Eleanor Seaton

Dr. Eleanor K. Seaton is a product of the Great Migration with ancestral roots in the Mississippi delta, and hails from Chicago's Southside. Dr. Seaton earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master's degree in Social-Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Seaton also earned a doctorate in Developmental Psychology from Temple University and completed post-doctoral work at the Program for Research on Black Americans at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Seaton's research agenda focuses on culturally-relevant risk and protective factors, and their impact on mental health outcomes among Black American children, adolescents and young adults. For over two decades, Dr. Seaton's reserach has focused on the role of racism in the lives of Black youth. Recently, Dr. Seaton has expanded her research program with incorproation of physiological outcomes with racism related experiences to understand how “racism gets under the skin.” Dr. Seaton has also shifted downward to middle childhood to understand the intersection of pubertal development, race-ethnicity and gender among Black children and pre-adolescents. Dr. Seaton utilizes quantitative, qualitative, mixed-method and ecological momentary assessment techniques to conduct interdisciplinary research while relying on developmental, social psychological, public health, sociological and Black feminist theories. Dr. Seaton's ultimate goal is to uncover how racism related experiences at the individual level result in various societal disparities (e.g., health, educational, criminal justice, wealth) among the Black American population. Dr. Seaton is a former co-host of a television segment, titled Break it Down on AZ PBS where she discussed how racism impacts various facets of society.  Dr. Seaton has a tendency to journal, travel, bake desserts, shop, read, watch movies and dance to Chicago style house music when relaxing.