Akilah joined the Room to Grow team in 2015 and has held several roles in the areas of program operations, external relations, and evaluation, before being appointed Executive Director of Room to Grow New York in June 2018 and Chief Executive Officer in 2020. With a deep desire to achieve health equity for all families and local communities, Akilah began her career in research at the renowned Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City and its affiliated nonprofit, the Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine (FOCOS). While at FOCOS, she gained extensive fundraising and development experience and was a member of the team that opened the first modern orthopedic hospital in West Africa. Akilah holds a Master’s in Public Health from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a Bachelor’s from Brown University. She is an alum of the Princeton AlumniCorps Emerging Leaders program and currently serves on the Executive Board of veteran mental health nonprofit Operation: Heal Our Heroes.