Dr. Catherine McKinley is an associate professor at the Tulane School of Social Work who has dedicated her career to understanding resilience among Indigenous peoples of the southeastern United States.  In close collaboration with two tribes of the Gulf Coast, she developed the Framework of Historical Oppression, Resilience, and Transcendence, a culturally-grounded approach to understanding the persistence of physical and mental health disparities experienced by Indigenous peoples. Through the application of this framework, Dr. McKinley aims to develop and adopt a culturally relevant, strengths-based approach to protect and promote the health and well-being of Indigenous communities.

Dr. McKinley is a former scholar of the Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) program, where she was a mentee of MAC Director Dr. Katherine Theall and others. The BIRCWH program is dedicated to promoting research, transferring findings related to Women's Health, and providing mentored career development for junior faculty. Now a BIRCWH Associate, Dr. McKinley, was recently awarded a $2.7 million National Institute of Health (NIH) grant to reduce substance abuse and violence among people of the Choctaw Nation. Read more about this exciting work HERE.