Brief Biography
Dr. Carla Stokes, PhD, MPH provides health education, self-empowerment, and leadership development programs for women, youth and girls through her global speaking, coaching, and educational consulting practice. As a certified personal development coach for women and girls, she specializes in helping ambitious, gifted, and high-achieving young women and girl leaders thrive during adolescence and beyond.
Dr. Carla has devoted decades to public health and youth development programming and is an internationally recognized expert on the impact of media on girls’ health, relationships, identity and sexuality. She is a girls’ empowerment leader and trailblazer with an extensive background in adolescent health and positive youth development.
Through her pioneering research and transformational work as an educator and coach, Dr. Carla passionately helps youth and girls build resilience, make healthy choices, and reach their full potential; empowers parents to communicate effectively with their daughters and help them thrive during adolescence; and prepares educators and concerned adults to deliver effective girls’ programming. As the founder of the A Heart for Girls™ Business Academy, she serves as a business coach and mentor to women who work with girls and teaches her clients how to monetize their passions and build enjoyable and profitable businesses.
For 15 years, Dr. Carla also served as the founder and former Executive Director of Helping Our Teen Girls In Real Life Situations, Inc. (HOTGIRLS)®, an award-winning 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Black young women and girls to develop leadership skills, use their voices and creative talents to create positive social change in their communities, and realize their full potential.
A sought-after, dynamic and memorable speaker, Dr. Carla has lectured widely and delivered powerful messages to diverse audiences of youth, parents, women, researchers, educators, public health practitioners, youth-serving professionals, and concerned adults. She also trains educators, speakers, and coaches in her signature methods that have inspired positive changes in the lives of girls worldwide.
Professional Biography
Carla Stokes, PhD, MPH, affectionately known as “Dr. Carla,” is an internationally recognized women’s and adolescent health and behavior expert, professional youth empowerment speaker and certified success coach. Her personal mission is to help women, youth and girls achieve their personal best in life, make healthy choices and thrive during life’s pressures and transitions.
Girlhood Studies Researcher, Health Educator and Youth Expert
Dr. Carla’s pioneering scholarly research on the intersections between Black adolescent girls’ health and sexuality, identity, and body image with youth culture, hip hop and social media is widely cited and has appeared in scholarly publications, including the international peer-reviewed journal, Culture, Health & Sexuality. Her research and work with girls has also been highlighted in academic books and published in Girl Wide Web 2.0: Revisiting Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity, edited by Sharon Mazzarella and Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (4th Edition), edited by Mindy Stombler, et al. Her digital girls’ studies research and Black girlhood studies publications are assigned as required reading in sexuality studies, digital studies, women’s and girls’ studies, and multidisciplinary courses at institutions around the world ranging from Ivy League universities to small liberal arts colleges.
As an expert on adolescent health and behavior, Dr. Carla has presented her research and community-based work at scientific meetings and national conferences of professional associations including the American Public Health Association, American Anthropological Association and the National Council for Research on Women. She has been featured in national media outlets and popular web sites including The New York Times, Reuters, Fast Company, Woman’s Day, Ebony, Heart & Soul Magazine, Daughters, Real Health: The Black Wellness Magazine, The Crisis, American Sexuality magazine, Yahoo! Parenting, AlterNet, and Feministing.com. She has also been interviewed as an expert on morning shows and television networks around the United States.
Dr. Carla graduated from Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts degree and departmental honors in Psychology. She earned Doctor of Philosophy (with distinction) and Master of Public Health degrees in Health Behavior and Health Equity (with a cognate in Social Work) from the University of Michigan under the advising of Professors Larry Gant and Marcia Inhorn. Her doctoral dissertation research was funded by a competitive Johnson & Johnson Dissertation Grant in Women’s Health and won honorable mention in the University of Michigan Distinguished Dissertation Awards competition (selected from more than 660 dissertations).
Dr. Carla with University of Michigan School of Social Work Professor Dr. Larry Gant at the Rackham Graduate School’s Centennial Doctoral Alumni Lecture sponsored by the Department of Health Behavior & Health Education
At the University of Michigan, Dr. Carla’s doctoral training focused on improving the health of women, teens, girls and communities of color by developing, implementing and evaluating effective programs and strategies to promote healthy choices and behaviors. She also taught courses on women’s health and representations of women in hip hop and popular culture as an instructor in the Department of Women’s Studies. Dr. Carla investigated racial/ethnic health disparities and health policy issues as a National Institutes of Health Doctoral Trainee at the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture & Health, W.K. Kellogg Foundation Health Policy Research Fellow and Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Public Health Fellow. She was one of four distinguished doctoral alumni of the University of Michigan’s Department of Health Behavior and Health Education invited to lecture in honor of the Rackham Graduate School’s Centennial celebration, which showcased noteworthy careers and scholarly work of the University’s graduates.
Dr. Carla completed her Master of Public Health internship and field placement at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Adolescent and School Health. After earning her PhD, she completed a two-year post-doctoral research fellowship at the CDC Division of HIV Prevention, where she conducted research on HIV prevention in communities of color and adolescent girls’ health under the mentorship of senior behavioral scientists. For more than 15 years, she has provided program development, web design, and consulting services to community-based organizations, nonprofits, schools, colleges/universities, and private corporations that reach women, youth, girls and people of color.
Read more about Dr. Carla’s Research & Publications
Learn more about Dr. Carla’s consulting projects
Dr. Carla was the featured speaker at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Smart Girls Expo at the National Keystone Conference in Anaheim, California.
Professional Speaker
A sought-after, dynamic and memorable speaker, Dr. Carla has lectured widely at schools, universities, professional conferences, and youth-serving organizations around the United States. She delivers powerful messages to youth, women, parents, educators, health care and social service professionals, and concerned adults through multimedia keynote addresses, breakout sessions, workshops, retreats, webinars and training programs.
She uses her knowledge, insight, creativity, humor and compassion to address pertinent topics related to women’s and adolescent health, youth development, leadership, academic success, popular culture and media, personal development, relationships and self-empowerment.
Dr. Carla blends her training and research with personal stories of self-discovery and overcoming personal challenges to educate, inspire and encourage her audiences to make positive choices and take responsibility for their actions. Her work has inspired women, youth and girls to make healthy choices, pursue their dreams, and realize their full potential.
Certified Life Coach and Mentor to Young Women and Girls
As a certified life and personal development coach, Dr. Carla combines her extensive training as a behavioral scientist with her real-life experience as a health educator, speaker and mentor to inspire women, youth and girls to become more confident, overcome challenges and achieve their greatest potential. Through private and group coaching sessions, seminars and workshops in person and by phone/Zoom/Internet, she teaches young women and girls new ways of thinking about their lives and encourages them to push through limiting beliefs and pressures that hold them back from achieving their goals and dreams.
Dr. Carla’s coaching clients appreciate her nonjudgmental, compassionate, honest, down-to-earth, humorous and laid back style of communicating, which makes it very easy for women and girls to feel comfortable talking to her about their personal lives, challenges, concerns and dreams. Through a range of coaching modalities, she helps her clients develop resilience, resist negative influences, build healthy relationships with adults and peers, embrace their authentic selves, maximize their strengths and develop a positive self-image. Her unique coaching approach builds on her work as a nonprofit leader, social entrepreneur, researcher and health educator and incorporates media literacy education and positive psychology principles.
Dr. Carla empowers parents and guardians to raise healthy and resilient daughters and shares her expertise, life lessons and advice with young women and girls on a wide range of topics, including academic achievement, college and career planning, decision-making, healthy behaviors, romantic and family relationships, self-esteem, body image, friendship, entrepreneurship, leadership development and goal setting. Dr. Carla’s approach to coaching challenges the common belief that youth need to be controlled by adults. Instead, she partners with young women and girls and focuses on helping them develop their strengths and decision-making skills.
Dr. Carla’s Coaching Programs for Young Women and Girls
Business Coaching, Consulting & Training for Entrepreneurs and Women Who Work With Girls
Dr. Carla developed workshops for the Junior League of Monmouth County, NJ on understanding girl culture, tips for parents on communicating with girls, and delivering effective programs for girls.
Dr. Carla offers workshops, webinars and professional development training to help parents, educators, youth-serving professionals and concerned adults better understand and connect with youth and girls.
She is also passionate about mentoring women and teaching them how to monetize their passion of helping young women and girls so they can do what they love, make a difference AND build profitable businesses.
Click here to find out more about Dr. Carla’s business mentoring and coaching programs for entrepreneurs and woman who work with girls.
Founder of Helping Our Teen Girls In Real Life Situations, Inc. (HOTGIRLS)®
Above: Video clip of Dr. Carla Speaking About HOTGIRLS, Inc., girls’ rights, and girls’ leadership at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights Panel on Women & Girls in October 2011. Click here for more information about this event.
Dr. Carla has mentored and educated youth since her teen years and is a trailblazer in the field of youth development and empowering Black girls. As a young woman coming of age in the hip hop generation, she struggled to develop a positive self-image and overcame low self-esteem, unhealthy body image, peer pressure, academic underachievement, relational aggression, and unhealthy relationships. These experiences serve as the motivation for Dr. Carla’s life’s work and enable her to relate first hand to many of the challenges faced by today’s women, youth and girls.
During her freshman year at Spelman College, Dr. Carla tapped into her passion for health education and youth empowerment while volunteering as a peer health educator and mentor to underserved youth at numerous schools and community organizations in Atlanta, Georgia and Washington, D.C. After realizing that the existing sexuality education and violence prevention curricula needed to be adapted in order to effectively reach her peers in the hip hop generation, she developed her own creative lesson plans and materials that utilized popular TV shows, movies and hip hop/R&B songs and videos to educate teens about sexuality, HIV/AIDS, dating violence and other health and social justice issues. Through these efforts, she recognized the need for youth friendly, age appropriate and culturally relevant health education programs and decided to pursue graduate studies in public health and social work at the University of Michigan.
After completing her Master of Public Health degree and spending a year working as a health consultant in the Washington, DC area, Dr. Carla answered an urgent call to continue her education and dedicate her public health career to improving the health and lives of young women and girls. Shortly after returning to the University of Michigan to pursue her Ph.D., she founded Helping Our Teen Girls In Real Life Situations, Inc. (HOTGIRLS)® in November 2001 with only $20 and a passionate vision for educating youth and empowering disadvantaged young women and girls to realize their full potential.
Since its humble beginnings as an HIV prevention and education initiative for Black young women and girls delivered in a social networking site, HOTGIRLS transformed under Dr. Carla’s leadership into an award-winning youth-driven 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that positively impacted thousands of youth and concerned adults around the United States for 15 years. HOTGIRLS improved the health and lives of underserved young women and girls through leadership development, media education, peer health education and youth activism (HOTGIRLS is no longer operating due to funding challenges).
Dr. Carla is recognized as a pioneer in the use of hip hop, popular culture and social media to reach, educate and uplift youth and girls and promote media literacy and positive images of women and girls in the media and society. She serves as a bridge between youth and those who care about, educate, mentor and advocate for them. Over the years, she has listened to the concerns of countless women, youth, parents, educators and professionals and is recognized for her ability to effectively engage and connect with people of all ages from diverse racial/ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.
HOTGIRLS was known for utilizing hip hop to empower young women and girls and tackle social issues. The program enabled adolescent girls in Atlanta to express themselves and voice their experiences with sexual harassment and gender-based violence by creating and rewriting rap lyrics, and leading workshops to educate their peers and facilitate critical discussions about media messages, sex education, healthy self-esteem, and digital literacy. She worked closely with the “HOTGIRLS Street Team” and partnered with the John H. Harland Boys & Girls Club in Atlanta to help girls record and produce positive versions of popular songs that promoted empowering representations of Black girls and raised awareness about critical issues facing teens.
The archived HOTGIRLS website will be back up and running soon. In the meantime, click here to read about Dr. Carla and the HOTGIRLS Street Team in the New York Times.
Honors & Awards
Over the years, Dr. Carla has been honored for her leadership, achievements and dedication to community service by post-secondary institutions and organizations such as the National Association of University Women, the University of Michigan, and Spelman College.
In recognition of her leadership and service to the Atlanta community, she is a recipient of the Outstanding Atlanta Award. She was also selected as a member of the American Jewish Committee’s Project Understanding Black-Jewish Young Leadership program, which provides an opportunity for Black and Jewish leaders to strengthen community relations in Atlanta.
Current Projects
Dr. Carla is creating educational and personal development products and programs devoted to uniting women and girls and inspiring them to use their voices to create positive social change in their communities.
Purrsonal Interests
Dr. Carla has been passionate about animals since she was a toddler. Her favorite hobbies are reading, dancing, drawing, sewing, fashion illustration, and Pinterest. Her guilty pleasure is entertaining her friends and family with entertaining videos of her quirky pets. When she’s on the road, she enjoys visiting fashion exhibits, shopping, and searching for rare vintage sewing patterns.
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