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Featured Psychologist: Michelle Johnson-Jennings, PhD, EdM

description Michelle Johnson-Jennings, PhD, EdM, is a member of the Choctaw Nation. Johnson-Jennings is the founding director of the Research for Indigenous Community Health (RICH) Center, associate to the dean for indigenous research, and assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota.

RICH is an interdisciplinary center developed from motivation to reduce American Indian and Alaska Native health disparities and promote protective factors. Johnson-Jennings' expertise lies in biopsychosocial health interventions (including brief cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, and providing integrated care) and in understanding the cultural health beliefs among Indigenous peoples, including traditional healing practices, that serve as protective factors for trauma and stress coping. She has served as co-pi and co-investigator on several NIH and NIDA funded grants involving identifying protective and risk factors and developing Indigenous cultural health interventions to reduce substance abuse and food addiction/obesity in Indigenous communities.

Johnson-Jennings’ research continues to address Indigenous cultural health beliefs that reduce addiction. As an integrated primary care psychologist, she seeks to continue developing culturally-based health interventions to reduce risks associated with historical and present trauma and stress in Indigenous communities. Johnson-Jennings’ therapeutic expertise lies in working with Indigenous communities and decolonizing healing while transforming narratives of trauma. She is also a Fulbright scholar, serves on several international and national advisory committees, mentors students in several countries, and is honored to be the mother of four amazing children.

Sources

Date created: 2018

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