Indigenous Wellness Research Institute

ETHICS – Academic Panel


August 3, 2017

Tassy Parker, PhD, RN

Tassy Parker, PhD, RN, is an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation and belongs to the Beaver clan. Dr. Parker is a tenured Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine, and Associate Professor of Nursing at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (HSC). She is HSC Associate Vice Chancellor for American Indian Health…


Daniel Dickerson, DO, MPH, (Inupiaq)

Daniel Dickerson, D.O., M.P.H., is Associate Research Psychiatrist at UCLA, Integrated Substance Abuse Programs (ISAP). His research focuses on the development of substance use treatment and prevention programs for American Indian/Alaska Native youth and adults. He is currently co-Principal Investigator on National Institutes of Health-funded study, “Motivational Interviewing and Culture for Urban Native American Youth…


Jada L. Brooks, PhD, MSPH, RN (Lumbee)

Jada L. Brooks, PhD, MSPH, RN (Lumbee) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). She completed her postdoctoral training at the UNC-CH School of Nursing through a National Institute of Nursing Research sponsored T32 training grant (T32 NR007091) Interventions for Preventing and Managing…


Jyoti Angal, MPH, CIP

Ms. Angal (MPH, CIP) is the Director of the Regulatory Knowledge Core within the Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health, funded by NIMHD that provides a platform to bring together tribal communities and health researchers from multiple disciplines to work together in the development of cutting-edge transdisciplinary research that will address the significant health disparities…


Lee Anne Nichols PhD, RN (Cherokee)

Dr. Lee Anne Nichols (Cherokee) is on faculty at The University of Tulsa Health Science Center School of Nursing as an Associate Professor in Community Health Nursing. Her program of research is with American Indian families with developmental disabilities, American Indian nurse leadership, and research ethical protocols with American Indian communities. Dr. Nichols received The…


Melissa L. Walls PhD (Bois Forte and Couchiching First Nations Anishinabe)

Melissa L. Walls Ph.D. (Bois Forte and Couchiching First Nations Anishinabe) is a social scientist committed to collaborative research and has over a decade of experience working with tribal communities in the United States and Canada. Her involvement in community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects to date includes mental health epidemiology; culturally-relevant, family-based substance use prevention…


Rodney C. Haring, PhD, MSW

Rodney C. Haring, PhD, MSW is research faculty at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in the Office of Cancer Health Disparities Research, Cancer Prevention, and Population Sciences. Dr. Haring is also adjunct faculty at the Native American Research and Training Center at the University of Arizona. He is a National Congress of American Indians scholar, past…


Ronny A. Bell, PhD, MS

Dr. Ronny Bell (Lumbee) is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, and Director of the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He currently serves as Chair of the North Carolina American Indian Health Board, and as a member of the American Diabetes Association Health Disparities…


Scarlett Hopkins, RN, MA

Scarlett Hopkins, RN, MA is the Community Engagement & Clinical Support Core Director at the Center for Alaska Native Health research, and is a Research Associate for the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She is a Registered Nurse and received her Master’s Degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of…


July 29, 2017

Irene Vernon, PhD (Mescalero Apache/Yaqui/Mexicana descent)

Dr. Vernon has worked with Native Americans and HIV/AIDS for several decades. She is a member of the Racial and Ethnic Populations Ad Hoc Committee at the National Institute of Health. Dr. Vernon has provided capacity building assistance aimed at mobilizing Native communities around HIV/AIDS prevention throughout the United States. She currently serves on the Scientific and Community Leadership…



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