CHER’s founding director, Dr. Julie Baldwin, has a lifelong commitment to serving diverse communities and to advocating for health promotion programs for children, adolescents, and families. She is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
Dr. Baldwin spent 10 years at NAU (1994 – 2004) as a tenured faculty member with a joint appointment in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona, and worked with other NAU faculty on a project addressing HIV/AIDS and drug use in rural northern Arizona communities. She joined the faculty at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Public Health in the Department of Community and Family Health in 2005. She returned to NAU in August 2015 to create the Center for Health Equity Research.
Dr. Baldwin’s research over the years has focused on both infectious and chronic disease prevention. Cross-cutting themes which have characterized her work include: utilizing community-based participatory research approaches, working with underserved and/or marginalized populations, and addressing health disparities by developing and implementing culturally competent public health interventions.
Through CHER, Dr. Baldwin will build a team which will address health equity issues in our region, nationally, and internationally.