My name is Hadyatou Diallo, and I go by Hadya (ha-DEE-yah). I am a first-generation Black African woman of Fulani lineage, with roots in Labe, Guinea. I grew up in the suburbs of metro Atlanta in the Bible Belt, where religion, faith, culture, and respectability shaped what could be said out loud, especially about bodies, desire, and sexuality. Like many people raised in that context, I experienced how restricted sex education does not eliminate sexuality but instead pushes it into silence, misinformation, and risk. Those early experiences shaped the questions I now carry as a scholar.

Two years after graduating high school, I enlisted in the United States Army. That decision, and the years that followed, deeply shaped how I understand discipline, hierarchy, the body, and the costs of institutional silence. The military was not only a career path but a site of lived knowledge that continues to inform how I listen and what I refuse to overlook.

I am a mother, a U.S. Army combat veteran, an Army spouse, and a sexual health educator, currently based in Washington State. I am also a scholar whose work is informed by these intersecting roles. They shape how I understand systems, care, responsibility, and what people need in order to thrive.

My research focuses on sexual health, bodily autonomy, and institutional power, with particular attention to military contexts. I am interested in what institutions prepare people for and what they leave unaddressed, and how those omissions shape health, safety, and well-being across the life course.