Biography
Rachel joined the Center for Indigenous Health in November of 2021 as a Research Associate at the Great Lakes Hub in Duluth, MN. She currently serves as the Family Health Coach Coordinator for the Together Overcoming Diabetes (TOD) study and as Data Manager for both the TOD and Healing Pathways studies.
Rachel is committed to working in partnership with Indigenous communities to achieve health equity, with a focus on culture, resilience, and the social determinants of health. She prefers to use community-based participatory research, social epidemiology, and mixed methods approaches that make space for diverse ways of knowing, as well as multilevel and spatial analyses that encompass a range of individual, interpersonal, community, environmental, structural, and historical influences on health.
Rachel received her MPH in epidemiology from the Colorado School of Public Health in 2020. Rachel’s areas of research interest include food systems and food sovereignty; diabetes prevention and management; substance use prevention and treatment; rural health; and the built environment. Outside of work, Rachel enjoys gardening, baking, hiking, and playing the mandolin.