Wynette is a member of the Navajo Nation and a social work doctoral candidate at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Her interests lie in education and development across the lifespan in American Indian/Alaska Native communities with a focus on child maltreatment prevention. Wynette has previous work experience in tribal home-visiting consultation, home-visiting program implementation and evaluation, and student support services in higher education.

Wynette is honored to be a doctoral fellow with the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies and is an alumna of the Council on Social Work Education’s Minority Fellowship Program. As she continues through the Brown School’s doctoral program, Wynette hopes to build on her current understanding of research and teaching practices to develop her approaches to Indigenous methodologies that will prepare her for the dissertation journey and beyond.

Sinko Xinli Wang is a second-year Ph.D. in Social Work student at Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis, and a Licensed Social Worker from China. She is currently a research assistant at the Center for Innovation in Child Maltreatment Policy, Research, and Training. She obtained her Bachelor of Social Work from China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing) in 2017 and her Master of Social Work from Brown School in 2019. Upon graduation, she worked as a case manager and program evaluator in a non-profit organization in Shanghai, China. During three years of working on assessing social services and managing child adoption cases, she was eager to improve child welfare services to prevent children in the foster care system and other vulnerable children from neglect and abuse. Email: wang.xinli@wustl.edu.

Research interests center around working with children, adolescents/youth and families impacted by poverty and poor mental health functioning. Before joining the PhD Program, Flavia worked as the Head of Operations and Research Coordinator at Washington University’s International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD) Field Offices in Uganda for eight years. In this capacity, Flavia implemented multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded studies in Uganda—funded to ICHAD. These studies, include Suubi+Adherence (R01HD074949)—focused on treatment and adherence for children living with HIV/AIDS (https://ichad.wustl.edu/suubiadherence); Suubi4Her (R01MH113486)—focused on keeping young girls from poor families in school by addressing their economic needs and offering them with psychosocial and emotional support (https://ichad.wustl.edu/suubi4her/); and Bridges to the Future (R01HD070727-01), a family-based economic empowerment intervention focused on in-school orphaned and vulnerable adolescents (https://ichad.wustl.edu/bridges-to-the-future/). A widely published young scholar with publications in well-respected peer review journals, including The Lancet, Journal of adolescent health, and PLos One

Kelley, a registered member of the Cherokee Nation, hails from New Mexico, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of New Mexico. As a new transplant in St. Louis, she has earned her two Master’s degrees in Social Work and Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. Currently, Kelley is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Kelley’s research interests are culturally appropriate intervention and prevention strategies for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations with substance use disorders and suicidal ideations and behaviors. Additional interests include harm reduction, climate change and its effects on mental health with Indigenous communities, mental healthcare quality, access, and overall social determinants of health within AI/AN populations. Kelley has many years of experience working for a non-profit center in New Mexico that served those with co-morbid mental health disorders, unsecured housing, and substance use. Kelley intends to share her knowledge as a professor, researcher, volunteer, and advocate.  Additionally, Kelley aims to return to her Native communities to assist with any resource development pertinent to their people.

Christi is a doctoral student in Social Work at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.

She graduated with a Master of Social Work from the University of Missouri in 2016 and worked as a Hospice & Palliative Care Social Worker where she completed clinical supervision and became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). She serves as a psychotherapist specializing in support for caregivers of those with terminal and life-limiting illness, grief, loss and traumatic bereavement.

Additionally, Christi worked as a research assistant for the University of Missouri and is published in academic and medical journals on topics of death and dying, dementia care and caregiving and ethics. Most recently, Christi co-authored the chapter on Palliative Social Work in Rural Communities in The Oxford Textbook of Palliative Social Work, second edition.

She maintains network and academic connections and participates in guest panel lectures and individual lectures on the state of end-of-life and after death care, non-pharmaceutical comfort measures, hospice, and palliative care. She continues to serve as a presenter at state, regional and national conferences.

As a doctoral student, her research interests include hospice and palliative care, communication and cultural engagement with death and dying, dementia and dementia caregiving, and grief and loss.