1st & 2nd Quarters 2017

Since its beginning, IWRI has been dedicated to working in partnership with local tribal communities. One early and continuing partnership came about in 2008 when Yakama tribal women and the director of the Indian Education program of the Toppenish School District reached out to the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute (IWRI) to assist with the tribal…

Val Kalei Kanuha is the UW School of Social Work’s new Assistant Dean of Field Education. In a recent conversation, she describes herself as a “returnee” because she is a PhD graduate of the School. Shortly after graduating from the UW SSW in 1997, Kanuha moved to her home state of Hawai’i to take her…

I started the PhD program in the School of Social Work in 2011. As an indigenous person from the Truku Tribal Nation of Taiwan, I am very fortunate to have been mentored by indigenous and allied non-indigenous scholars at the UW. I especially want to thank IWRI faculty, Dr. Tessa Evans-Campbell, Dr. Karina Walters, Dr….

Lucy Smartlowit-Briggs is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes & Bands of the Yakama Nation and of Mexican descent. She is the parent of two offspring, Taos (age 19) & Cordy (age 17), and she has a military spouse. For fun, Lucy enjoys watching true crime shows, petting other people’s dogs, reading graphic novels,…

I RARO I TE ATARAU KAROHIROHI: E WHAKATERE HAERE ANA NGĀ WAKA I TE MOANA-NUI-Ā-KIWA (BY THE SHIMMERING LIGHT OF THE MOON: SEA VESSELS ARE NAVIGATING THE SHARED WATERS AND KNOWLEDGES OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN) Please join us in welcoming the 2017 Mahina cohort. The Mahina International Indigenous Health Research Training Program is a partnership…

Friday, January 27, 2017, the wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House was full of students, faculty, and community members who gathered to celebrate the works and narratives of indigenous women-identifying scholars. “The voice of indigenous women is an important one,” said Casey Wynecoop, the administrative coordinator at the Intellectual House. “Their role in American Indian, Alaska Native, and…

Neftali Salazar (Latino) Hello, my name is Neftali Salazar, I’m from Walla Walla, Washington. I am a Latino, a first-generation college student, and the first in my family to graduate from high school. I am an undergraduate pre-dental student here at the UW. I worked at IWRI as a Research Assistant during the past academic…

The Vr2L 2Spirit project is a culturally grounded, online HIV prevention intervention for Native American men who have sex with men(MSM). The intervention facilitates positive sexual health behaviors and promotes HIV risk harm reduction strategies. We are actively recruiting participants nationally to test the private Vr2L 2Spirit Island within Second Life® (a free, 3D virtual…