Born and raised in Minnesota, Shaquita is Cherokee on her mother’s side and African-American on her father’s. She completed medical school at the University of Minnesota in 2006. Dr. Bell then went on to pediatric residency at the University of Washington, which she completed in 2009. In 2010 she remained at Seattle Children’s completing a chief residency year becoming the first Native American Chief resident at Seattle Children’s. Dr. Bell is currently a pediatrician at the community health center Odessa Brown. She is the site coordinator for pediatrics residents. Dr. Bell is a Clinical Associate Professor at Seattle Children’s and the University of Washington in the division of General Pediatrics. She joined CONACH in 2013 as the Association of American Indian Physicians liaison and stepped into the Chair position in 2016.
Dr. Branco is originally from Massachusetts and attended Boston University for both his undergraduate degree in Psychology as well as medical school. He moved to California in 1995 for his pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital Oakland. His interest in Native American child health and the Indian Health Service began in medical school during a rotation at the Isleta Pueblo Health Center, and continued in residency with a rotation at Fort Defiance Indian Hospital. After finishing residency, he and his wife Nell moved to Shiprock, New Mexico to work for the Indian Health Service on the Navajo Nation. In 2001, they returned to the Marin County, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Branco began working at the Marin Community Clinic and spent four years practicing there, caring for uninsured and underinsured residents of Marin County. He has also worked for the Pediatric After Hours Clinic and at Marin General Hospital as a Pediatric Hospitalist. In 2005, he joined Tamalpais Pediatrics, a practice of eight pediatricians, three mid-levels and two offices. He is the currently the managing partner of the practice.
Dr. Branco currently serves on the Meritage Medical Network Board, Executive Board and Finance Committee and the Clinical Quality Assurance Committee of the Marin Community Clinics. He is a member of the AAP Section on Administration and Practice Management (SOAPM) and Council on Clinical Information Technology (COCIT). He is also very active with the local chapter (District IX, Chapter 1) of the American Academy of Pediatrics and was the Co-Chair of the Chapter CME Committee for many years. Dr. Branco was selected as a member of CONACH in 2011 and is proud to work with his colleagues on CONACH and in the IHS to improve the health of Native children and communities. He and his wife have three children and spending time with his family is his favorite extra-curricular activity.
Dr Calac serves as Chief Medical Officer of the Indian Health Council, Inc in southern California. He has been a CONACH member for 2 years. He attended Harvard Medical School, and completed his internship and residency at University of Southern California-Los Angeles County Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Program. He is board-certified in internal medicine/pediatrics. He also practices hospice/palliative care medicine and is board eligible in this field. He is a voting member of the Pauma Band of Luiseno Indians and is actively involved in his community. His professional interests include chronic disease and clinical research. He has been engaged in several research projects which aim to improve the health of American Indians and encourage student enrollment through the Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH). He also enjoys hiking, backpacking, and spending time with his four children and wife of 24 years.
Dawn Maxey grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Developmental Psychology in 2008. She completed her post-baccalaureate at Johns Hopkins University. Past lives include: bread baker, research minion, preschool teacher, swim instructor, and medical interpreter on a tiny island off the coast of Honduras. She graduated from the UCSF School of Medicine in 2015. She is now a second year resident in the Seattle Children's Alaska Track where she works at the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation, a Tribal Organization in Bethel, Alaska for two months each year.
I am a pediatric endocrinologist and diabetologist with a research focus on reducing long-term complications of childhood obesity and diabetes, including mechanisms of insulin resistance (IR), pancreatic and muscle dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, as well as ethnic and gender disparities. My studies include staged hyperinsulinemic and hyperglycemic clamps with multiple isotopes, to assess IR and pancreatic dysfunction, exercise stress echocardiography, carotid ultrasounds to assess atherosclerosis, measures of arterial stiffness and endothelial function, 31P MRS spectroscopy to assess muscle mitochondrial dysfunction and 1H spectroscopy to assess intramyocellular, hepatic and visceral fat in youth. I am also PI of a project assessing oral health in urban American Indian adolescents and the impacts of diabetes and obesity, and co-investigator of a project to prevent gestational diabetes in Native American girls. In addition, I am an investigator on the NIH multi-center TODAY study, a large trial of diabetes therapies in youth with type 2 diabetes (T2D), and PI on the NIH multi-center RISE trial of beta cell preservation in prediabetic youth and adults. I have consulted to the AAP Committee on Native American Child Health and am a member of UCD’s Center for Native Oral Health Research team at the Center for American Indian/Alaska Native Studies. I have also consulted to the Indian Health Service for the design of a curriculum for diabetes education in American Indian Youth, and taught at the Dine Community College in a pre-health professional’s program encouraging Navajo youth to go into careers in healthcare.
Dr. Jane Oski has lived and worked practicing General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine on the Navajo Nation (Kayenta, Tuba City) since 1994. She received her undergraduate degree in American Studies at Middlebury College, her medical degree and subsequent Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed her residency in Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Since 2012, she has split her clinical time between the community hospital in Tuba City (Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation) and its satellite urban clinic in Flagstaff, AZ. In addition to her clinical work on the Navajo Nation, she spent three years working as a research associate of the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health investigating the efficacy and effectiveness of the heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and the epidemiology of RSV infection in infants and toddlers of Athabascan heritage. Her primary areas of interest are child and adolescent obesity prevention and treatment, school-based health, Tele-Behavioral health and community access to healthy foods/sustainable agriculture.
Dr. Thierry is a Captain, (retired) with the US Pubic Health Service having served in the Indian Health Service (IHS) and at the Health Services and Resources Administration (HRSA). She lives with her husband in University Place, Washington. She has one married daughter and two adult sons. She is active in the peace and justice community, is completing an internship with the Washington State University Extension’s Master Gardening program, does regular yoga and Pilates and enjoys reading, writing and cooking. She will make her third trip this July to northern India as an attending/team lead with a medical expedition, training medical students and providing care in remote monasteries and schools in the Himalayas.
Dr. Thierry attended Michigan State University (MSU) College of Osteopathic Medicine completing her osteopathic pediatric residency at MSU. She is a board certified fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and of the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians. She enjoys teaching medical students and resident physicians and has precepted extensively while in New Mexico with the UM School of Medicine. She has served as staff physician/pediatrician, Clinical Director and interim CEO. She has had the privilege to serve with the Mescalero Apache, Canoncito Navajo, Laguna and Acoma Pueblos, Albuquerque Indian Hospital and its catchment Tribes and Pueblos. She was the Maternal and Child Health Coordinator from 2002-2011 at IHS Headquarters. She was the chief MCH policy analyst, grant administrator for child and youth programming and worked closely with CDC on public health interventions including Project Choices to reduce alcohol exposed pregnancies. Other MCH highlights included advocating and implementing Centering Pregnancy in indigenous communities, advancing the Baby Friendly (breastfeeding) Initiative and collaborating with the IHS National Diabetes Program on Healthy Weight For Life messaging for clinicians and communities.
She completed her thirty-year career with HRSA’s Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting Program authorized under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). She was the Eastern Implementation Program Branch Chief covering 4 regions spanning Maine to Mississippi, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
She served during the Vietnam Era in the US Army Nurse Corps in Fort Leonardwood receiving operating room specialty training at the Presidio in San Francisco.
She is second generation Dutch and was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She can trace her ancestry on her mother’s father’s side to her ninth great grandmother Fijtgen Poules of Middleharnis, Netherlands circa 1600.
Dr. Weedn, a board-certified pediatrician, is an Assistant Professor in the Section of General and Community Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. She earned her medical degree from the University of Oklahoma (OU) College of Medicine and completed a pediatrics residency at Arkansas Children's Hospital. During residency, she trained at the University of California at San Francisco in pediatric weight management. She returned to Oklahoma and joined the Department of Pediatrics at OUHSC in 2010 as a General Academic Pediatrics Fellow. During her 3-year fellowship, she obtained a Masters in Public Health at the OU College of Public Health in 2012.
Her clinical and research interests are in childhood obesity. She is the lead investigator for several pediatric obesity projects and recently received the Academic Pediatric Association Young Investigator Award for her research on disparities in childhood obesity among American Indian children in Oklahoma. Dr. Weedn also serves as the Medical Director of the OU pediatric multidisciplinary weight management clinic, Healthy Futures. She co-chairs the Obesity Special Interest Group of the Academic Pediatric Association and serves as a Childhood Obesity Advisor for the American Academy of Pediatrics. She also founded and co-chairs the Obesity Committee through the Oklahoma Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Through this committee, she works with pediatricians across the state to address childhood obesity, including development of toolkits and webinars for primary care providers on childhood obesity assessment and management.
Rebecca Susan Daily, M.D. is the Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist for Family and Children’s Services in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She serves children from a wide range of tribes and other cultures in Tulsa and the Eastern half of the state. She is currently Adjunct Faculty for the Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Dr. Daily’s career has included serving as the Vice Chairman of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University Of Oklahoma College Of Medicine where she held the Rainbolt Chair in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Prior to joining the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Daily served as Chief of Pediatric Psychiatry for Variety Care serving Oklahoma City and the Western half of the state.
Dr. Daily has a wealth of experience in serving Children and Adolescents in a wide variety of positions including Director of Inpatient Child and Adolescent Services, Child and Adolescent Consultation Liaison, Research, Child and Adolescent Partial Day Hospital, School Consultant, Community Mental Health Centers, Group Homes, Residential Centers and Private Practice. She has also published and presented at major scientific meetings.
Dr. Daily has worked with the American Red Cross and other emergency response agencies on Disaster response and planning including Desert Shield, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Catoosa Tornado, Hurricane Katrina, the Tulsa Wendy’s Restaurant Shooting, and a Tuscaloosa Tornado.
One of the first Glaxo Welcome/American Medical Association New Leadership Development Fellows, Dr. Daily has been named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She has served on a variety of committees, work groups and projects working toward improved services for children and is currently Co-Chair of the Committee of the Native American Child and a member of the Diversity and Culture Committee. Her myriad of interests have allowed her to collect a plethora of experiences which she brings to her endeavors.
Angela S. Kueck, M.D. is currently an assistant professor in gynecologic oncology at the University of Connecticut. She has served on the committee as a Junior Fellow as she is a member of the Cherokee tribe and has firsthand experience with the IHS in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She is happy to rejoin the committee this year as a Fellow in ACOG. Her clinical interests are currently working with the DPH for cervical cancer screening.
Dr. Steve Holve is the Chief Clinical Consultant in Pediatrics for the Indian Health Service. He has undergraduate degree in Religious Studies from Stanford University, attended medical school at UC San Diego, and completed his pediatric residency at the University of Colorado. He has worked in clinical pediatrics on the Navajo Nation for the past 30 years and is also Chief of Pediatrics at the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation. His areas of interest include desert envenomations, heritable illnesses in Native Americans, pediatric oral health, and the Reach Out and Read program.