Tassy Parker, PhD, RN (Seneca)
Director
Center for Native American Health
Associate Vice Chancellor for American Indian Health Research & Education, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Dr. Parker is an enrolled member and elder of the Seneca Nation and belongs to the Beaver Clan. The Seneca Nation consists of five Territories located in Western New York and has an enrollment of approximately 8,500 citizens. Dr. Parker is a medical sociologist and tenured professor of Family and Community Medicine, professor of Nursing, and professor of Population Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences. Her leadership roles at the UNM Health Sciences include Associate Vice Chancellor for American Indian Health Research and Education, co-medical director of the Mental Health & Resilience ECHO program, and director of the Center for Native American Health (CNAH). CNAH is a special project of the NM Legislature to address health disparities with all Tribes, Pueblos, and Nations, and urban American Indian communities in NM.
Dr. Parker serves her native nation as a Council-appointed member of the Health Board overseeing the Seneca Nation Health System Health. In Albuquerque, she serves the urban American Indian/Alaska Native population as President of the First Nations Community HealthSource (FNCH) Board of Directors. Her service on the FNCH Board of Directors spans 17 years. Other active service includes the NIH All of Us Research Program Advisory Panel and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center External Advisory Committee. Dr. Parker is a community-based participatory research practitioner and her NIH-funded collaborative research addresses a broad range of prevalent American Indian health concerns. Her current funding includes seven grants addressing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, suicide prevention among American Indian youth in primary care, use of technology to reduce hypertension disparity, diabetes prevention, social network analysis to reduce opioid and other drug misuse, and a RADx UP subaward for COVID-19 epidemiology, research, testing, and services. Immediate past NIH funding includes research on the American Indian health disparities issues of adverse childhood experiences and pediatric obesity prevention. Dr. Parker also has CDC awards for two public health associates to provide education and technical assistance in CNAH’s priority areas.
