About Us

Dr. Leeja Carter is a Fulbright Scholar, feminist changemaker, and expert on inclusive and equity-focused practice in health and wellness. Dr. Carter's work has been featured on CNN’s Connect the World, Black News Channel, Salon.com, Self Magazine, Livestrong, Bustle, Women's Health, Pride Magazine, Beauty INC, and Psychology Today. In 2021, Dr. Carter quite literally jumped: she walked away from a 15 - year career as a professor to articulate her applied research and sport psychology practice centering Black women’s health, community health and wellness into her non profit the Coalition for Food and Health Equity where she holds the position of Chief Executive Officer. At CFHE, she toils in racial equity, health, and access often and brings her wide range of skills in research, health and sport equity, development and leading to accomplish practical goals with visionary reach. In building CFHE, she created the Ujamaa Cafe and Ujamaa Well programs: revolutionary food and wellness innovation and access programs that address food and health access, affordability, social service needs, and local small business economic growth. In addition, evolved the Hunger Project program to fulfill the needs of clients across the state of New Jersey, with improved food and delivery quality and soon to the Greater Philadelphia region.

Dr. Carter has presented internationally as well as published peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and popular articles on topics related to feminist sport psychology, black feminist politics, social justice, feminist leadership, gendered racism in sport, inclusion, and diversity. In 2019 she published, Feminist Applied Sport Psychology: From Theory to Practice, an edited text addressing intersectional feminist, womanist, and black feminist praxis in sport psychology. In 2018 she was awarded the Fulbright Specialist Scholar award and served as a Visiting Scholar at London South Bank University (LSBU) on the “This Girl Can” project where she consulted on the center’s work addressing cross-cultural barriers to exercise engagement amongst racial and ethnic girl’s residing in the region.

Dr. Carter received a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University, a Post-Master's Certification in Exercise Science from California University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in Kinesiology with a concentration in the Psychology of Human Movement from Temple University. She is the (Past) Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP)'s Diversity and Inclusion Executive Board Division Head and an AASP Fellow.