Myriam Hernandez Jennings is associate director of the Office of Race and Equity Research at the Urban Institute, where she leads internal capacity building to embed equity in research and policy. She is also deputy director of the Community Engagement Resource Center.

Hernandez Jennings has more than two decades of experience creating strong partnerships with local and national health care providers, federal and state funders, systems, and businesses to address the social, economic, and political factors that affect the health of communities of color, low-income communities, and other excluded communities. This includes being director of equity and engagement at Community Catalyst, interim executive director for the Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers, executive director of the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, and regional and national director of several women’s health projects at JSI Research and Training Institute, and board member of the feminist collective Our Bodies Ourselves.

In her local community, Hernandez Jennings leads a town-wide multisectoral network advancing racial, health, reproductive, immigration, and climate justice to address inequities affecting immigrants, people of color, and low-income families.

Hernandez Jennings holds an MA in theology from Andover Newton Theological School, a certificate in maternal and child health from Boston University, a nonprofit management and leadership certificate from Tufts University, and a certificate in diversity, equity, and inclusion from Bentley College.