Professor
Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, United States
Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan, Dr.PH., M.P.H.
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Dr. Jernigan is the director of the Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy and a professor in the Department of Rural Health within the Center for Health Sciences at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Jernigan has been the principal investigator for more than a dozen research studies focusing on improving Indigenous food environments through policy and systems interventions. She also directs the Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity, an academic-community partnership with American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders to restore traditional foods and food practices to promote healthy diets and reduce chronic disease. In 2011, she became the inaugural chair of the National Cancer Institute’s Intervention Research to Improve Native Health initiative, a collaboration of NIH-funded investigators conducting intervention science research. Dr. Jernigan is a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research College of Reviewers, the American Public Health Association, the Society for Public Health Educators, and the Society for Prevention Research. She is an editorial board member for the scientific journals Health Promotion Practice and Progress in Community Health Partnerships. Dr. Jernigan is a member of the CDC Fries Prize Award Jury, a member of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Unequal Treatment in Healthcare Advisory Committee. Dr. Jernigan received her Dr.PH. from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular disease risk reduction at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford School of Medicine. She is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
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Wednesday, October 11, 2023
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM ET