CONSULTANT
| Name: | Puneet Sahota |
| Title: | Director of Research, NICWA |
| Phone: | N/A |
| E-Mail: | psahota@nicwa.org |
| Expertise: | Research, evaluation, evidence based practice, practice based evidence, cultural adaptation of evidence based practice, family therapy, team-based care, psychiatry, cultural psychiatry, research review/research regulation, IRB procedures |
| Topics: | Research and Evaluation Cultural & Linguistic Competence Evaluation CQI & Research |
| State: | National |
| Bio: | Puneet Sahota, MD, PhD is a practicing psychiatrist and cultural anthropologist. She has worked with American Indian/Alaska Native communities for over a decade. After graduating in 2002 from Northwestern University summa cum laude, Puneet completed a year-long epidemiology research fellowship at the National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases in Phoenix, AZ. There, she helped conduct a study of depression and diabetes among American Indians in the Southwest. In 2003, Puneet entered the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis as an MD/PhD candidate in anthropology. For her PhD dissertation (fieldwork conducted from 2006-2008), she examined the relationship between a Southwest American Indian tribe and biomedical/genetics research, including ethical, political, and cultural issues. She also assisted the tribe in developing its own research regulation policy and board. She has applied the lessons learned from her dissertation to national contexts for advocacy and research. During Puneet's graduate work, she began collaborating with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in Washington, D.C. as a post-doctoral fellow and research fellow. At NCAI, she conducted a study on suicide prevention approaches being used across American Indian/Alaska Native communities, and also wrote policy papers on research regulation, health care reform, and genetics research. She currently leads the research department at the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), where she provides TA to communities around data, evaluation, research, and mental health care practices/policies. |