September 15, 2015

Visiting Scholar Ethel Nicdao, PhD

Ethel G. Nicdao, PhD, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, spent February through April 2015 as a visiting scholar at IWRI. Ethel was pleased to return to the UW-SSW where she held a post-doctoral fellowship from 2005-2007. Mentored by Dr. Bonnie Duran, she had the opportunity to observe the way IWRI operates and manages community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects. While at IWRI, Ethel was particularly interested in conducting secondary data analyses from the Research for Improved Health (RIH) project, a national CBPR project conducted from 2009 to 2014 by the National Congress of American Indians, the University of New Mexico and the UW.

Dr. Nicdao’s research sabbatical at IWRI was valuable in many ways. She benefited from Bonnie Duran’s mentorship, which was instrumental in helping her identify her research questions for the RIH paper. In addition, she contributed to writing a draft manuscript based on the Honor Project, a health survey of two-spirit Native Americans that was conducted by IWRI personnel from 2002 to 2007. Ethel is grateful for the incredibly supportive IWRI faculty and staff. She hopes to maintain the collaborative connections she made with IWRI researchers and looks forward to partnering with IWRI in the future.