Janaiya Reason is a community engagement manager for Deeply Rooted, a program of the Urban Health Lab in Penn Medicine’s Center for Health Justice. Janaiya oversees and manages relationships of a network of community partnerships, leads engagement and outreach, and runs the Community Green Grants microgrant program. 

Janaiya is a West Philadelphia native. She earned her master’s in public health from the University of Pennsylvania and undergraduate public health degree from Temple University, with a concentration in community health. Her research interests include social determinants of health and their impacts on communities, developing behavioral and place-based interventions for vulnerable populations, health disparities, and environmental justice. Her prior research experience and areas of focus have included leading multicenter (clinical and community-based) studies, mixed-methods research, mobile health interventions, HIV/STI prevention and education, mental health, genitourinary malignancies and kidney transplantation.