Public Health Education Alumna Dr. Shemeka Thorpe is the 2025 recipient of the American Public Health Association Sexual and Reproductive Health Section Early Career Professional Award. In addition, she will also receive the 2025 Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) Lester A. Kirkendall Outstanding Mentor Award in November. The award is given to someone with strong commitment to mentorship that promotes knowledge and skill-building; helps advance the mentee’s

PFPT is defined as a specialized treatment focused on strengthening and rehabilitating the pelvic floor muscles to improve bladder and bowel control, reduce pain, and enhance sexual function. It also plays a vital role in prenatal and postnatal recovery , pelvic organ stabilization, and rehabilitation after pelvic surgeries. Despite its proven benefits, the study highlights racial and ethnic disparities  in pelvic health knowledge and treatment access. Black women are less li

This article serves as an editorial recognition, announcing the Reviewer of the Year  and Best Article of the Year  awards for the journal's 2024 publication cycle. It outlines the selection process, acknowledging the reviewers and contributing authors whose work embodied high standards of scholarship, critical reflection, and relevance in the field of gender, sexual, erotic, and relational diversity (GSERD). The author highlights how these awards aim not just to honor indivi

This research examines the presence, experiences, and representation of Black women within the pelvic-floor health profession, focusing particularly on the specialty of pelvic-floor physical therapy (PFPT). The study defines PFPT as a treatment approach that strengthens and rehabilitates pelvic-floor muscles to enhance bladder and bowel control, reduce pain, and improve sexual function; it also supports prenatal and postnatal recovery, pelvic organ stabilization, and post-ope

Researchers at the University of Kentucky and Morehouse School of Medicine have partnered on a study funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) with a $1.2 million cooperative agreement  to address HIV among Black women. In Kentucky, nearly half of newly diagnosed HIV cases are among Black women, and in metropolitan Atlanta, Black women are about 15 times more likely than white women to be diagnosed with

Shemeka Thorpe, PhD, an assistant professor in the College of Education, is reframing sexual-health research by explicitly centering Black women’s voices and lived experiences  rather than treating them as peripheral or only in a risk-perspective. Her work is described as “sex positive” rather than deficit-based — exploring not just risk and disease (e.g., STIs, pregnancy) but deeper dimensions like sexual pleasure, sexual pain, and patient-provider communication in the conte