Biography
Donald Warne, MD, MPH, joined the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health as Co-Director on September 1, 2022. He is an acclaimed physician, one of the world’s preeminent scholars in Indigenous health, health education, policy and equity as well as a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Dr. Warne will also serve as Johns Hopkins University’s new Provost Fellow for Indigenous Health Policy.
Warne comes from a long line of traditional healers and medicine men, and is a celebrated researcher of chronic health inequities. He is also an educational leader who created the first Indigenous health-focused Master of Public Health and PhD programs in the U.S. or Canada at the North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota, respectively. Warne previously served at the University of North Dakota as professor of Family and Community Medicine and associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as director of the Indians Into Medicine and Public Health programs at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Warne’s career is informed by rich work and life experiences. He served the Pima Indian population in Arizona as a primary care physician and later worked as a staff clinician with the NIH. He has also served as Health Policy Research director for the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, executive director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, and faculty member at the Indian Legal Program of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Warne has received many awards recognizing his research accomplishments, educational leadership, and service work, including the American Public Health Association’s Helen Rodríguez-Trías Award for Social Justice and the Explorer’s Club 50 People Changing the World. Warne received a Bachelor of Science degree from Arizona State University, Doctor of Medicine degree from Stanford University’s School of Medicine, and a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.