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), where he was conference champion in the long jump, an Academic All-American, and Student Body president.

He has served on the Board of Directors of the Student National Medical Association: a national organization dedicated to the eradication of health care disparities. Through his service as Chapter President, Region IV Director and National Internal Affairs Committee Chair, Kafui has participated in numerous programs geared towards exposing youth to science and technology, providing health education for minority communities, and organizing clinics to screen for chronic diseases. Kafui received the Charles Johnson Leadership Award in 2007, and was recognized as one of Ebony magazine’s 30 Young Leaders of the Future in February 2008.

Kafui’s ultimate goal is to combine his research background, medical training, and community experience to improve outcomes for underserved communities suffering from Neurological and Psychiatric illness.